I was a daredevil Army veteran until bipolar and PTSD hit me hard

For any veteran, the transition from the military to civilian life marks a big change. For Nick Jones, 66, who had operational tours of Iraq and Afghanistan under his belt, it spiralled into a terrifying mental-health crisis. If it wasn’t for his wife’s actions and his family’s support, he admits “we wouldn’t be having this conversation”. “I thought I was hunting down terrorists,” he says, recalling that life-changing day in 2022, when he was in what he now knows was a state of bipolar psychosis exacerbated by undiagnosed Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from a rocket attack in Iraq.

He was at home alone in his apartment when the delusions started. “It went from nought to nine in a minute,” he recalls. “I was trying to break down doors to get people out. That didn’t work, so I hit the fire alarm.” Baffled neighbours called the police, who just ushered him back inside. Believing there were Army colleagues on the roof who had thrown down a rope to help him get away, Nick headed to his flat’s balcony.

“Of course, there was no rope. So I was about to just jump off when my wife Cheryl came home an hour early,” he recalls. “She talked me down, and obviously knew there was something very wrong.” Cheryl’s intuition was right. Nick was taken to the local hospital, where he was assessed and spent three weeks in a psychiatric unit on section (where someone is legally detained under the Mental Health Act as they are deemed a risk to themselves or others).

He was diagnosed as bipolar type II and put on mood-stabilising medication. However, Nick’s ordeal didn’t end there, and he believes it was his wife’s vigilance that made the difference. “She could see me going downhill rapidly, both physically and mentally,” he says. “I looked like a vagabond. I was talking at an incredible speed and writing stuff that was just a random selection of words.”

The military delusions continued: “In my head, I was an undercover agent in a training facility spotting terrorists.” Cheryl successfully questioned the section and Nick came under the care of his Community Mental Health Team (CMHT), and he was quickly diagnosed with bipolar type I. With his medication altered, the mania subsided and his behaviour over the years, from risk-taking to bouts of depression, “started to make sense”.

He had always enjoyed a reputation for “daft stuff”. From “bouncing from rock to rock” down the side of an Italian mountain on a biking trip after he tried to overtake the instructor, to launching a canoe (while in it) off a high dive in his local swimming pool. “I could have broken my neck,” he says. Within the competitive world of the Army, he was just considered a daredevil, who somehow always cheated death.

For years, the Iraq rocket attack was just another death-defying tale. “Three rockets went off,” he recalls of that night when he and a colleague were caught out. “They always fired four rockets spaced at 100 metre intervals, and we knew the next one was on top of us. We dived under the table, I started to recite the Lord’s Prayer and I got stuck after the second line.”

The fourth rocket never went off, it turned out it had a “duff” fuse. “I told that story as a joke to my Army friends for 13 years, and then it came out as not a joke.” As for the lows, he had experienced a period of depression in his 40s, which he got through with the support of family and friends. But it was his move from the Forces to civvy street that was “like falling from a cliff edge”.

“Everybody knew who I was, my rank. I had respect as a professional one day, and I was just a zero the next.”

He found work with his local council helping Forces veterans, listening to their stories, which on reflection was detrimental, adding to what he refers to as his “trauma bucket”. “Every time you hear a tough story, your trauma bucket fills up a bit more, unless you have coping mechanisms to deal with it, which I hadn’t,” says Nick.

When Covid hit, the contract came to an end and he felt once again without a purpose and, with the depression worsening, he sought help from the GP. Misdiagnosed with depression, he was given medication that exacerbated his bipolar symptoms, leading to the mania and psychosis that took him up to that balcony.

If his bipolar had been spotted when he spoke to medical professionals, then the episode would likely never have happened. It’s why Nick is supporting Bipolar UK’s Maybe It’s Bipolar? campaign, which aims to help people recognise symptoms – crucially signs of hypomania, such as risk-taking, which are often missed – either in themselves or loved ones and take an online test.

While bipolar is a chronic condition that requires lifelong management, Nick’s story is a positive one. Today his mental health is on an even keel, he takes his medication “religiously” and has had talking therapy with a psychologist, as well as specialist treatment for the PTSD. He now has a job that he loves, working to help veterans with mental health issues and is encouraging openness around the condition. “The illness has helped me to be more empathetic,” he adds.

Nick loves spending time with his grandchildren and feels relief that Cheryl is no longer having to constantly watch over him. There have been no more brushes with death, either. “If I’d been diagnosed earlier, my life would have taken a different path,” he says. “That’s not to say I regret what I’ve done, but if I were looking at this now as a case study, I’d think – gosh, couldn’t somebody have intervened earlier?”

Take the bipolar test at bipolaruk.org/take-the-bipolar-test