Gary Speed.
I woke up today and after about an hour of doing pretty much nothing, I decided to check Twitter, first thing I noticed was a single tweet claiming Gary Speed had died, not once did it enter my mind to take it seriously, but I went to check the BBC Sport web page, it just unfolded out in front of me that Gary Speed had died.
It hasn’t sunk in, not because I’m trying to claim some personal emotion with the man himself, but because of the news the followed that he’d taken his own life.
It shook me to the core, I just couldn’t get my head around it at all, someone who by all accounts had everything going for him taking his own life, He had a Wife, two children, was the manager of an extremely promising National Football side, a job in which he was proving ALL of his initial doubters wrong, he was already a Welsh football legend, but the job he was doing, and the way he was going about it, he honestly could have gone down in History as one of the best Wales managers of all time.
I’ve dealt with depression in my life, it’s not a place I’d like to revisit ever again, it’s hard to explain it, some people pass it off as “Oh he’s just a bit sad” when it’s so much more than that, it’s hopelessness, the days turn into nights and the nights turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months and before you know it, you’ve lost your grasp on what keeps you going, nothing makes sense, concentration levels are rock bottom and no matter what, the hardest thing you can do at that point is realise you need help and actually asking for it.
It took me a whole Summer to realise this, I pushed people away who I just wish that I hadn’t let go of and suddenly found myself more on my own than before it started.
Luckily for me, I did realise I needed help, and I did get the courage I needed to ask for it, but so many people don’t, I just wish people would realise that they’re not on their own, there are people who want to help, whether you’re suffering because of a “Personal Scandal” or the fact that you can’t cope with the fact that you can’t do what you love doing anymore because you’re body won’t let you.
…and that’s the reason why this has hit me so hard, it’s because it’s just so fucking close to home, I’ve never been in a place to contemplate harming myself or taking it a step further and thinking of taking my own life, but it terrifies me to know, that if I ever went back to that dark, dark place that it could be something I do think of, and act upon. At this very moment in time it’s not something I’d ever do, but all I know is that if I didn’t act, I could have ended up like this.
Gary Speed. You are a gentleman and will go down as a Wales football legend, I just wish so much you got the help you so badly needed, but if there’s one thing that comes out of this, and that’s to raise awareness into depression as an illness then you might just leave the most positive legacy anyone can take out of this situation.
