Cupboard Boy - An Everyday Story Of PTSD

As former member of the Parachute Regiment and SAS who suffers I Took to writing following advice from my psychiatrist in my ongoing battle to overcome the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Under the pen name of PT Saunders, within the first year since completing Cupboard Boy, more than 5,500 people have ordered the book for Kindle while more than 2500 have bought the paperback version.

Residing in Castleford, near Leeds, my writing is helping me deal with the daily problems associated with PTSD.

After six years of varying treatments I am pleased to say I have pretty much recovered and am able to lead a fairly normal life.

"To try to overcome my PTSD it was suggested by my psychiatrist that I try to write my thoughts down.

"As a result, I have begun to chronicle my life and the way that PTSD can be so debilitating to a once very active person."

Now an English tutor, my first book chronicles my life living with abusive parents who would often beat and starve me and my step-siblings.

At the age of two my father had run off with another woman. Then just a few months later my mother met another man who was black.

But in 1960s Britain, people were very narrow minded and the rest of my family sent me and my mum to Coventry.

This made it easy for my step dad Roy to abuse both me and his mother, as well as my step siblings virtually unchallenged.

That abuse extended to my step brother 'Little Paul' - who was often left naked in an under-stairs cupboard and fed dog food - to whom the book is dedicated who died aged only 19 from cancer.

I only managed to escape the abuse when I turned 18 to join the army.

During my time in the army, I served with the Parachute regiment and the SAS and took part in the Falklands War and the first Gulf War, as well as several tours of Northern Ireland.

But I endured more misery, including one tour where my unit was blown up by a proxy bomb and a close friend was killed trying to save the life of the innocent driver.

In 1992, I quit the armed forces and successfully set up several financial service companies offering advice.

However, in 2010, I started to suffer from the effects of PTSD and became depressed, agoraphobic and suicidal - it coincided with me leaving my wife of 22 years.

After trying to take my own life in 2011, I was admitted to the psychiatric wing of my local hospital for a period of eight weeks, which was a very eye-opening experience.

After the eight weeks, I went back to my one bedroomed flat to find it had been burgled. My car had also been hit and written off by a truck too. At that point, I had had enough, I just packed a bag and got on a train to Carlisle where having slept in a B&B for a few days I once again tried to take my life.

Luckily for me Carlisle's mental health trust looked after me really well and in 2013, I met my current wife Ann, who, God bless her, has been the one who has helped me live with my condition."

I am now following up my successful first book with a more detailed account of living with PTSD, my eye-opening seven week stay on a mental health ward hospital and how it effects my life today.

Titled "Me and My Black Dog: Complex PTSD", is now available on Amazon Kindle and in paperback.

I am also working on a trilogy of thriller novels using my time in the forces as a source for inspiration “Left Behind” P T Saunders.