I reckon I was a pretty normal kid. I had ups and downs, but generally I was OK. When I was 23, I was working in a dead end job and one day my boyfriend of two years walked out on me. No explanation, just up and left. I was devastated. For the week after that I barely even got out of bed, I just couldn’t find the energy or the motivation to get up or do anything. Luckily I had some good friends who looked after me and got me back on my feet. I left my job, joined the army, and things really looked up for a while. But after I got back from the Middle East about six months ago, I started feeling horribly depressed. I don’t even know why – the deployment wasn’t difficult. I wasn’t really in danger and I didn’t see anything too awful or upsetting. But I just felt worse and worse, and all the things I used to enjoy seemed stupid and pointless. I couldn’t be bothered doing anything, not even eating. I didn’t have any energy but I couldn’t sleep either. I managed to talk the Doc on the base into giving me a few weeks off sick, but that didn’t do any good. I just stayed in bed and cried. Once I even thought about killing myself, but then I thought about what it would do to Mum and Dad.