Gillingham veteran who overcame ‘severe’ PTSD will ‘march’ in aid of veterans’ mental health
A military veteran whose PTSD was too severe for NHS treatment has now fully recovered thanks to the help of Combat Stress
An Army veteran from Dorset will be walking this March to raise money for the charity that helped him to overcome his trauma from the frontline.
Dave Ball, a 64-year-old veteran who served in The Royal Corps of Signals regiment for 37 years, is taking on ‘March in March’ to raise awareness and funds for Combat Stress.
During his service, Dave experienced a number of traumatic incidents, particularly in Northern Ireland, that stayed with him, including witnessing his friends get blown up or shot.
But it wasn’t until 2020, five years after he retired from the Army, that his mental health began to spiral.
Plagued by intrusive memories, hypervigilance, nightmares and hallucinations, Dave was convinced he was suffering from the onset of some type of brain disease.
After finally seeing his GP in 2022 for answers, he was quickly diagnosed with PTSD and referred to the NHS for treatment. After one session, his PTSD was deemed too severe for the clinician’s experience and he was referred to Combat Stress.
Now, having completed treatment and no longer experiencing any PTSD symptoms, Dave has decided to give something back to the charity that saved him.
He said: “Combat Stress has given my wife and I our life back. We like to go out walking and before it was quite difficult because there was always a distance between us, which was PTSD, and that’s not a lot of fun.
“Now more recently, we can chat, we can plan things together and that’s fantastic. I therefore thought it was rather fitting to walk to raise funds to give other veterans, and their loved ones, their lives back.”
The military veteran will now look to complete a 10 mile run or walk on any day during the month of March as part of the “March in March” challenge.
All funds raised enable the charity to continue delivering its life-changing specialist mental health services to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).