British Army Major opens up about his personal struggle with PTSD | BBC Sounds

A company commander in the Parachute Regiment’s 3rd Battalion has opened up about his personal struggle with PTSD.
Major Andrew Fox is believed to be one of the most senior serving soldiers to talk about his experience with post-traumatic stress disorder.
This clip is from Emma Barnett Mon-Thurs 10am - 1pm on BBC Radio 5 Live.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe and 🔔 to BBC Sounds KZbin 👉 www.youtube.co...
Listen BBC Radio 5 Live here 👉 www.bbc.co.uk/...
Find all BBC Radio 5 Live content here 👉 • BBC Radio 5 Live
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#PTSD #MentalHealthAwareness #BBCSounds
British Army Major opens up about his personal struggle with PTSD | BBC Sounds

[@elpollo64]

I wish Major Fox and his family all the best for the future. Thank you for your service sir, and thank you for sharing, in such an unabashed way.

[@nicks3350]

He’s an absolute gentleman. He does a lot for charity now, particularly supporting Afghans who helped the coalition

[@deborahryan2023]

It is amazing if mental health is caught right at the stem, how professionals can intercept, if you will, to treat and implement cognitive behavioural therapy to really put PTSD in a place where we can educate more professionals as well as those coming in for treatment! I wish this was really happening with our soldiers in the U.S. more. Clearly I can see through the Army Major that it appears to have worked for him. I can attest also to Cognitive Therapy and feel it gives me tools to work on. I am grateful to see these types of interviews as they help me feel like there are professional who really help many! That is great to help arrest stigma in the Mental Health Community!

[@thesaint8400]

Very articulate, solid chap. Really nice to see strong leadership in this area.

[@steventodd5340]

I was diagnosed back in 1990 and thought I beat ptsd recently it's come back I just can't bear it it's worse now And I'm drinking 3rd marriage and trying but this uk government has given up on us we need help now

[@jamesoneill2933]

A recurring theme with Britain’s PTSD sufferers is they continually talk about what happened to them and “what they were subjected to. “ But never what they subjected others to , hence the quandary they find themselves in. Without owning their past, recovery is almost impossible, however they cannot afford honesty as it is viewed as dangerous and would bring the suspicion of their partners in crime/ former comrades. There is little respite from a guilty conscience.

[@jamesoneill2933]

STEVEN TODD More cash you drink away the memories of what you and your colleagues done. Or as you would put it. Help with coming to terms with what happened to you. Eh?

[@jamesoneill2933]

Perhaps y’all would prefer to forget what you & your colleagues in collusion with loyalist murder Gangs did in Ireland that’s up to you but we won’t.

[@jamesoneill2933]

Moustache? Mustang Please allow me to reply , with regard to what is disrespectful and or hurtful , just two days ago 28/ 09/20 the British government announced that there were no further soldiers to face trail in connection with the murders of fourteen civilians and the attempted murder of a further fifteen on Bloody Sunday. This prompted a clamor within many organs of MSM the story became, not that it was shameful that no more than one ex Para was to be brought to justice but they managed to find that the shameful aspect is that , one poor man alone is to be dragged through the courts, not the blood lust that was unleashed on the people of Derry that day. Yet again the ( British) have made victims of the perpetrator(s) and therefore it should follow, yet again, that the victims are the guilty ergo we have come full circle, again. This comes less than a month after the British tell us that they have seen fit to reinterpret with the very agreement they drafted in advance of Brexit, the result being that we may well be faced with a hard border on the island of Ireland , this of course, could well lead to a resumption of conflict , but at least if this happens then the British army can ,as is their tradition, shoot whom ever they see fit to, in the secure and certain knowledge that they will not ever worry about having to face a court of law. And you dare to talk of disrespect.

[@rachaelmiles8233]

Nice to listen to your hardships in the forces, i've only seen a few helicopters, one being Princess Haya's helicoper at the Para's World Championship in 2007, horrible bodyguards though, some major eye-balling going on there for me to cope with, I only took so much and moved outside to Official.

[@H-youtube7]

I think he's referring to EMDR halfway through the video, not CBT.

[@bigcolappleton]

I can relate to what he says, when I got back I took the wife to the local pub and after an hour she asked me who I was looking at, she noticed I was staring at everyone but I was in auto pilot, looking who was in the pub, who were they, where were they sat, did they look suspicious, did they look like they had weapons concealed in their clothing ??? It took a long time to get used to being back home

[@steventodd5340]

Hi Yep your absolute right recently my old regiment asked us to volunteer to man the Covid19 testing station locally Thus helped me no end it meant I had a meaning in life again back with old mates talking about the past and bringing some sort of Comradeship back in my life ,I don't drink anymore and I am enjoying my full time job more. I now think that talking is good but only with others who suffer PTSD we need more conversation about this problem and this can help but your right we must stop blaming the forces but get a better understanding of why our minds can't handle situations that we were trained for and Try to make an exception in some way to take better control of the outcomes before PTSD suddenly in our future suddenly take over Thanks for your reply Steve

[@jamesoneill2933]

STEVEN TODD On one level , as a human being I feel a certain empathy for people such as yourself, on another, deep resentment because of the PTSD sufferers left in the wake of you and your colleagues, after all , you , they and us all know the truth of what was done in places like Basra , Belfast and Derry. The inhabitants of those places and many others besides for whom there was no leave, no respite, and no justice in many instances. For many of us it was like living on the set of a movie, an open air prison where you could some days be stopped , searched and P- checked four or five times by the prison guards ( that’s you) in the space of a few hours or less Occasionally brutalized often verbally abused and threatened and in some , not rare enough , instances witness to episodes of extreme sudden bursts of violence including murder, attempted murder and huge collateral damage. Then and this is the part which still really chokes me, for one , we were subjected to a tsunami of lies , distortion, obfuscation and finger pointing that passed for a free press , which often culminated in the deaths and or prosecutions of those who were in truth the aggrieved, while those who committed murder or , as with your superiors , had fore knowledge, they were lauded, promoted and often honored So perhaps, as you polish your medals and reminisce at the sound of a helicopter, you might spare a thought for those of us who were forced through almost thirty years of this, with not one day off.

[@jamesoneill2933]

@ Steven Todd I think that it’s really fitting that you and many of your former colleagues have found new and positive aspects from the Covid 19 after all , both the British army and Corona have a great many things in common, you are both of the crown you have attacked in most countries throughout the planet , answer to no one kill many unsuspecting innocents, usually the most vulnerable in society and both seem to favour killing a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities especially. The main differences would be that as yet the virus has not given itself any medals and is not prone to bouts of drunken self pity.

[@jamesoneill2933]

@Steven Todd If we are to follow on from that logic , then perhaps humanity may be rid of this vile synthetic abomination and it will grow weary and burn itself out , doing us all a favour by dying off.

[@nicks3350]

@@jamesoneill2933 fuck off James. Stop harassing the poor fella. Waste of good oxygen, you.

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@nicks3350 How many countries around the world have this ‘poor fella’ and his colleagues been ensconced, harassed as you call it. Don’t you get it you are not wanted ?

[@jamesoneill2933]

The primary wonder of it all for me is how do the more senior ranks not suffer to a man from PTSD as it is they who know where the bodies are , often times literally.

[@es8375]

Why are you trying to speak like yee from old England, although the point itself is just stupid, clearly never been in the forces I'd assume

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@es8375 My grammar amuses you ? Assume whatever you please. How nice that you could take the time from your latest retreat back to ,ye olde England , with your assumptions.

[@es8375]

@@jamesoneill2933 great reply, lots of substance

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@es8375 Rather.

[@jamesoneill2933]

He seems to be alright Jack , what rank is he?

[@nicks3350]

He always a major in the Paras but has retired since this.

[@darrenr9136]

Why are we attempting to venerate a guilt-ridden murderer?

[@DianaKazimiera-]

🕊️🤝

[@LoveGOds24]

I am glad I fall on this interview but please I want to know how are wife or partner who husbands suffer from PSTD (link to british Army) dealing? Currently struggling as my partner has PSTD, anxiety and depression. Though I love him but want to know how other women dealt and do people with PTSD can handle children without being trigger?

[@nicks3350]

I can’t offer you any advice directly, but if you get in touch with SSAFA, or one of the other military charities. Failing that, you can go through the NHS, but I’d strongly advise you to try military charities first because 1)they deal with that kind of trauma far more regularly than the NHS, and 2) the person serving will find it much easier to talk to someone who understand me what they’ve been through. I wish you both all the best. I hope you can all heal x

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@nicks3350 I know personally,and have watched them suffer as well as one who took her own life suffering from PTSD , who never fired a shot but were solely on the receiving end of psychopaths, where is their help , who do they turn to ?

[@jamesoneill2933]

This is a nice sanitized British take on PTSD most of the others that I have viewed have had the comments section disabled I think that this is because they anticipate people such as myself will state facts , facts such as it must be very difficult to live with murder.

[@markturner6755]

That’s not a fact unless of course you know this guy committed a crime? If not your comment is rubbish.

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@markturner6755 That I presume living with having shot and killed an unarmed civilian or having , offed, some wounded Taliban POW as “very difficult “ you denounce as “rubbish “really that says more than enough about your mindset.

[@jamesoneill2933]

I wonder do those two SAS men , who were apprehended in Basra whilst dressed as natives (a stunt honed in Ireland , while murdering civilians then blaming republicans) suffer from bouts of depression accompanied by sleepless nights interspersed with recurring nightmares and flashbacks of the faces of all those civilians that they wanted to kill.

[@markturner6755]

Reading too much rubbish.

[@nicks3350]

You’re absolutely talking out of your rear end. Having PTSD doesn’t mean you’ve murdered, someone you idiot. I wonder how many of your IRA boys have sleepless nights about blowing up kids!? You gonna condemn them too, dipshit?

[@joeblow9657]

Nah, psychopaths be psychopaths

[@joeblow9657]

@@nicks3350 Protestant kids aren't worth anything if it means they take away your right to earn a living

[@nicks3350]

@@joeblow9657 I don’t care about religion, race, sexuality etc. murder is murder - and it’s wrong. Crawl back in to your IRA supporting toilet yer wee sh1te.

[@jamesoneill2933]

Living with murder must be really difficult, but I don’t feel that it warrants any sympathy.

[@TreeOfLifeMinistries]

Hi James. From your comments I am assuming you are from republican background. If I am mistaken then please feel free to correct me. In the second comment you made you criticised specifically British soldiers, relating it back to the troubles in NI. You said that they operated outside of God's law and also the civil law. Now this may be true, but why do you also break God's law by refusing to forgive your neighbour. Isn't this the only way to overcome every prejudice?

[@jamesoneill2933]

@@TreeOfLifeMinistries The insistence by successive British Governments that the many hundreds of murder victims of the British military were/remain unacknowledged as having been unlawfully killed precludes any meaningful forgiveness. How does one forgive a sin / crime which never happened? To forgive and or ,excuse such, is to perpetuate or even endorse it.

[@TreeOfLifeMinistries]

@@jamesoneill2933 Forgiveness is not excusing sin, it is showing mercy to someone that did nothing to deserve that mercy. That's what Christ made possible for us. “But if ye do not forgive, neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive your trespasses.” (Mark 11:26) We are all sinners and all require God's mercy for our evil hearts. When we sit in judgment upon others, we condemn ourselves. I am not condoning the evils that were perpetuated against the Catholics of NI, neither do I have sympathy for those who did likewise against Protestants. Evil is evil no matter who perpetrates it. But every man will stand before God for their sins, not before man. Christians are to lead people to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, not to sit in judgment upon them. Don't you know that many of those soldiers who have PTSD are dealing with guilt for breaking God's law when they took the life of another man? The governments cannot help them because only God can bring peace to their hearts. Satan on the other hand is tormenting their poor souls, telling them that they are worthless and that they should kill themselves. Yet Christ said this: “And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. And he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.” (Luke 15:2-7) Shouldn't you do likewise?

[@jamesoneill2933]

What the likes of this guy want is three things. 1.Carte Blanche, to operate outside of God and mans law. 2 Honoured deification 3 Pensioned and sympathy.

[@nicks3350]

Shove your god up your rear end. If he were real, he wouldn’t allow bone cancer in children. He’s been a peacekeeper in Bosnia, fought extremists in Afghan who would happily brutalize you and your family. Get on your knees and pray to your god that men like him exist.