Great interview.
When a well-known athlete opens up about his or her mental health struggles it can help so any people.
John Kirwan has done so much good work in this respect in this country.
Mental health issues of course can affect anyone at any time of your life and it's also good to have some insight in case famly members or friends have problems.
One of the seemingly most unlikely members of my family to suffer depression, an apparently tough, chirpy outgoing Cockney cousin who immigrated to NZ when young, broke down completely and became clinically depressed when his marriage failed but was lucky to have enough insight into his condition through his training as a Fire Service instructor, to book himself into a mental health facility while visiting family in England.
That asking for help saved him.
I was reading about Louise, the widow of former Leeds, Newcastle and Wales legend and Wales manager Gary Speed:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/gary-...
She has only recently felt able to talk publically about her husband's suicide in 2011.
At the time it seemed totally inexplicable and almost a random act - he seemed happy and together.
She has only discovered recently the extent that Gary had been struggling for years with undiagnosed mental health issues, with depression.
He was just good at hiding it.
"...she stumbled on a letter he sent to her mother’s home when he was a 17-year-old at Leeds United.
It confirmed her deepest suspicions. Gary had been ill for a very long time."
Recent book by Gary Speed's journalist friend John Richardson with Louise Speed "Unspoken: The Family's Untold Story"
Gary Speed was one of four boys coached by paedophile football coach Barry Bennell who had killed themselves.