“I joined the army at 17. If you were feeling down you kept it quiet. You had to be one of the boys and part of the team, so you’d never show your feelings or emotions. You kept them to yourself, it was bad for morale and other people, so we did the “English” thing of keeping your chin up and not talking about your feelings. You know, you join the army, they pull you down to rebuild you, so you lose a part of yourself and become a trained soldier.I had people who were injured and killed so you had to learn to live with that loss. Even now, at my age with PTSD, I have flashbacks of waking up soaking wet, screaming. I went to my daughter’s in July last year and was sleeping on a couch. My son in law came down and shook me, said I was screaming. All I said was “whats up” and he said “you scared the kids”, yet I had no idea. It’s things that have built up that you push to the back of your mind and then suddenly it comes back to you and it hits you, you know it’s a horrible thing at times.

I was blown up in the Falklands, I came out with horrific injuries through my arm, my legs, my back. Once I was medically discharged it was like the army had no responsibility anymore. so I had to struggle for many years. it was only through the Veterans Association in Bury that I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. That took nearly 20 years. I found a lot of people that come out the army, after maybe say 6 or 9 years, actually develop mental health problems because we’re not used to the routine of civilian life, and you’ll find that 1 in 5 homeless people in Britain are ex-service personnel. That is a hell of a number to take in. I do a lot of work with the homeless, and am ex-homeless myself. The homeless you see on the street make up a small percentage of homeless people. You’ve also got couch surfers, people in bed and breakfasts, people in temporary accommodation or hotels. That’s why my organization calls itself Invisible Cities to show that people aren’t invisible.

It’s tough when someone’s been on the street for a while, and it’s still tough when or if you’ve got into a flat. When I first got my own accommodation, I didn’t know how to cope because in five years or so, I had never paid any bills. Suddenly you’ve got water, gas, electrical bills and so forth all coming to you and you don’t know how to handle it. Our organization offers extra support for this transition too.

I worked with a guy recently for 6 months, we got him into a flat, organized furniture, got him a telly, decorated it, put carpets down, settled him in, and I saw him about 4 weeks later on the streets. I was walking down Oxford Road and he was sitting on the streets, so I asked, why are you here? He got so fed up with being in the flat of his own that he went back on the streets and invited his mates back to his flat so he had people that he knew. So these guys were all smoking spice or whatever, so the neighbours complained to the council, and he ended up back on the streets. They were all chucked out and he’d lost the flat. We could have tried to help him with the loneliness, but again, this is what we were saying, it’s a matter of pride.

That’s the time when you’re crying behind doors but no in public. I think you can have a lot of friends in your life but you need just one good friend where you say” come on let’s have a pint” and you can talk to them about what you’re going through. Then you might meet the next day and it’s not discussed, but you know you feel better for having talked through it, and maybe in six months time, that friend will come to you and say listen, I’ve just gone through something. It’s a cycle.

It’s time to drop the pride, and accept that everybody needs somebody. I’m nearly 65 years, and I still need help. If you need to talk to someone there is always someone close that maybe you wouldn’t expect; a colleague or even a teacher, whoever it is, you need to know that there is someone to turn to for help, and the sooner you do it, the better.”

“I’ve had many coping mechanisms over the years that have caused addictions from quite an early age. I’ve been addicted to drugs, weed, gambling, and gaming. Yet, the best coping mechanism of all is love. I’m a hopeless romantic. I’ve gone through two very emotionally abusive relationships that didn’t react well with my ADHD. Seef love and having someone truly understand your way of thinking is amazing. It’s helped me pursue my passions and constantly look forward.

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Getting a counsellor also helped me realize a lot of my past mistakes were the environment around me and could have been undiagnosed ADHD. I don’t use my ADHD as an excuse, but I’m definitely less hard on myself and now I will find logical solutions to my problems and not be disheartened if I fail.”

“I have recently been feeling okay within myself, I would say for the past year and a half. However, I struggled with issues of severe anxiety and depression pushing on 2 years ago. This was not the first time, but I would say it was the only time I have actively tried to pull myself out of the situation I found myself in. I started by getting up early everyday and making a point of going into the town, grabbing a coffee and sitting on a step to read. I read 1984 by George Orwell and to be honest it was one of the first books I properly read. In the end I began to enjoy going into town, reading and watching the world go by. That was the first time in my life where I enjoyed and actually looked forward to my own company. Now I try to make a conscious effort to take myself for a coffee on my own at least once a week.”

“Breathe, there’s been many different scenarios when I haven’t felt uneasy or ‘not right’, if I’m at work at the family restaurant, I’ll go into the back and open the door and take a minute. There have been times where I’ve been out with my friends and I’ll take myself off to catch a breath because I’ll get an overwhelming feeling of anxiety, out of nowhere. I feel like sometimes I have this little ‘coach’ voice in my head just telling me that I’m fine and it’s just me overthinking and it’ll be over in a minute. Looking up at the sky and just looking at the bigger picture also helps, because often enough it’s my head that’s making the scenario at hand seem big enough to swamp me, so just stopping and to just think that what I’m panicking about- in the grand scheme of things, it really isn’t anything to worry about.

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Recently, with being stuck in the house and all you’re hearing is bad news here, bad news over there, I usually just jump in my car and drive through the Yorkshire Dales, sometimes going as far as the Lakes, taking my camera. I try my hardest to detach and be by myself, It’s taught me to appreciate my own company.”