I am a super lucky boy, well I am… The reason I am is I married a person who is clever and works for a company which gives staff private medical cover. This she personally pays for me, which means that I think she cares quite highly.

I personally would spend the cash on beer and takeaway curry and that is why, with high risks of ischemic heart disease the odds of me requiring the cover is higher than her.

I completely forgot I had this insurance cover. I was talking through the options with the GP and after I finished sobbing & going through his whole box of tissues, ( I was like a toddler being told they cannot have a second slice of cake.) He told me Medication needs to start, a SSRI (anti depressant) ok, I said and talking therapies… I know of them they are brilliant, they telephone you and do group or online based therapies.

The only problem is the waiting list can be massive and often people become increasingly poorly over that time. I also thought well if he is suggesting I am as poorly as I am maybe I need more?

“OMMMMMMMMYYYY GOOOOSH I forgot doctor I have private cover”. “Oh in that case, lets refer you to a consultant psychiatrist, get you seen by the top people for PTSD”.

This is where I felt relief, even a sense of oh very good, a top class hospital… one with celebs…. maybe I might get to hobnob with premiership ex footballers or that former Eastender with no nose from hoovering up some of Columbia’s finest.

This however did not last long, because as I was driving back from the doctors, I had this feeling of sickness, I started to breathe quicker… You selfish bastard, I thought what about all the patients and colleagues who cant do this…

When I got home I saw online that yet another colleague from another trust who had taken his own life.

I phoned up the hospital and the appointment was made for an assessment within a couple of days and suddenly I felt calm again because I might get on the path to getting better…

The day arrived and I sat in this reception area, a very nice former Manor House. I was expecting a better coffee… Private sector should have bean-to-cup surely?? I sat there feeling very nervous that I was about to become one of ‘those’ patients. Most people seemed pretty normal, and that was the comforting, they didn’t have two heads and they didn’t look like they were in little Britain… (you know the one)

One elderly patient however did proudly walk past and inform me “I am god and I have just done a shit”

I did then ponder for some time if an omnipotent being which is beyond human understanding could or indeed need to dedicate. I assumed not. I am pretty confident he is in fact not god but delusional.

The consultant called me into her room. The first thing I noticed is she was happy to see me, this could of course been because of the massive consultancy fee per minute she would be banking but she did seem to care. She listened, and did seem to be interested in me as a person. I was asked me what I thought the main problem was… she smiled and said, James, you know.. you know already. I did.

I think, in fact I would bet my house that you have PTSD she said with authority.

One thing that gave me comfort was she suggested that if this stuff didn’t effect me then I would be either a robot or a psychopath.

The plan was decided I would be a day patient and come to the hospital for three days in a row then week or two later it would drop to one day.

The day would consist of EDMR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing), group psychotherapy and CBT & a spot of yoga for good measure.

I thought right ok, I start next week. This just got real.

Please note that shortly I will move towards how things are today… please keep reading and commenting… It means the world xxxxx thanking youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

I just thought I had to put this down… I have today received so many amazing emails, Fbook and direct messages of twitter. There is a national crisis out there and no person is dealing with it. Some of you have said how you have gone through this in the past others saying how this is real for you right this second.

“I can’t go on”

“It needs to end”

“The only thing stopping me killing myself is my wife and kids”

Please please please keep talking and reach out for help, that is the hardest thing

love Captain x

So where was I?? The boxes, lots of them in Fort Knox. Wellllllllll I suddenly felt out of control, stupidly out of control, a feeling of falling without a parachute and I total lack of ability to think or have any time with intrusions. I would see images of suicide, images of trains hitting people and worst of all, the sounds. PTSD, as I would later get diagnosed with (well C-PTSD actually), is not like the movies of a sudden image and the world stopping. I found it manifested in nightmares, half flashbacks, memories, and everything was so clear yet vivid. All I know is it sucked arse.

The feeling when you have always been the help is that you feel like a total failure. I presume this is common amongst healthcare professionals but I am not the one allowed to get ill. In fact on my ambulance station I was the one who friends and colleagues often went to for advice of their mental wellbeing. I know now from the therapy I have had so far is that I used that as a mechanism for keeping those pesky boxes closed.

I have always been loud, and an extrovert – I bloody love people, I love making friends and I love to smile but when I was driving into work I started feeling sicker and sicker every time. I remember once going in sitting on the bog, having a moment and seeing a poster saying “are you ok?” with a stupid employee assistance program telephone number under it… I was screaming in my head. No, No, No I am not F***Kin’ OK.

In the service many of us felt, and I think still feel, that if you actually answer “No” then you are in the proverbial pool of shite. Marked with the tag “watch him/her” They are not coping, Can they do the job?…. Time to implement every sickness policy, with yet another tag line of the service is “supporting you”.

Get on with it. Meet your performance indicators and do each job quicker.

I was hiding the pain, I was hiding the stress and I was hiding that these bastard boxes kept opening….

It ended with the situation where I couldn’t do it anymore, the voices of failure were to loud and I was too scared I said enough is enough and went to my GP and described the incident that seemed to open the boxes. He very calmly and sweetly, after I suggested I might just need to be on a tablet or two, informed me that I was very poorly, very poorly indeed. He suggested I might have PTSD.

I started to cry.

I was believed.

I didn’t have to hide.

“CLOSE THE BOX”.

This is my very first blog post. The very first, I have never done, never thought I would and incredibly scared that no person will ever read it… or even what if they do?

It all started with one nasty job, job is what we call the incidents we go to in the service. I thought I was fine and it would be just like all the others. It would go in that box, the many boxes which we place the shit, the death, the pain, and family tears and the feeling of what if I did this…. – These boxes are excellent, not only do they work very well, we all have a subscription to the most secure lock up in the Fort Knox…. We smile, we bants, we take the piss constantly out of each other. The boxes are sealed and we move on.

I moved on over and over again. I even decided the best way to close the box was to open another one. “I need a nasty job” – I used to crave the rush, the adulation, the feeling of being special when at a party at proudly saying I was a frontline paramedic. I need another one… Another job to get over the last, and another and another…. Hmmmm I sound like an addict….

The problem is when one box just won’t close the rest of them are a bloody jack-in-the-box open it comes, another and another and another…..

I suddenly started thinking at first about stuff I dealt with and then as the stress increased, chest pain, breathing fast… oh crap I am having a panic attack… I am bloody pathetic, why am I feeling like this, you are going to end up in one of those “nut houses” – you are weak, weak get this shit together… close the box, close the box. clooooooooosssseeee the box.

So that’s episode 1 – I can’t write more today…