Reasons to Stay Alive

Part one of my two-part Matt Haig adventure has finished in me reading the final page of 'Reasons to Stay Alive', one of now many books out there about depression and anxiety and the unique journey of it's author, designed to give hope and reasoning to those of us who suffer from mental afflictions.

I'll be honest, I started writing a post earlier on alcohol. The last six weeks or so have been eventful, with the common denominator being alcohol. As usual. It's a familiar story, and a story that has no real ending, so I ditched it and picked up a book. This A5 sized book, with words of comfort and motivation inside, that explain at least a little bit of what I'm feeling.

My life is complex. I'm not special; most people's lives are, and probably like most others, I spend a lot of my time trying to untie it. The knots that appear out of nowhere, like earphones in your pocket, creating one more tiny problem to add to the mountain of other tiny problems that have manifested over time. I've always struggled to find the words to explain what happens inside my head, because I never know if they're really problems or not. I have no other reference point other than myself after all.

Reading this book has given me one important message though, and it is this. The number one reason to stay alive, is the possibility that my dreams might just come true. The tiniest of tiny hopes that the stars align on the most important of days, and the bricks fall into place. However slim that hope, the light may just exist, and being an atheist, the alternative really is eternal darkness. For example, how can I become a published author if I'm dead? Matt has a valid point...

Oh yes, I do still think about death. I don't talk about it much, because people roll their eyes, but it's true. It's almost a topic that doesn't illicit the response many think it should, because it's been a common theme for the last decade. I'm used to it. Suicidal thoughts don't just come when I'm in the midst of a low period; they are there most of the time. Even when I'm happy, it crosses my mind. Even when I find myself content, I still think it may happen one day. To some, that sounds defeatist. To some, that sounds horrifying. To me, it's just the reality I've come to accept. I've come to accept that one day, those flames may become too hot.

But, they may not.

That's where 'Reasons to Stay Alive' comes in. I look at my life now and there are many jigsaw pieces missing. One of Matt Haig's big comforts is his wife, Andrea. I've worked out that I am actually incredibly lonely. But to combat that loneliness - to defeat it - I have to combat other fears of mine. My complete lack of self-belief and the total lack of confidence stops me from finding it. An irrational fear; a complete fear of failure. Sometimes taking one step outside of my bedroom is like one step towards the mere base of Everest. It's like a cruel version of 'Six Degrees of Separation'. Six pieces of the jigsaw.

I suppose this is where my affiliation with alcohol comes in. When I drink, I feel the glimpses of confidence I once had. The short-term affect of alcohol; the Dutch courage that whiskey can give me, is a blessing from the battering my mind takes day to day. It literally gives me a break. No wonder alcoholism is a huge problem. In some ways, maybe I should give myself some credit to not falling into the trap more than I have done already. I KNOW what it can do to me, yet I push the boundaries. In some ways, I am lucky to have escaped with the battle scars I have, and nothing else. Will that stop me on Friday? That's the point I ditched the original blog. That's a whole different ball game. That jigsaw piece is particularly big.

Looking back to a decade ago, before all of this started, I was immensely confident. It was when I started to realise I was different to everyone else (gay), where things started to go wrong. When I was 16, I was performing on stage to hundreds of people. I was refereeing football matches where the players were twice as old as me. I even volunteered to play in the school samba band, despite having no musical knowledge whatsoever. Nowadays, I'm too anxious to return to the football arena in fear of being ridiculed, and not just about being queer. I'm scared of making a mistake. My latest attempt to get back on stage has resulted in me having a panic attack while thinking about what could go wrong and emailing the organiser to back out. I wouldn't even consider going near a kettle drum.

That is what hurts the most. That is what makes me sad. I know I'm someone else, but I can't find him. I long to have that confidence back, but I can't find the courage to go looking for him. The only thing keeping me alive is the hope that one day, I will find him. That one time I just manage to find the confidence - from nowhere - and it works out. That one spark that I can add wood and kindling to, day after day, instead of it sizzling out into a damp pile of leaves and I have to start again.

I'm also scared of being tired. I despise being tired. I simply cannot understand how people can know they're not sleeping enough and carry on with life without going insane. I have always had an odd relationship with sleep. I loathe the necessity of it, but I loathe not getting enough. I know I have to be awake at 6am on Tuesday and already the idea of it makes me feel sick. To make it feel okay, I'd have to go to bed at 6pm the night before, and that merely makes me feel inadequate. Only 2 year olds go to bed at 6pm. Therefore I have to make a choice between feeling sick or feeling inadequate. Even today, I've been tired and yawning all day and I got 9 hours sleep last night. I don't quite understand that...

There's another piece to the jigsaw. This huge, sometimes inescapable, never-ending jigsaw that is life that needs to be pieced together. A gale force hurricane raging against me as I hold on to that one reason to stay alive. The hope that it may just get properly better. I may just find a piece of the jigsaw that shows me what I am capable of. At the moment, it's just a conglomerate of shapes that don't fit in any holes. That's my mind at the moment.

I'm just holding on to that one reason...

We Are Gay and We Love Football Too

A few posts back, you'll see that I wrote a blog about being in a BBC documentary. Well... It's now out there for the world to see and the feedback we received and still are receiving has been incredible. The whole world of filming, to meeting like-minded people and other gay footballers to the actual bizarre feeling of watching yourself on TV... The whole thing has been a fantastic experience.

There was a point very late on when I had a funny feeling it wasn't going to be broadcast at all. At exactly the same time, out and proud rugby player Gareth Thomas released a documentary for BBC Wales about the same subject, and I thought it may be a case of not releasing two shows on the same thing. But, luckily, that wasn't the case.

The filming itself wasn't what I imagined. It lasted over a period of a week, with Friday and Saturday constituting the main days. There was a lot of waiting around. The documentary itself is only 18 minutes long, and we were probably being filmed for a total of around 4 hours, while being on set for maybe around 24 hours in total. That's 20 hours of nothing... Especially on the Saturday, when I was at the venue for over 12 hours plus travelling to and from South London, it did feel like a marathon. However, seeing the final result has made it all worth it.

The documentary itself includes my own personal story of experiencing homophobia in the game and also follows LGBT team London Titans, who I joined up with on Saturday to play in a 5-a-side game against a generic "lads" team. Charlie, Jasper, Callum and Joe were my teammates for the day and all of them were absolutely awesome people. Oddly, I had my own preconceptions about what they would be like - for certain attitudes are engrained into your psyche regardless of your own sexuality - but they were just footballers. And very good ones at that. The 5-a-side game lasted about an hour, and it was extremely competitive. The "lads" team had confessed they were desperate not to lose, as if losing to a "gay team" would hurt their egos. And I think we felt like we were representing gay footballers on the whole and was desperate to not let them down. We lost in the end by a couple of goals but it was a close fought game. It was also close to 30 degrees, so by the end I was absolutely ruined, and I was only in goal! I can't imagine how the others felt...

It was also quite amusing to film out on the streets in Bedford. Walking down the street being followed by a film crew made me feel important and we got a few comments from people. It was pretty cool, I have to say!

However, the best thing to come out of all of this is one comment from a complete stranger on Twitter who private messaged me, telling me he was going to try and join a team this season. He had been afraid to do so, for the same reasons all of us gay footballers are, in fear of having to hide themselves and/or face abuse. To hear that this 18-minute documentary has helped him find the confidence to play football again is the best thing in the whole world to hear. I'm not afraid to admit that it brought a tear to my eye and I am SO PROUD of everyone involved in the documentary who helped make a difference. To hear we actually changed someone's life for the better is humbling.


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You can watch the documentary here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0590b6d/we-are-gay-and-we-love-football-too?ns_mchannel=social&ns_campaign=bbc_radio_1&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=radio_and_music