Excerpt from Me and My Black Dog: A truly disturbing story of a Falklands/SAS veteran’s battle with PTSD and his eye-opening stay on psychiatric Ward.

On the morning of the 6th of January, 2012, I was given the devastating news that my time on the psychiatric ward was up, and that I would be discharged later that day. I had been in the hospital for just over seven weeks and had become accustomed to the daily routine. I had also built up some good friendships. So, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the news of my discharge. On the contrary, I was shit scared of the prospect of having to leave. After all, what did I have to go back too? An empty, lonely and probably cold one-bedroom flat. I was worried that I might not be able to cope. I knew that, even after several weeks of therapy, suicide was never really far from my mind. I decided to go for a walk to try to take my mind off the impending gloom. I didn’t take my phone. I just wanted to walk in peace and away from the world. 

By walking along that road in the middle of winter, I could have potentially gone down with exposure. To be honest, I didn’t really care at that point. Just the thought of going back to my flat undid all the good work my stay in hospital had done. I was once again contemplating suicide. 

I walked ten of the sixteen miles along a meandering, hilly road to a small town. I would have walked all the way, had it not been for a lady bus driver who stopped and insisted that she give me a free ride for the rest of the journey.

That’s how desolate it was. 

When I arrived in the town, I looked up the bus timetable for my return journey. The next, and last, bus back to the hospital was an hour away. So, I went into a local pub and ordered coffee and a sandwich to have while I waited. 

I sat in a cosy little nook, close to an open fire, which filled the nook with both flickering orange light and comforting warmth. It gave off so much heat that I fell asleep. By the time I woke up, the last bus back to the hospital had already come and gone. 

It was about 9 pm when I decided to attempt the long, cold walk back. I knew walking in the middle of the night was dangerous, there were no streetlights and it was pitch black. I didn’t care, though. I had decided at some point during my time in the pub that I should man-up and face the challenge that my future offered. 

The sixteen-mile walk back was horrendous. It was bitterly cold and the wind cut through me like a blunt knife. At various times, I tried to seek shelter by curling up in ditches along the roadside. It didn’t work; walking was better than being inactive. It took me almost ten and a half hours to walk that sixteen or so miles.  

When I arrived back at the hospital at 7.30 am the next day, I was greeted by one of the many police officers that had been involved in the search for me the night before. The search had stretched from Carlisle to the Brecon Beacons, and included the use of helicopters and mountain rescue teams. I could tell from his demeanour that the police officer was well and truly pissed off that I had merely gone for a long walk!  

The reason for the widespread search was my leaving my phone behind. I had also once mentioned that my preferred method of suicide would be to climb to the top of Pen-y-Fan, down some pills with a bottle of alcohol and merely let the elements do their thing. I had also mentioned that Carlisle would be a nice place to die. 

After the mild bollocking from the police, I was given my phone back and made to wait around the hospital all day, while waiting to be discharged by the psychologist. Whilst waiting, I checked my phone and saw that there were sixty-three missed calls and twenty or so texts from various people. I didn’t read them, but I did notice that Helen had not tried to call. I knew that the police had contacted her and informed her of my disappearance. The police had called all the numbers on my phone whilst looking for me. The fact that she never bothered to try to find out if I was okay proved to me just how cold she was. 

At 4 pm, the psychiatrist finally discharged me. I was then given my medication and directions to the local bus station (my transport home). The bus station was busy with people of varying ages, wrapped up in thick coats, woolly scarves and hats. Most of them were loaded down with either kids or shopping. I, on the other hand, was dressed in a pair of jeans, a T-shirt and a jumper, the very same clothes that I had been wearing the day I went into hospital a few months earlier. The cold breeze was freezing my nuts off. I couldn’t stop shaking, as I stood there in the open-air station. I recall some of the other people looking at me, probably thinking I was crazy being out without a coat. 

I checked the timetable for the time of my next bus. As I was studying it, I became aware of a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, who seemed to be having a heated argument with some invisible being. Great, he needs to be somewhere like the place I just left, I thought to myself, hoping and praying that he wasn’t getting on my bus. Not that I had a problem with him having a mental imbalance. On the contrary, I now understood what it must be like to be stigmatised. But I was having a quiet panic attack at the thought of being alone again and didn’t need any additional stress. 

My bus finally arrived along with a snow fall. That’s all I need, I remember thinking, as I stepped onto the bus. I knew I had a three-mile walk at the end of my bus journey. Moreover, I would rather it hadn’t been snowing; I was cold and damp enough.  

Me and My Black Dog by P T Saunders is available on Amazon kindle and in paperback form