A British general has detailed how his harrowing time in Iraq left him with suicidal thoughts and drinking alcohol alone in the early hours of the morning.
Gen Sir Patrick Sanders, who has been tipped to be the future head of the British Army and commanded thousands of British soldiers in southern Iraq in 2007, wants to use his experience to help others realise it is OK to ask for help.
Gen Sanders said it was important that those who were struggling realised that mental health problems were nothing to be ashamed of and “perfectly normal”.
“I was depressed, I was low, there were periods of time where I had suicidal thoughts and it took me a good chunk of time to begin to come back from that on the back of a very violent tour,” he said in a video posted by the British Army.
“I found myself obsessing about experiences on the tour, dwelling too much on photographs, on video clips, on letters, replaying in my mind what had happened.
“So I was drawn back down into the experiences on that tour and the memories from it. But in a way that was dark and obsessive, it wasn’t positive or constructive. Those weren’t conversations I was having with other people, they were conversations that were going on in my own head.
Gen Sanders said he "closed down" and initially didn't talk to anyone about his experiences. But when he did begin to open up to friends in the army, he found they were sympathetic.
He said it was a “lifeline” to feel that he was not being judged.
“It doesn’t matter what the trigger is, whether it is the sort of violence that I went through on operations, or equally it could be something in your personal life and it’s very often the combination of things that come together that create it.
“So it is about normal conversations with people about it. It is about getting the basics right, about making sure that you sleep properly, that your diet is healthy and probably the most important of all is that you’ve got a really good fitness regime.
“It fundamentally changes your outlook. Then I began to have things to look forward to again. I think it so important, the idea that you’re always looking forward to the next ridge line, that there’s something to look forward to, that keeps your momentum going.”
