Sammi's Story

Sammi was a determined young lady and knew from an early age that she wanted to be in the Armed Forces. She craved the structure and simplicity of knowing that everything was being dealt with so she could get on with the job at hand.

Sammi went on to spend seven years in the RAF and, as she could speak several languages, she had a successful career as a Flight Lieutenant Supply Officer based in the UK and abroad.

Leaving the military

Sammi made the difficult decision when starting her family to leave the RAF, not wanting to miss out on her children growing up. Leaving in 1998, she went on to set up her own successful business and threw herself into her family, her work and her hobbies with her usual determination and enthusiasm.

Below the surface, all was not well. Of this time Sammi said: “I’d taken the Armed Forces philosophy of ‘keeping up with the boys’ and there is no way I would be beaten. I didn’t recognise the signs at first, but I was getting overwhelmed and I was drinking far more than was good for me by using it as a ‘social coping skill’.”

Things got progressively worse, and every few weeks Sammi would find herself taking to her bed, sleeping for hours and then waking, but using alcohol and sleeping tablets to get her back to sleep.

“I’d ‘sleep’ for days, and I was having suicidal thoughts. I was prescribed antidepressants, but a few times my family had to call for an ambulance. Things were not resolving, if anything it was getting worse.”

At the point of being discharged after another stay in hospital Sammi simply said “If you send me home now I’ll kill myself.” She was kept in for a couple of days and it was during a conversation with a doctor she mentioned having been in the Armed Forces many years previously. That was when Sammi was referred to us.

A significant diagnosis

During her time with Walking With The Wounded and Head Start, there were suspicions that there was something else going on, and Sammi was finally diagnosed as neurodivergent, with a number of conditions.

“The Armed Forces gave me structure and friendship, and the ranks gave me social cues, all things that fit with my neurodifferences. I was all at sea, especially socially, when I left, and now I know why. Menopause in women can often make these symptoms, that we have long masked, come to the surface, it’s like a ticking timebomb. Because WWTW offers support to veterans throughout their life I was able to come to them so many years after leaving the RAF.”