A few thoughts

In general I don’t really do being angry. I did when I was younger but then I had a spat with a close friend and almost lost him forever, it made me realise how pointless it can be.

However last week something happened that brought that old almost forgotten feeling back to the forefront.

From one sentence uttered by another I nearly lost control, pure fury flashed through my mind, all I wanted to do was scream at my flatmate. Fortunately I don’t really like conflict either so I didn’t shout.

What had he said to set this quiet rebellion off inside me? He’d simply called Gary Speed a “Selfish fucker”.

It’s an opinion I have seen banded about far too much recently, not just in relation to him but then espoused as a way to look at those who choose to end their own lives.

“They’ve left behind a wife and family, how selfish of them, taking the easy way out” people say.

Fortunately for me I’ve never suffered from depression. I have bouts of melancholy, but everyone does. Life isn’t always perfect.

But I do know people who do suffer from it and I do like to try and find out what’s really going on in terms of such diseases I cannot truly understand.

To round off my view that it is a cruel, and unimaginable torment I’ve just finished reading ‘A Life Too Short, The Tragedy of Robert Enke’. A biography of an international footballer who, like Gary Speed, took his own life.

It’s written by a close friend, a man Enke had always said he wanted to write a book with once his career was over explaining his disease. Pieced together from personal interactions, interviews with people who knew Robert and his diaries it’s a quite extraordinary book.

The last section, describing the last few months of Robert’s life is almost an unbearable read. He’s managed to climb out of depression a few years earlier and survived the death of his first daughter. Just when everything was looking good what is described as his ‘black dog’ is back.

The point of this piece is not for me to lecture you on what depression does to someone. That would be quite frankly wrong of me. I have no experience of it, I have no expertise in it. All I can do is try and keep an open mind.

The purpose of this piece is to implore you to read Ronald Reng’s book on Robert Enke. There are several moments in it where he has consulted with experts and sufferers for explanations of the most desperate actions a person can take.

I also ask that before you call someone like Gary Speed a “selfish fucker” or jump to your own conclusions, that you bear one thing in mind. You’ve never been there, how on earth can you think you understand what was going on in his head when the best thing to do seemed to be to end it all there and then.

Of course you can look upon that as me being incredibly patronising. I’ve never been there either, what right do I have to tell you that? None I suppose.

Whatever you think of this give the book a read, whether you like sports or not, give some other stories of the disease a read, talk to anyone you know who has it.

I have no idea what went through the minds of Gary Speed, of Robert Enke, or even of Dale Roberts, the former Rushden and Diamonds keeper who killed himself last year. No one except they themselves do.