MENTAL HEALTH


Merry Christmas pattern


If you have a family member or member of staff who appears not to be working to their normal ability, don’t think they are being lazy or on a different planet - ask them if they are alright


would come.


We were both asked a series of questions and Andy said I’d had an amazing memory before the accident; something had changed since then. Once again, I was asked to relive everything that happened on the day of the accident and, as I recalled the events of those awful hours, I broke down in a flood of tears. Dr Kim asked why the tears had come, and for the first time I talked about the flashbacks to that terrible moment when I thought I was about to die. It was likely that I was suffering from PTSD as well as depression, Dr Kim told me.


There followed weeks of exhausting therapy that involved reliving the accident several times a week, as well as exercises to be completed at home, and the trips to the Co-op continued. But I found it impossible to go anywhere near the Abbey Stadium and I couldn’t bring myself to watch football on TV.


In the latter part of the treatment for PTSD, Dr Kim asked me to relive the accident on the council sports pitches on Coldham


Common, behind my stadium, with the floodlights in full view. All the distressing symptoms came flooding back. Then an ambulance siren shattered the air and in an instant I was back at the accident. But gradually the sessions on the Common began to help and I felt my life was finally beginning to improve. It wasn’t the end; it


wasn’t even the beginning of the end; but it might have been the end of the beginning. Then came the acid test: Dr Kim asked if I could arrange a treatment session in the stadium’s control room. At the point at which I was reliving falling over the boxes, Dr Kim created a deafening crashing sound by dropping a large bag of steel cutlery, I was


The 1992 letter from manager John Beck, that confirmed the Abbey Stadium pitch was too good for his team’s style of play


PC December/January 2020


57


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