Los Angeles Clippers’ John Wall opens up about mental health struggles

Los Angeles Clippers star John Wall has opened up about his struggles with mental health In one piece Posted Thursday on The Players Tribune.

In the column, titled “I’m Still Here,” the 32-year-old said his struggles began in early 2019, when he tore his Achilles while a member of the Washington Wizards, the team that Returned him No. 1 overall. In 2010 Wall said he got “an infection so bad from the surgeries that I almost had to amputate my foot.”

“In 2017, I’m jumping on the announcer’s desk in DC after forcing a Game 7 against Boston, and I’m the king of the town,” Wall wrote. “I’m getting a bigger extension, thinking I’m a magician for life. A year later, I tore my Achilles and lost the only refuge I’d ever known – basketball. game of.”

Wall said the chronic injuries, as well as the death of her “best friend in the whole world” — her mother, Frances Ann Plea — a year later sent her “into a really dark place.”

In December 2020, the Wizards traded the five-time NBA All-Star — who was still recovering from his torn Achilles — to the Houston Rockets in exchange for Russell Westbrook.

Wall said that outwardly “you never thought anything was wrong. I wasn’t telling my constituents, not even my right-hand man. I was partying too much, all the pain. was trying to hide.”

“But when everyone goes home at the end of the night, and your head hits that pillow? No forgetting. No more masks,” he wrote.

Wall said it was ultimately “the love of my sons” that motivated him to continue. And finally he said to a friend, “Yo! I need some help!”

She began seeing a therapist, “and it slowly turned things around.”

“I still talk to my therapist today, and I’m still unpacking a lot of the craziness I’ve been through,” Wall explained. “I’ll never stop doing it, because I never really know when the darkness might come back. Right now, though? I feel better than I’ve felt in years. I feel like I can breathe.” I’m fresh again, I feel a sense of peace.”

Wall bought out a contract with the Rockets this past summer and subsequently signed a contract to join the Clippers.

“I get up in the morning and do what I love to do – play basketball for a living, be a good father to my sons, and carry on the legacy and light of Frances Ann Pulley,” he wrote.

Earlier this week, the US Preventive Services Task Force, an independent panel of health experts, recommended depression screening for all adults. and anxiety screening for all people under 65 years of age. Screening is designed to identify early signs of anxiety and depression in Americans who are not showing symptoms, according to the panel.

If you or someone you know is experiencing emotional distress or a suicidal crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). For more information about mental health care resources and support, call the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Helpline, Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 1-800-950-NAMI (6264 ) or can be contacted by email. info@nami.org.