Army veteran with PTSD offers hope to others after turning life around with Combat Stress
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"THERE is light at the end of the tunnel"!
The words of former soldier Rebecca Dewis who has credited the veterans' mental health charity Combat Stress for helping put her life on a positive path.
Rebecca (54), was diagnosed with complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in 2017 after 18 years of military service – including two tours of Afghanistan where she worked as a ward master at Camp Bastion Hospital.
Her mental health started to deteriorate towards the end of her military service.
Rebecca enjoyed her service, but the nature of her role meant that she saw and heard some awful things, and was exposed to all the incidents and casualties that came in, because they were logged on a computer system in real time; and she could see everything that was happening on one screen.
This left her in a state of constant high alert, but also feeling guilty because she was powerless to resolve everything there and then.
Rebecca began noticing her mental health problems while she was stationed in the UK and working full-time for the Army in 2016.
She was thinking very negatively and started feeling like she couldn't cope. She decided to leave and distance herself from the Army.
And was soon battling with suicidal thoughts, and sometimes used to imagine crashing her car into a wall just to escape.
Ambulance or police sirens were her biggest trigger, sending her into frightening panic attacks.
"The sirens would bring back scenarios and activate all the sensations.
"I couldn't watch the news for a long time. We were having terrorist attacks like the Manchester bombing and then there was an incident on the bridge in London. I remember watching that and I had to leave work - I just couldn't cope.
"The first time it happened to me, I was in the car and the emergency services were trying to overtake me, and I had a panic attack.
"I was riding the Loch Ness Etape once and some cyclists were injured and an ambulance was called. My instinct was to jump off and help, but people said it was OK, and then the ambulance came and with people injured it sent me into a complex panic attack."
She went to her GP for help, who suggested Combat Stress, and in 2017, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD and started having one-to-one sessions with a member of the community mental health team.
At the start of 2018, Rebecca was offered a place on the charity's PTSD intensive treatment programme, learning techniques to manage her mental health issues.
That has changed her life, and she said: "Things are going really well and if it wasn't for Combat Stress I wouldn't be in a situation where I am doing so well.
"I have learned how to live and manage my symptoms. Combat Stress are absolutely amazing.
"I still go along sometimes to the support groups and chat with others, so they can see there is a positive destination.
"I am trying to give hope to people who are maybe feeling in despair and help them realise that there is light at the end of the tunnel."
Rebecca, who lives in Elgin with husband Simon, a retired biomedcial scientist, who worked at Dr Gray's Hospital, has learned coping mechanisms to deal with her emotions if she is having a bad day.
"Art therapy works for me and I do a lot of painting and working with clay pottery," she added.
"I am now teaching (social sciences and health) at UHI Moray and I am happy with my job and things are really settled."
Tuesday (June 27) is PTSD Awareness Day and Combat Stress have developed a campaign – Life as we Know It: Living with PTSD – aimed at raising awareness of the hidden triggers that we take for granted in everyday life that can affect veterans with PTSD.
It features photography and raw, personal and unguarded video interviews with five veterans, including Rebecca, to highlight the day-to-day reality of living with PTSD, and how ordinary things like taking a bus, walking through a park, shopping in a supermarket and sleeping in a bed can be anything but ‘normal life’ for them.
While the campaign is focussed on PTSD affecting service personnel, Rebecca is keen to stress that other people can also suffer PTSD from events in their life.
She urged people struggling with anxiety and/or depression, to seek help from their GP, who will be able to signpost them to support available locally. There is help out there if you reach out.
And, crucially, there is always hope, said Rebecca, and the chance to live your life with coping mechanisms in place.
