STV NewsPTSD affects tens of thousands of military veterans, many of whom live with the mental scars of working on the frontline.
Nancy Shanta is one of them.
She served in the army for 20 years as a trauma nurse, being deployed to Iraq where she treated wounded soldiers from a tented hospital, and then Afghanistan.
“We had an awful lot of multi-casualties,” Nancy said of her first deployment in Iraq.
Supplied“Even inside the camp itself, we had mortar’s coming in.
“We’d get multi-casualties from people who were on the base as well people outside.”
Nancy would continue serving in the army after two deployments overseas.
But in recent years, the traumatic events she witnessed, many of which she can now no longer remember, began to take its toll.
To the point she would spend days without leaving her home.
“I first began losing my memory, I was starting to forget things,” she said.
“Forgetting times, discussions. People often said I repeated myself, but I wasn’t aware of it.
“Then on quite a few instances, I would find myself in a different area of the building I was working in, without realising how I got there.”
“[I’m] Learning what all my triggers are still. One of them is [the sound of] helicopters.
“I dissociate or I can blank out completely.
“I can lose space and time and I don’t know what’s happening.”
Nancy now lives just outside the Fife town of Cupar, with her partner Mark and assistance dog, Joan.
STV NewsShe was matched with the black labrador last November, through the charity Bravehound, which supports former servicemen and women.
“She creates space around me, so people don’t come that close to me, said Nancy.”
“She’s just there to give me support, to have someone with me the whole time.
“Joan is taught to stand on my feet, which can often ground me or alert me that I have had a dissociative episode.
“She keeps me safe.”
Nancy shared her story to coincide with World Mental Health Day.
Asked why it was important for her to share her story, she said: “Mental health is an invisible disability.
“It has hugely changed my life in ways people can’t see or notice.
“It’s important to open up that conversation and get people reaching out for help and support. There is an awful lot of support out there.”
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