Van Vessem
If You're a Man Fucked Off With Life — I Can Tell You Exactly Why.
Because it's not you. It's the system. And I've got the scars.
Former UK Police Officer
Falsely Accused
5 Years Incarcerated
Former UK Police Officer
Falsely Accused
5 Years Incarcerated
BA Politics & Economics
Masters in HR
Author
BA Politics & Economics
Masters in HR
Author
I've Been In Both Kinds Of Prison.
Five years incarcerated — three of them in tough conditions. Falsely accused. Labelled a flight risk for millions I never had access to. Surrounded by men serving 20 years for things I didn't do. No backup coming. No therapist. No support group.
What kept me alive wasn't willpower. It wasn't a programme. It was a book I found in a prison library in year three — Marcus Aurelius, writing from the most pressurised seat of power in the ancient world, to himself, in the dark.
That's when I understood something the mental health industry has spent decades trying to obscure: the ancient world already solved this. They just buried the answer under £14.9 billion of managed dependency.
"I'm not teaching you to be exceptional. I'm teaching you to survive being ordinary in a system designed to break ordinary men."
— Van Vessem
I
The Prison With Walls You Could See
Five years. Three in tough conditions alongside murderers and armed robbers serving 20+ years. False accusations. A legal system that assumed the worst. The isolation was total. The threat was real. There was no version of that environment where weakness was survivable.
II
The Prison With No Walls At All
After release, I earned a Masters in HR — and discovered the entire field teaches the precise opposite of what kept me alive. I planned to write this book as Marcus Staal — a safe fictional name. That was the second prison. Stoicism broke both.
How a Man Gets From There to Here.
Not a hero's journey. An ordinary man's survival — which is precisely why it works for you.
Age 5 ---------------------------------------------------
The First Fracture
A father beating a mother. Age five. The system's first contact with the household I grew up in — and it arrived after the damage was already done. I learned early that institutions claim to protect. What they actually do is show up late, file a report, and call it intervention.
Age 7–14 ---------------------------------------------------
The Second Fracture
A hateful stepmother. A father who worked hard but whose second love was the betting office. Estranged from my mother. The house was not a safe place. To cope, I used to watch burials in the cemetery opposite — daily. Sitting on the garden shed roof, watching strangers grieve. It was the first time I understood that other people's pain was worse than mine, that life was short, and that suffering was not personal — it was the human condition. I didn't know then that the Stoics had a name for it: memento mori. I just knew it helped.
Age 33 ---------------------------------------------------
Thomas
My brother died by suicide. The therapeutic system that was supposed to help him didn't. This book carries his name — Van Vessem is the village where he's buried. Writing under this name rather than hiding behind a pen name is not branding. It's accountability to him.
Age 1997–2005 ---------------------------------------------------
Police Officer — South Yorkshire
Seven years as a UK police officer. I watched institutions fail the people they existed to protect — on an industrial scale. I saw what happens when systems prioritise their own survival over the people inside them.
Age 47–52 ---------------------------------------------------
The First Stoic Prison Break
Falsely accused. Convicted. Five years — three in tough conditions alongside men serving decades for serious violence. In year three I found Marcus Aurelius in a prison library. What he wrote 2,500 years ago was more useful than anything the modern mental health system had ever offered. I read it until the pages fell apart. Then I started again.
Age After ---------------------------------------------------
Masters in HR
Released. Rebuilt. I went back into education — this time for a Masters in HR. My BA in Politics and Economics had already given me the framework to understand not just that the system was failing men, but the precise economic logic driving it. The Masters confirmed it from the inside: lecture after lecture teaching the precise opposite of what had kept me alive. Therapeutic dependency as default. Emotional processing over character development. I didn't leave angry. I left with a mission and the academic vocabulary to prove it.
The Name
For years I planned to write this as Marcus Staal. A pen name. Safe distance. Then my wife said I needed to use my real name — that hiding was part of the prison. My gym friends said the same. Sometimes the people closest to you see the bars before you do.
Van Vessem is the name I chose. The Dutch village where Thomas is buried.
"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (170 AD)
"I learned that at age seven. I just didn't have the words for it yet. I watched burials from the top of the garden shed to feel better about my own life. The Stoics call it memento mori. I called it survival."
— Van Vessem
This Is Not What You've Already Tried.
Every man who finds this page has already tried something. The gym. The therapy. The self-help section. None of it stuck — not because you're weak, but because none of it was built for the battle you're actually in.
What This Isn't
✕ Military hero worship — built for the 1%, alienates the 99%
✕ Therapy dependency — manages symptoms, never removes the source
✕ Bro Stoicism — the quotes without the philosophy
✕ 'Man up' culture — shame-based, not character-based
✕ Requires a tribe, a brotherhood, or external validation to
function
✕ Exceptional-man framework for ordinary men's battles
What This Is
✓ Civilian survival authority — the nightmare ordinary men fear most
✓ Ancient Stoic philosophy — predates every modern system by 500 years
✓ Prison-tested under conditions where weakness was not survivable
✓ Zero backup required — built for solo operation
✓ 64-country evidence base — this isn't opinion, it's pattern recognition
✓ Ordinary man's framework for ordinary man's warfare
"I'm not more impressive than the military heroes. I'm more relatable than them. That's not humility — that's the actual competitive advantage."
— Van Vessem
You Are The Hero Of This Story.
I Am The Guide.
Every man who finds this page already has everything he needs. The strength is there. The instincts are there. The capacity for character is there. What's missing is the map — and someone who's already been in the dark and found the way out.
That's the only role I claim. Not guru. Not hero. Not the man with all the answers. The man who survived the specific civilian hell you're afraid of, using the only system that has outlasted every ideology that tried to replace it.
Your battle is harder than previous generations faced. The institutional support is gone. The cultural respect has been replaced with pathology. You are fighting conditions no generation of men has faced — and you're fighting them alone. The ancient world prepared for exactly this. That preparation is what this workbook delivers.
"The philosophy that kept a Roman emperor sane during a pandemic is the same philosophy that kept me functional in maximum security prison. The gap between those two sentences is 2,500 years. Neither of us had therapy."
— Van Vessem
The Path Out Is Already Mapped.
The free guide names every prison. You'll recognise yours before the first page ends. The workbook breaks them — one weapon at a time, using the same philosophy that has outlasted every system that tried to replace it.
No spam. No subscription. Just the guide.
Connect With Van Vessem
Email | Instagram | X (Twitter) | YouTube
How a Man Gets From There to Here.
Not a hero's journey. An ordinary man's survival — which is precisely why it works for you.
Age 5 ---------------------------------------------------
The First Fracture
A father beating a mother. Age five. The system's first contact with the household I grew up in — and it arrived after the damage was already done. I learned early that institutions claim to protect. What they actually do is show up late, file a report, and call it intervention.
Age 7–14 ---------------------------------------------------
The Second Fracture
A hateful stepmother. A father who worked hard but whose second love was the betting office. Estranged from my mother. The house was not a safe place. To cope, I used to watch burials in the cemetery opposite — daily. Sitting on the garden shed roof, watching strangers grieve. It was the first time I understood that other people's pain was worse than mine, that life was short, and that suffering was not personal — it was the human condition. I didn't know then that the Stoics had a name for it: memento mori. I just knew it helped.
Age 33 ---------------------------------------------------
Thomas
My brother died by suicide. The therapeutic system that was supposed to help him didn't. This book carries his name — Van Vessem is the village where he's buried. Writing under this name rather than hiding behind a pen name is not branding. It's accountability to him.
Age 1997–2005 ---------------------------------------------------
Police Officer — South Yorkshire
Seven years as a UK police officer. I watched institutions fail the people they existed to protect — on an industrial scale. I saw what happens when systems prioritise their own survival over the people inside them.
Age 47–52 ---------------------------------------------------
The First Stoic Prison Break
Falsely accused. Convicted. Five years — three in tough conditions alongside men serving decades for serious violence. In year three I found Marcus Aurelius in a prison library. What he wrote 2,500 years ago was more useful than anything the modern mental health system had ever offered. I read it until the pages fell apart. Then I started again.
Age After ---------------------------------------------------
Masters in HR
Released. Rebuilt. I went back into education — this time for a Masters in HR. My BA in Politics and Economics had already given me the framework to understand not just that the system was failing men, but the precise economic logic driving it. The Masters confirmed it from the inside: lecture after lecture teaching the precise opposite of what had kept me alive. Therapeutic dependency as default. Emotional processing over character development. I didn't leave angry. I left with a mission and the academic vocabulary to prove it.
The Name
For years I planned to write this as Marcus Staal. A pen name. Safe distance. Then my wife said I needed to use my real name — that hiding was part of the prison. My gym friends said the same. Sometimes the people closest to you see the bars before you do.
Van Vessem is the name I chose. The Dutch village where Thomas is buried.
"You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think."
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (170 AD)
"I learned that at age seven. I just didn't have the words for it yet. I watched burials from the top of the garden shed to feel better about my own life. The Stoics call it memento mori. I called it survival."
— Van Vessem
This Is Not What You've Already Tried.
Every man who finds this page has already tried something. The gym. The therapy. The self-help section. None of it stuck — not because you're weak, but because none of it was built for the battle you're actually in.
What This Isn't
What This Is
✕ Military hero worship — built for the 1%, alienates the 99%
✓ Civilian survival authority — the nightmare ordinary men fear most
✕ Therapy dependency — manages symptoms, never
removes the source
✓ Ancient Stoic philosophy — predates every modern system by 500 years
✕ Bro Stoicism — the quotes without the philosophy
✓ Prison-tested under conditions where weakness was not survivable
✕ 'Man up' culture — shame-based, not character-based
✓ Zero backup required — built for solo operation
✕ Requires a tribe, a brotherhood, or external validation to
function
✓ 64-country evidence base — this isn't opinion, it's pattern recognition
✕ Exceptional-man framework for ordinary men's battles
✓ Ordinary man's framework for ordinary man's warfare
"I'm not more impressive than the military heroes. I'm more relatable than them. That's not humility — that's the actual competitive advantage."
— Van Vessem
You Are The Hero Of This Story.
I Am The Guide.
Every man who finds this page already has everything he needs. The strength is there. The instincts are there. The capacity for character is there. What's missing is the map — and someone who's already been in the dark and found the way out.
That's the only role I claim. Not guru. Not hero. Not the man with all the answers. The man who survived the specific civilian hell you're afraid of, using the only system that has outlasted every ideology that tried to replace it.
Your battle is harder than previous generations faced. The institutional support is gone. The cultural respect has been replaced with pathology. You are fighting conditions no generation of men has faced — and you're fighting them alone. The ancient world prepared for exactly this. That preparation is what this workbook delivers.
"The philosophy that kept a Roman emperor sane during a pandemic is the same philosophy that kept me functional in maximum security prison. The gap between those two sentences is 2,500 years. Neither of us had therapy."
— Van Vessem
The Path Out Is Already Mapped.
The free guide names every prison. You'll recognise yours before the first page ends. The workbook breaks them — one weapon at a time, using the same philosophy that has outlasted every system that tried to replace it.
No spam. No subscription. Just the guide.
Connect With Van Vessem
Email | Instagram | X (Twitter) | YouTube
Publisher: Marcus Staal Publishing
