'My life fell apart before I was 40 - now I'm a counsellor'

A military veteran whose life "fell apart" after he left the Army and struggled with civilian routines has now started his own counselling service.

Chris Sanders, 49, left the armed forces in 2004, but financial pressures and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) led to him drinking heavily and experiencing housing and job instability.

The former soldier from Rotherham, who at one point was homeless, has retrained as a counsellor and hopes he can help those who have "missed out" on therapy.

He said: "When I left the forces, I didn't think I'd make it to 40. I had to sell my medals to put food on the table but I look back on that time and say without it, I wouldn't be the man I am today."

Two years after Sanders, a father of three, returned to civilian life, he suffered a "massive emotional and mental breakdown".

"I went on a rampage, broke everything in the house that I could physically break, and it was an angry outburst that scared me so much that it was the point where I needed to know what's going on," he said.

He turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for support.

"I had been a drinker anyway, but I'd started drinking a lot more. I met someone from the armed forces with similar experiences.

"He was drinking to suppress PTSD – I didn't realise I was doing the same. In 2006, I was officially diagnosed."

Sanders was shot while serving during the Bosnian War in 1994. He was attacked with a knife in Northern Ireland in 1996 and injured during a riot in Cyprus the following year.

"You never spoke about it, you never dealt with it, you just got on with the next task," he said.

"But then when you leave the forces, you're left to your own devices and I didn't know what was going on.

"I was having night terrors. I was having angry outbursts all the time for no reason."

He moved around regularly, struggled to hold down a stable job and had numerous failed relationships.

"I slept in the woods and under bin shelters. There was an old leisure centre in Rotherham with a ramp and heaters that blew out so I slept there," he said.

The veteran now has a "loving relationship" with his two sons and daughter and his three stepdaughters, but son Brandon Jarvis, 24, said things had been "difficult" when they were growing up.

"We didn't know whether he wanted to see us really. It just seemed like we weren't chosen in a way," he said.

"When you're at school, getting excited to go on holiday and see your dad and sometimes it just didn't happen, so it was quite upsetting in that aspect."

It was a counselling session that helped the soldier's "suppressed trauma" to come out.

Sanders said: "It's not about fixing people, it's about making people understand themselves more.

"It helped me understand the triggers that were setting me off drinking and the repeated patterns of behaviour over the years."

He returned to education, studying literacy and numeracy at a community learning centre in Sheffield. He then enrolled on a counselling course at Barnsley College.

After graduating, he went into partnership with a fellow student on his course, Rosanna Duggan, and they aim to provide services for those "stuck in the middle" on a "pay as you feel" basis to make counselling more accessible.

The pair said they want to find a "hybrid model solution" between NHS referrals, which often have long waiting lists, and expensive private therapy.

For Jarvis, now serving in the Royal Navy himself, seeing his father turn his life around has been "amazing".

"It does make me very proud seeing him go to college and he's just stayed committed and smashed through it.

"It's pretty remarkable to be honest. I think as he's grown, he's also grown as a father."

Sanders added: "Twenty years ago, I wasn't going any further than the street or to get beer and fags. That's all I had. Now I have a plan and it's genuinely exciting."

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