Gerry's Story
“My wife said I’m back to being the person she knew a long time ago.”
A traumatic incident in Northern Ireland stayed with Gerry long beyond his service. With flashbacks and anger making life unbearable, Gerry reached out for our expert mental health treatment. Here he explains the difference it has made to his life.
After growing up in a military family, Gerry spent four years in the Territorial Army (now the Reserves) while he worked as an apprentice mechanic. He went on to join the regulars in 1984, serving with the Kings Own Scottish Borderers. Aged 21 when he joined, Gerry’s previous experience in the TA gave him an advantage when it came to basic training, and he took to Army life well.
Aside from a two-year posting to Berlin, most of Gerry’s service was spent in the UK. In 1985 he was deployed to Northern Ireland, then again a year later. It was here that Gerry was badly injured when a Republican parade turned violent. “Our helmets were from the 1970s and would steam up, so you kept the visor up until the last minute,” he says. “Shots were fired and 600 people started running down the hill towards us, throwing bricks and masonry. I turned to warn my team commander that people were coming round the vehicle.
“I had my hand on my visor ready to pull down, when I got hit in the face with a lump of masonry. I fell to the ground and got put in a Land Rover for safety. I was going into shock and couldn’t see anything, with blood coming out of everywhere. Then people started trying to kick in the back doors of the vehicle to pull us out.”
Gerry was taken to hospital, where he underwent surgery to restructure his face, but the memory of the attack stays with him. “Most days I still see that lump of masonry hitting my face,” he says. “Even now almost 40 years later, I still have to be careful of my nose in the sun. At the time though it didn’t really affect me, there was just an acceptance.”
After recovering from his injuries, Gerry went back to the regiment and carried on until 2006 when he left the Army. However, by now an unrelated back injury was causing problems and in February 2023 Gerry needed surgery for a prolapsed disc.
“The more I struggled with my back, the more I was restricted as to what I could do,” he says. “I had more time to sit down and think about things.” Not being able to distract himself from his thoughts, Gerry started to have flashbacks and became angry. “I was getting snippy, argumentative and biting people’s head off,” he says. “I knew something wasn’t right and without a doubt knew my symptoms were related to my time in the Army. In April 2024 I called Combat Stress and it all started to come out.”
Gerry received a clinical assessment and was referred for treatment with one of our expert clinicians at our Edinburgh hub. “We talked about everything and went through coping exercises,” he says. “It taught me to take a step back instead of biting someone’s head off.”
Gerry says that following treatment he’s a more relaxed person. “I was in a very dark place at the start of this year and I didn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel with anything,” he says. “But now I know how to do breathing exercises and know how to be calm. If something bothers me, I take a deep breath and think about it.
“My wife came to my final treatment session and said to my clinician that in the time I’d been going to Combat Stress I had changed massively and was back to the person she knew from a long time ago.”
October 2024
