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MENTAL HEALTH


Abbey Stadium south stand


I had no interest in anything; if somebody had presented me with a million pounds and asked what I would like to do with it, I would have replied ‘nothing’. My life had no meaning and even less purpose


or ten days later. I was undergoing challenging physiotherapy for the hip recovery, and one day I broke down and wept in the middle of treatment. I just couldn’t cope with feeling so poorly and my frustrations at not being able to get on with my life poured out of me in a torrent. I was experiencing frequent torrid flashbacks to the accident, although I kept them to myself. They were wrecking my sleep patterns and, when I did manage to drift off, I was restless and sweating, sitting bolt upright in bed and shouting. Lisa, my wife, kept asking what was wrong with me. I couldn’t tell her. How could I begin to tell anyone what had turned a proud, strong, fit man striding confidently through life into a shambling, shuffling, weeping, twitching and


trembling excuse for a human being? My physio had set me a number of exercises, some at home and one involving a short walk through the village streets on crutches. It was whilst I was struggling on one of these excursions that a solution revealed itself: all the excruciating pain, grief, mental torture, feelings of inadequacy and frustration would be over in seconds if I just stepped out in front of a car.


It was thirty seconds before I was able to banish the destructive thought. It was enough to think about what effect my suicide would have on Lisa and my children, Liam and Ruby, for me to snap out of it. I demanded of myself: what the hell is wrong with you?


I returned home shaken and called my GP, only to break down whilst I was on the phone. An emergency appointment was made for me at the surgery, and there I answered a series of questions about my state of mind. Everything around the accident had caught up with me; I sobbed. From the first day I’d struggled with pain and discomfort. I was told that what I was experiencing was not uncommon and I was put on the list for an appointment at Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT).


Several more weeks, during which I continued to battle the lung infection, went by. It had knocked me for six and some days I was so poorly that I struggled to get up the stairs. And, without me being aware of it, I had become snappy, raising my voice and generally being unaware of what was going on around me. I can now see, and admit, that I was very scared.


The Duke of Cambridge kicking a ball about as he records a BBC programme to launch the Heads Up mental health campaign


54 PC December/January 2020


The appointment with CPFT came through and I had to summon every scrap of courage I had left in order to attend. But at least I was acknowledging that I couldn’t get through this nightmare on my own and needed help. At the first appointment, the therapist asked me to recall, in minute detail, every second of the accident and its aftermath. I found it incredibly difficult to relive an incident that had devastated my life, but I managed to struggle through





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