by Jason Fox
Once we finally made it to land at Macuro on 28 March 2016, we were all close to breaking point. No flab was left on our bodies; whenever I moved to row it was as if I’d perched upon a slice of sharp bone, such was my malnutrition in the final stages and the lack of strength in my glutes. I wasn’t the only one, and whenever somebody fashioned a decent cushion to sit on, the people alongside him would plead to borrow it, hoping for a few moments of precious relief. Once the cushion had eventually sunk like a poorly made soufflé, another one was constructed, and the process went on for weeks. But throughout the journey there was no let-up in our performance. Our pace even quickened as we approached land; stripped bare of weighty provisions and love handles, The Ellida had become a much lighter vessel. The relief as we stepped on to dry ground for the first time in seven-and-a-bit weeks was incredible, my body readjusting to the stability of steady land and fixed surfaces, a sense of accomplishment washing over me.
Fifty days!
Team Essence had set world records for being both the first team to row the Atlantic from east to west unsupported, and the first to row unsupported from mainland Europe to mainland South America. The self-proclaimed Rogues of Ocean Rowing later cruised, in The Ellida, to Port of Spain in Trinidad to party. And amongst the celebration and euphoria, the stress of pushing ourselves to the limit taking its toll upon all of us, my mind had found a place of calm and tranquillity. Living a million miles away from the anguish that had so nearly killed me, there was now room to move.
I could breathe – finally.
There have been times of late when I’ve almost forgotten about The Ellida, as the emotional peak of our success fades from view. Then, out of nowhere, I’ll remember … Bloody hell, we rowed an ocean together! The sense of achievement is almost impossible to describe. But the actual experience was more tangible; the medicine I’d needed to pull myself from an all-enveloping dark place. I had found the right path to explore. I had lived in the now and rinsed life for everything it could give me, though the techniques that worked for me might not work for everyone. (And there was no fix-all method for treating depression. I knew that from my time spent working with Rock2Recovery.) But reclaiming ownership of my life had certainly helped to sort me out. I was allowed to be myself again, moving honestly through my seconds, minutes and hours as the person I wanted to be, not someone appeasing the whims and expectations of others. I had stopped pretending.
By setting the world record I had rediscovered kudos. A sense of unity was back, too. With a new team around me I was wrapped up in another safety blanket, one to match the warm embrace of The Brotherhood, and a support network I could rely on in episodes of life-affirming risk and danger. In those moments when The Ellida had tipped backwards, spiralling its crew under the momentum of yet another powerful wave, Aldo, Mat, Ross and Oliver had been on hand to help me, and me for them. Should my emotional state have suffered a fate similar to before, I knew they would have stopped me from going under. Friendship was my greatest weapon in what was now a quietening war with my mind. Overall, though, I had found happiness in my work again. The Team Essence project had required hard effort and graft – and I loved hard effort and graft. I wasn’t the sort of bloke that wanted to run 100 metres as fast as I could. I wanted to be the force that busied on in life, with strength and purpose, maybe smashing a knee along the way, in a row across an ocean, while getting there determinedly. I liked working through testing episodes of drama. Previous to my meltdown, I had enjoyed the grit of military existence. Climb over that mountain, carry a tonne of kit and then jump into a gunfight when you get there. Now I realized that with serious challenges in my life, shouldered by the people I trusted, that same emotional drive could be recreated.
I sat on the dock at Port of Spain alongside Aldo, Ross, Oliver and Mat – the Team Essence crew – drinking beer, laughing, and nursing the weeping sores and tender bruises dotted across our broken bodies. I felt happy and at home.
‘Lads, you’ve bloody saved my life,’ I said, in a moment of clarity. I wasn’t joking in the slightest.
The Ellida bobbed and swayed below us in the water, a vast ocean stretching away beyond it. Gulls squawked overhead, the trees nearby swaying and rustling in a quickening breeze. A band of fast-moving clouds was fading into the bright blue horizon. This was a scene I’d once darkened, associating the slate-grey sea and skies with terror, shame and despair, as my mind crumbled under the heft of PTSD. Today the tides were glassy calm, the heavy clouds white and fluffy, a line of them retreating rapidly from view – hopefully for ever.
Postscript
A Walk in the Woods
It had been four years since I’d last seen Alex Lagaisse, our staged ending having taken place in 2014, and the personal changes in my life since then had felt huge. I’d advanced so much. My thinking had changed dramatically, too. The new adventures shaping my life had given me plenty to be excited about. By the time of writing this book – in the summer of 2018 – I’d finished three seasons of Who Dares Wins, trekked to the North Pole for the Borne charity (which raised money for research into the causes of pre-term births) and worked to help combat rhino poachers with Veterans for Wildlife. I was only a few days away from the launch of my new Channel Four series, Meet the Drug Lords: Inside the Real Narcos, for which I’d travelled to Mexico, Colombia and Peru to go behind the scenes with the cartels and authorities in the cocaine-trafficking wars. My day-to-day existence was so very different from the moment when I’d first stepped in to Alex’s practice, my mind breaking apart.
There was so much to tell her.
I’d sensed a hesitation in Alex’s voice when I first suggested we meet up. My plan had been to revisit the woods we’d often walked through together as I’d offloaded my stresses. After taking some time to consider whether us having a session outside the boundaries of our therapy work was appropriate, she agreed.
‘But I would just say it’s quite a thing to do psychologically,’ said Alex. ‘It’s something I’ll do incredibly thoughtfully. You’re doing this for a specific project, your book, but if anyone contacted me to see me, I would bring a good deal of attention to that.’
I’d not thought of any mental implications to our meeting. I’d simply wanted to check in with her, to reflect on our work together and bring her up to speed on my new life and the subjects I’d been exploring within the book. A lot of my recovery was down to Alex’s help, after all.
When we met at the train station, it was nice to see her. We hugged and caught up, then drove to the same car park where we’d so often set off from before walking into the woods. Nothing had changed. It was still the same patch of scrubland, the same grassy square framed by a row of small houses. A kids’ plastic slide was plonked in the middle, tipped on its side, just as it had been several years ago. And yet everything was different. I was different.
The late-afternoon sun was creeping through the trees as we stepped on to the muddy path, through the gate and into the lush green, our shadows lengthening in the light. Some of the vegetation had been cut back, but the woods were as I remembered them. I mentioned the last time we’d been here. The talk had been bittersweet. I’d known I’d reached a position where I was able to function properly, but our conversations were so enjoyable that I hadn’t wanted the weekly meetings to stop.
‘From my recollection, we reflected on what it had been like, and what it felt like to end,’ said Alex as we spoke about that final day.
‘I think I might have been dreading it a bit.’
‘Why?’
‘At the beginning, I obviously knew it was something that wasn’t going to go on for ever, but when it started becoming useful to me, I was like, “I don’t want this to finish yet …” It was like a comfort blanket, I suppose – if that makes sense? It was a good excuse to go for a walk, as well. I was driving way too much with work at that time, living in my own head. I don’t know how I did it.’
As we advanced along the trail, Alex paused. I’d been makin
g friendly small talk, joking, and taking the piss a little. But I sensed she wanted to bring a bit more purpose to our meeting. ‘You would do this a lot,’ she said. ‘We would arrive and you would do this thing for about ten minutes at the beginning where you would talk quickly … And then there would be this moment where you’d slow down a bit and …’
What do you mean?
‘You were having a really stressful life. I think most conversations happened at a certain level. It didn’t matter what you were saying, but you’d arrive and you’d still be charged with the same kind of pace as you were going at in your external world. There would be a point where I would say, “Shall we take a moment and just arrive?” And I wouldn’t have remembered this, but it’s because we’re walking again. Today, I would say the same thing, because there’s a different pace. You’ve come up from London …’
‘You’re noticing I’m hectic? But that’s because you’re from here. I’m still hectic, I’m a fixed hectic.’
‘And also, how are you doing? It’s good to see you …’
It was my turn to laugh. I could feel myself settling down. It was good to be in the woods, away from the rush of home. Everything seemed so much more peaceful. Even the nearby train station where we’d just met didn’t seem like a proper train station, more like a shed with tracks. ‘When I come out of London, I can breathe,’ I said.
‘A lot of the work you and I were doing was on noticing the different levels of stimulation that you’re used to,’ she said. ‘There’s the one level that you’re inhabiting in your normal life. When we first met you were always Bzzzzzzzzzzzz! And in the GP practice I remember you saying you were super-jumpy and hyper-alert. So there was the jump from war life into civilian life that you were experiencing. But there’s a whole other jump that happens in civilian life – it’s the quietness and stillness that you get in woods, where you can literally breathe. I’m making you stop because you’re—’
I became defensive. ‘I’m not! I like it … I still get out into the wilderness.’
‘Do you feel like I’m attacking you?’
I shrugged. ‘No, I don’t think you’re attacking me. I probably don’t get out into this environment as much as I should do. I don’t know, actually. I’m sometimes down in Sussex in the woods [working for Break-Point], and I’ll occasionally make my excuses, disappear and sit on my own. I’ve got comms I can listen to in case I’m needed. So I do get out and about. Then I’ll take it to the extreme where I’ll go to the North Pole – that’s pretty peaceful. I suppose it’s more of a binge than a regular event, though. I dunno, it’s been difficult to get into that environment recently because I’m being pulled from pillar to post, but that’s the nature of the beast.’
Alex Lagaisse doesn’t have a TV. She isn’t into social media. So it came as a surprise to her that I’d found a new career working on the telly. She felt uncomfortable learning of both shows – Who Dares Wins and Meet the Drug Lords: Inside the Real Narcos – and when she watched an episode of Who Dares Wins from season one, when the recruits were captured and ‘harshed’ during the final exercise, it made her edgy, as various individuals were placed into stress positions and exposed to intense interrogation (though they had all been made aware of what they could expect prior to the show’s beginning).
‘There are actual torture techniques used in this programme,’ she said disbelievingly as we neared the river. ‘I work with people who have experienced torture and for me there’s a strange thing happening in our culture at the moment. The glorification of that makes me feel really uncomfortable; there’s an implication that if you get through this, you’re the tough guy …’
When I explained the behind-the-scenes workings of Meet the Drug Lords, Alex seemed intrigued. The positions I’d placed myself in during filming had undoubtedly been highly stressful. We’d met with gunmen and assassins, witnessed the discovery of a torso in the streets of Acapulco – hacked to pieces by fifteen-year-old killers in a ‘chop house’ – and feared for our lives when heading into the Peruvian rainforests to meet cocaine cooks. During the promotion of the show, I’d been interviewed by a journalist from a broadsheet newspaper. The response online had been pretty favourable, but one or two comments poked at my history with PTSD. Some people were annoyed, saying, ‘What the fuck does he think he’s doing taking himself there? I thought he’d got discharged with PTSD?’ It had annoyed me, no doubt about it. But I hadn’t responded.
‘Well, I kind of have to agree with them,’ said Alex when I told her.
‘No! This is the thing! Everyone’s like, “You’ve got PTSD, you’ve got mental-health issues, that’s you fucked for life …”’
‘No, not like that,’ said Alex.
‘I know. It’s just that everyone is different, but everyone has different things that they need to do to keep them busy. Keep them happy busy. Busy happy.’
‘You’re addicted to that,’ she said.
‘But it’s a different kind … Yeah, OK. I’m going to dangerous places and meeting interesting people. Because I’ve been on a journey and it has involved mental health, I’m intrigued to know what makes these people tick. Do they suffer from the same things I’ve suffered from? Because, essentially, if you think about it, they’re born into those environments, they’re not exposed to them in small doses. For them, it’s like a lifelong war tour, so they must be somewhat conditioned. But they all have their own fears and emotions that go with it. It’s good to see different people and learn how they get on with different situations.
‘There’s a CSI guy working in Acapulco and he picks up twenty bodies a day, and they’re not in good shape. I went back to his flat and asked, “How do you decompress?” And he said, “Well, I sit here on my own, listening to music, getting ready for the next day …” He loves his job, but he doesn’t solve anything, because the people who kill over there are usually dead before the police have figured out who has done it. A fascinating bloke – a fascinating place.
‘But I feel that coming through this journey – of which you are a part – I am more in control. I know “in control” is a ridiculous thing to say, but I know what I need to do to keep myself in a good place. I know that I can see lots of different and bad things, like the cut-up body in Meet the Drug Lords, and I’m in the right mindset now to think, “That incident’s not great, and I don’t want to see that all the time, but I didn’t have anything to do with it …”’
Once I’d finished talking, Alex lobbed an interesting question my way. ‘Are you still coming up against people – because you decided to admit that you had PTSD – who have a sense of it being almost contagious … like you get some virus and you have it for ever?’
I nodded. ‘Before we went out to film Meet the Drug Lords, I got an email saying, “We need you to see someone before you go and we want someone to be there for you at the end of the phone because we’re worried about your mental health.” I said, “You fuckers. Have you asked any of the other crew about this?” It turned out they hadn’t, which made me even more upset. I said, “Right, we’ll do this. We’ll go through this process. Mark my words, I’ll—”’
‘“… Be the last person to need help.” I know.’
‘And lo and behold, when we came back it wasn’t me who needed help.’
Alex stopped me. ‘But now you’re judging whoever it was who needed help? Hang on …’
‘I’m not doing that! I don’t do that. I want to help people to understand. Hopefully, the readers of this book every now and then might think, “Bloody hell, I can draw some parallels here.” I did an interview mentioning PTSD the other week and I got an email from a fireman shortly afterwards saying, “Thank fuck you wrote that, because I’ve just come out of the fire service and I’ve been having a major drama. I thought it was because of this, this and this. And it’s not. It’s my mental health.” All I did was talk about me. Well, not me, my issues …’
We stood by the gate again, our ninety-minute chat having passed by
so quickly. Both of us were pleased to have recapped my journey through what had been a hellish episode within a ‘fixed hectic’ existence; both of us understood the impact of our work together. Alex seemed to realize that she might not have taken a sufficient amount of pride in the brilliant job she’d completed with me. That brought a strange parallel to my previous line of work: I couldn’t recall the lives I’d saved in the past either, but clearly remembered the way in which she’d saved mine.
‘And are you happy?’ she asked finally.
I nodded.
It felt so nice to say yes.
A worry from the minute I was born: I died twice during my first few days of premature life in 1976 due to a collapsed lung.
Preparing for a life of extremes in the British snow with my brother Mat.
My life in the military seemed to have been set from an early age. Mat and I travelled around a lot together when we were kids and were later joined by my little brother Jamie.
Happy but knackered after a day yomping around in the desert with my heavy battle kit.
I enjoyed working in the middle of a scrap knowing there were other capable soldiers around me.
Preparing to lay some demolition equipment. I rarely wore ear defenders because they often affected my other senses during a gunfight.
Relaxing at the base with The Brotherhood, and The Brotherhood’s best friend.
The scrapping kit I often wore weighed a tonne. It was such a relief to drop it off in my bunk after an operation, feeling my back click and stretch with the release.
Scaling ladders as the water churns beneath you is one of the hardest jobs undertaken by people in my profession …
… But I eventually mastered the technique, even though our dives were often done when it was bloody freezing.
