When former Royal Navy frogman Gary Ferguson lost his best friend in a car crash in 2007 it sparked crippling anxiety and caused him to shut off his emotions.
For more than a decade the ex-mine clearance diver struggled with his mental health as he simply didn’t feel able to speak out and ask anyone else for support.
But after researching self-help techniques Gary, 33, from Tarbert, Argyll, started creating his own combat journal where he started being honest with himself about his feelings through expressive writing.
The therapeutic technique changed his life allowing him to talk openly about the loss of his friend and giving him a confidence he had been lacking his whole life.
Determined to help others, who like him, are struggling with their mental health, Gary, has published his journal which contains positive psychotherapy exercises and space to write about your feelings.
And now as well as individuals buying it direct from his Combat Journal website, he’s in talks with the Army, the Navy and the offshore industry about adopting it on a large scale to help their people.
The former Tarbert Academy student said: “Journalling has changed my life to the extent recent friends refuse to believe I was once emotionally shut off and crippled with anxiety as I am now so open and confident.
“I’m on a mission to help as many people as I can through my journal and to eradicate the stigma that surrounds talking about mental health.
“It took me years to speak about my friend and my anxieties and I don’t want anyone else yo have to go through the hell I did.”
Gary’s friend Alasdair MacDougall was just days away from his 20th birthday when he was killed in a car accident in Tarbert on March 13, 2007.
He said: “I joined the Royal Navy when I was 18 and two weeks into my training my mum phoned to tell me my best friend Alasdair had been killed in a car accident. I was devastated.
“I had been asked by my friend’s parents to be one of his pallbearers but it was strongly recommended by my superiors in the military that I don’t attend in case I decided not to come back.
“Alasdair was two years above me at school and was the one person I was able to talk to when I was growing up and suddenly he was gone. Not being able to say a proper goodbye affected me for a very long time and I harboured a lot of feelings of hurt and guilt.”
Gary, who now lives in Glasgow’s West End, added: “There wasn’t much provision or support for people struggling in the military at the time. The only thing I was offered was to talk to the chaplain, and while it’s good to speak to someone, he wasn’t qualified on a clinical basis. He didn’t know how to extract that information I was desperate to get rid of.
“All he provided was a safe area to have a cup of tea. When I wasn’t immediately forthcoming, I wasn’t encouraged to seek help.
“I was probably at a very vulnerable point in my life. I was young and going through a bit of trauma and then got thrown into one of the most intense training courses where they treat you like an onion and peel back all of your layers to the bulb at the core, then build the layers back up to create their fighting programme. Maybe not the best when you’re already feeling vulnerable.”
After leaving the military, Gary began a career in the oil industry and now works as a deep sea saturation diver. Here too he found similar attitudes towards mental health.
Gary, who had panic attacks as a child, said: “I spent four years in the military and decided to take the next step in my career and began working offshore as a diver in the oil industry.
“In the offshore industry, you’re surrounded by men, all with a similar mentality where nobody talks about their feelings. My whole career has been surrounded by that macho, male, bury-your-emotions attitude.
“Even in relationships, my whole adult life I’ve been told I’m closed off. There are only so many times where you think to yourself you should do something about it.”
It was only after he began writing his own journal that Gary discovered the therapeutic benefits of putting pen to paper and getting out his thoughts and feelings.
He said: “I got to that point in my life where I was looking towards myself. I started writing my own journal, but it was just blank, and that was quite daunting but I structured it in a way to encourage myself to open up.
“The difference was almost like night and day. I became a more open person to my friends and family and even strangers. I was quite taken aback by the result and wanted to share what I had learned with the world.
“I started researching the different techniques and the journals currently on the market, and there wasn’t very many. The majority provided a great escape or a helpful distraction rather than getting folk to tackle their emotions head on.
“The personal exercise-based journal is based on serious science that’s been around for decades and is designed to encourage people to be more open and honest with themselves. It is for anybody at any age and at any point in their life.”
Gary said: “There is great interest from the Army and Navy and the offshore industry too which is great. My former Navy warrant officer is keen to use the journal with recruits, which makes me feel proud.
“It made me aware of his struggles and even though he has held some established positions in his career it doesn’t stop him having his own issues. The fact I’m coming out to him about my struggles when he wasn’t aware of them aligns us both and deepens our friendship.”
But Gary stressed that you don’t have to be a member of the military or an offshore worker to benefit from his journal. He said: “You never know what point in your life you could be confronted with hardship. A promotion you thought you deserved and didn’t get, a failure of a driving test, a loss of a parent, the end of a relationship, anything. It’s all about preparing yourself mentally for events like that. It can combat any life struggles. Alasdair was the only person I could talk to and after he died it took a long time for me to find a way of processing my feelings. I think he would approve of my Combat Journal.”
To buy a copy of Gary's Combat Journal go to https://combat-journal.com/
