Mental Health Awareness Week 2018: How veterans are turning their lives around

Some £3.2 million a year is being used to fund the service which will include help for substance misuse, physical health, employment, accommodation, relationships and finances, as well as occupational and trauma-focused therapies.

The encouraging difference this time is the national service has been directly influenced by veterans and their families.

It will be run by NHS Providers, working closely with armed forces groups and charities including Combat Stress.

Contact with the mental health charity, based in Surrey, signalled a turning point in 47-year-old Paul Barnsley’s recovery before engaging with Help for Heroes two years ago.

But given the extent of the mental health crisis among serving and ex-Armed Forces personnel, he has reservations about any big promises.

Rose Armado-Taylor, who continues to work one-to-one with Paul 

He said: “I find it very sad because the thing is, it’s never changed.

“When I was at Tyrwhitt House we’d have veterans from the Falklands to Afghanistan, in fact I think we had some from the secret wars like Borneo.

“There are all these people from different conflicts but we’re dealing with the same difficulties.

“It’s almost wrong we have a Help for Heroes because it should be the MoD looking after us.”

These are widespread frustrations felt not only by the charities themselves which are limited to how much help they can provide and how fast, but also by powerless relatives experiencing the turmoil with their loved ones.

Paul’s wife Maria called Combat Stress in 2011 when his anxiety and anger began spiralling out of control, but he admits he had never spoken to her about his troubles.

Nobody expressed their demons in the Forces including the Royal Artillery, which Paul served in for 12 years.

He said: “They would’ve classed you as weak, they wouldn’t want you about.

“We had a couple of lads in Bosnia who all of a sudden went. I remember we were on Mount Igman dug in and a helicopter came along, they got on and we never saw them again until we arrived back in the UK.”

Alcohol was used as a coping mechanism and social drinking was in fact encouraged, Paul says, which made things easier to mask.

According to Combat Stress, last year 13 per cent of armed forces personnel deployed to operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are thought to suffer from significant alcohol disorders.

Help for Heroes’ Hidden Wounds service works with them to help change their drinking habits alongside anger, anxiety and depression.

Paul as a younger man in the Royal Artillery

He said: “I was beginning to lose my confidence and in the military you have to be confident and macho.

“Some people noticed it. My friend now who was one of my bosses at the time, said he could see it in hindsight.

“I did engage with some help but it was under the radar. I saw a psychologist twice at the med centre but then I never went back.

“I just never turned up for an appointment. If you fail to turn up for a medical officer’s appointment you’d be dragged across the coals so I was expecting that, but nobody ever contacted me again.”

Reaching out to general helplines was also problematic because Paul felt patronised by therapists who claimed to understand what he was going through.

What he witnessed in the first Gulf War, he described as a “theatre of war”.

He said: “I’d leave work, drive up a country lane and sit in a layby. It was a really short call like 15 minutes.

“You’d be speaking to them and it’d get to that point then they’d say: ‘That’s it now’.

“In the end I told them I wasn’t doing anymore as I was coming away more anxious.”

READ MORE: FROM THE FRONT LINE TO THE BIG SCREEN

Following in the footsteps of his father Bryan, a member of the rival Royal Engineers for nearly 30 years, Paul had never considered another career.

He had a happy childhood, some of it spent in Germany as a child while his dad was involved in the Northern Ireland conflict.

But when Bryan died just a day after Paul’s leave from the Gulf, aged 49, he was devastated.

Paul was in his early twenties while Bryan was just a few months out of the Army.

He said: “Those two things in such a short space of time, I wondered what the hell was going on.

“I dealt with the Gulf, as you do, because you don’t want to admit to being weak, but when dad died it hit home. I felt a bit abandoned as he’d worked his way up through the ranks so he was my figurehead.

“Then a couple of years later I went to Bosnia which was quite tough. We helped stop the war.

“I knew I was struggling in the military but I didn’t want to ask for help so I decided to leave.”

Once he did, Paul, who was posted to Colchester in 1995, felt like he had lost a limb.

He said: “Walking out of the camp gates, it was like I’d had my arm cut off.”

Come September, Paul could be studying at university

Armed with an HGV licence he started driving but today is looking to study archaeology at university, gain his level two certificate in canoeing and possibly renew his sailing skills.

Through Help for Heroes, two years ago he also discovered he has dyslexia, and was funded to visit Dyslexia Action in Chelmsford.

He said: “My mission was to re-educate myself.

“I’ve done my maths and English, have just done the Summer and Winter Games with Help For Heroes, the Big Battlefield Bike Ride across Europe to Arnhem, that was quite moving and tiring as well.

“I went to Waterloo last year and have been engaging with Breaking Down Heritage which is a military archaeological charity.”

Paul is a regular at Chavasse House VC Recovery Centre in Berechurch Road, which caters to the needs of wounded, injured and ill service personnel, veterans and their loved ones.

• Contact Hidden Wounds for free and confidential support on 0808 2020 144 (free from UK landlines) or email hidden.wounds@helpforheroes.org.uk.

READ MORE: VETERAN WHO SURVIVED A GUNSHOT WOUND TO THE HEAD DOES INVICTUS GAMES