In March 2022 SWV will be taking 26 medically discharged Veterans to Switzerland. With the help of specialist adaptive ski instructors, buddies, medics and support teams this will be the start of their rehabilitation back into employment. 

In 2016 they looked after me when I was at my lowest ebb.

Here is my story.

I dropped out of university in 1984 and joined the RAF in 1985 as an officer in the RAF Regiment. In my 30 years service many tours at home, abroad and in operational environments followed. I was always keen to go somewhere interesting and exciting and had my fair share of action in areas such as the Middle East, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Central and West Africa.

However, I discovered that you can indeed have too much ‘excitement’ in your life and eventually a psychological injury precipitated my medical discharge from the RAF after being exposed to multiple traumatic events in Iraq, Afghanistan and Sudan. Additionally some serious spinal injuries did not help my desire to remain in service.

The end of my career devastated me, my family and my mental health. It robbed me of my identity; I had been successful and I believed I was good at my job but I became progressively less able to cope with my job, my capacity diminished, I became withdrawn and unable to connect even with my family. I was distressed because of the intangible nature of my injury, emotions were a thing of the past; no joy, no sorrow, nothing. I was on high alert all of the time, sudden noises terrified me. Nightmares and night terrors thwarted my attempts to sleep, flashbacks haunted my days, there was no relief from my torment. I had become less ‘me’, I was falling, to where I don’t know, but it was black. I felt guilty about things done and not done and I felt ashamed.

 In 2015 I just left the RAF quietly and fell into a spiral of depression and rumination. One day late in 2015 I got an email inviting me to apply for a ski trip in Switzerland with a military charity; well who wouldn’t like that. I applied and was interviewed by the charity to see if I would benefit from the trip and the subsequent help and support they offered. Well I am a bit crap at interviews and I managed to convince the interviewing panel that I was okay and not in need of help - how wrong could I be? Well fast forward a few months and I was contacted again by the charity, someone on the panel had seen through my bluster and recognised that I was in desperate need of help. I was invited to take part in the Ski-habilitation week taking place in March 2016.

The ski week was a revelation, I felt comfortable, understood and most importantly, not judged. I was shown that I existed, I was valued and was, most of all, deserving of their help.

Following the ski week I was enrolled in the charity’s Pain Management Programme and became more able to manage the pain associated with my physical injuries and cut back on my medication.

The most valuable gift I received from SWV was to be assigned a mentor. The Mentoring Programme has provided me with a lifeline, a mentor of exceptional skill and compassion, encouraging, guiding and caring that I found some of me again. Because of their help I was able to begin to connect with the world again, most of all I was able to connect with my family; I became more present, I could see a way forward.

Supporting Wounded Veterans does not just change lives, it saved mine.

Their help is for the long term, not just some shiny thing to be acquired. The profound changes that have been wrought in my life and the lives of my loved ones by the Mentoring Programme - now five years down the line - have inspired me to want to give back to SWV and to make similar changes in other veterans’ lives.

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