This is a fascinating insight into a macho, male-dominated world where reality is so grotesquely distorted from the public perception. Read it, believe it, because sometimes the truth is far more incredible than fiction.TERRY BUTCHER, Captain of England Football Team

 

Her husband found her by the roadside, delirious and choking on her own vomit. Gemma Morgan was 33, happily married with two

young children, an outstanding army service record and a first-class international sporting career. But underneath she was a wreck, surviving on a cocktail of vodka, Valium and sleeping pills.

Misogyny, sexual abuse and toxic masculinity had been the daily realities of her Army career long before being deployed unarmed and unsupported to the blood and mayhem of a war zone.

When Gemma gave birth to a baby girl, motherhood left her lost and alienated, a soldier who had deliberately suppressed her femininity with no idea how to cope.

Together, these experiences triggered a mental health crisis that led her to become suicidal, battling PTSD, betrayed and abandoned by the institution to which she had devoted seven years of her life.

With the support of her family Gemma has been on a long, hard and bumpy road to recovery. This is her story in her own words.

She has told it to inspire a fierce and urgent call for change.

 

Gemma speaks with powerful vulnerability – you could hear a pin drop. JODIE KIDD Model, Racing Driver and TV Personality