Jason Fox: Living With Ptsd And The Cost Of Service
On The Mend
High Performance
4.9 • 566 Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When the structure that’s held your life together disappears, what are you left with?
In this episode, Jason Fox talks about the moment everything collapsed after leaving the military, not gradually, but instantly. Twenty years of purpose, belonging, and identity ended overnight, and the relief he expected never came. Instead, he felt more broken than ever, realising too late that the thing he thought was damaging him had actually been keeping him afloat.
Jason also speaks openly about how close he came to giving up, and the uncomfortable truth he had to face: he’d been going through the motions of getting help without fully believing he needed it. He reflects on how much of the stigma he feared came from inside his own head, and how convincing yourself you’re not allowed to struggle can be just as dangerous as the struggle itself.
This conversation challenges the belief that strength means staying silent, and shows how vulnerability can be a source of freedom, not weakness.
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Need Support?
Samaritans: Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org
Narcotics Anonymous: na.org
Alcoholics Anonymous: alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk
Mental Health Mates: mentalhealthmates.co.uk
Shout: https: giveusashout.org
IAPT: england.nhs.uk/mental-health/adults/nhs-talking-therapies/
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Want to know who's coming up next? |
| 0:01.6 | Hit follow wherever you get your podcast and you'll be the first to find out. |
| 0:06.5 | These things broken me so I need to leave. |
| 0:09.0 | And I'd left under this cloud of mental health. |
| 0:11.4 | I remember just having an absolute meltdown. |
| 0:13.6 | And I drove up to a car park. |
| 0:16.1 | I walked to the edge of a cliff. |
| 0:17.5 | I'm crying. |
| 0:18.7 | I'm feeling sorry for myself. |
| 0:20.5 | I'm like looking at myself as a burden |
| 0:22.7 | on everyone else. Talking will save your life. Absolutely nothing happens about action. No. |
| 0:31.0 | Hey guys, welcome back to On the Men. This is a podcast where we look back at life's toughest moments |
| 0:35.3 | to figure out how we move forward. Today's guest is Jason Fox. Yes, Jason. Good to see you. Yeah, no, thanks very much. Thank you so much for coming on, man. I really massively appreciate it. No, it's a pleasure, honestly. Anything, especially with what it's all about, massively want to get involved. I was thinking about the structure of this show, right? |
| 0:55.1 | And really, I think about it like this. |
| 0:56.6 | We kind of do three things. |
| 0:58.1 | We look at what it was like, what happened, and what it's like now. |
| 1:02.9 | So to do that, I'd like to go back a bit and kind of like, I've followed your career, right? |
| 1:09.7 | And I think it's nuts how you go from such |
| 1:12.4 | a structured life in the special forces to being back in the normal world. You know, I can't |
| 1:18.1 | really imagine that. My little sister's husband's in the military, he's a military man. |
| 1:24.1 | You know, like everything is fits in with that lifestyle, you know. So when you take away the, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, is, um, |
| 1:28.4 | when you take away the uniform, the adrenaline, the structure, like, who are you left with? Uh, that is a good question. I think that's the question, that's the, the, the question that I didn't answer before I left. Yeah. And the funny thing was, I joined the military when I was 16, um, because I messed school up, basically. Yeah. I wasn't, I wasn't particularly excelling in anything. And it was, for me, it was the only option, as far as I was concerned, I did that job for 20 years and even towards the end, you know, midway through in the end, |
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