26/03/2025
STATEMENT FROM AUTHOR PHIL WOODS REGARDING THE BEHAVIOUR OF SOME PEOPLE ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS
First of all a huge thank you for buying my book, so pleased with the reaction from most people. Thank you 🙏 💜
I have to make an important statement, you can either ignore it or understand the consequences of your actions and decision to post. There is no obligation for people to comment on this post, if you don’t like Lewis or you have strong opinions about him you could choose to ignore the post, however some people make a decision to leave comments that are occasionally nasty towards me. I have had to block several people who think it’s ok to throw nasty comments my way. Let me give you a bit of a background on myself for context. This book took me several years to finish, not because of writers block, it was instead down to my mental health. I was a victim of domestic abuse and now suffer from nightmares and flashbacks to the moment she tried to kill me. So my mental health is fragile due to something that happened 20 years ago. Do you recall a news article where a poor woman had been bullied online and she ended up taking their own life? That is how much it affects some people. Mental health is a tough thing to go through, and when I go to bed at night sometimes these comments go through my mind. I’m not at the stage of taking my own life thankfullly (although that would probably make this book a best seller), but I do struggle with mental health. Formula One helps me escape other worldly issues for a few hours at the weekend. So coming on here and chatting with the nice people is a good thing for me, I don’t mind different opinions because if we all thought the same thing, the world would be boring. It’s nice to debate F1, but when the attacks get nasty it does hurt. I know some of these so-called keyboard warriors will love to know it’s affecting me negatively, it’d feel like a win for them. It was a tough decision to write this post, but I had to say something. I’m just an author who’s written a book about a famous person, I haven’t wronged anyone in any way, I try to be pleasant even to those with strong opinions. It’s when they cross a line that it hurts. So, I know it may be a poor decision to give those people a hint that it hurts, but I decided to go for it and hope that the nice people will outweigh the nasty people and support me. I am not saying support me by buying a book (although that would be nice), I’m asking that if you see a message that crosses that boundary that you report it to Facebook. Remember the consequences of sending a nasty message to somebody who’s told people about their mental health can have serious consequences. The man who sent nasty messages to the lady that sadly killer herself was sentenced for manslaughter, that is the potential when you post nasty stuff, it could be a matter if life and death. So why not be nice wherever you post, by all means disagree and have a debate, but stop at the nastiness please.
