Andrew Flintoff on depression and sports

Just finished watching former England cricket star Andrew Flintoff (nicknamed "Freddie") exploring the issues of depression in the field of professional sports, through meeting and interviewing several other sportsmen who have also suffered from depression. Flintoff started out by explaining that part of this was about learning about his own experiences and what was going on, and why depression can affect people who are perceived to "have it all". He described it as an "invisible injury" that sportspeople can suffer, and wanting to "understand what depression can do".

This was quite a painful programme for me to watch, not because it got anything wrong but rather because I recognised so much of the pain and harm that the people in it have experienced from my own struggles with depression.

He started by talking to his team mate Steve Harmison, who was talking in this programme for the first time publicly about his experiences with depression as part of the England cricket team.

Many of the interviews brought out similar stories. Harmison was one of the more aware ones, it seems, he talks about realising he needed to get help to fix things when it started to get very bad, but still he was experiencing panic attacks and "dark days" before he sought help.

Neil Lennon spoke again about his experiences, and how, "All of a sudden I became this insular person I didn't recognise." He outlined some of the ways in which depression has physical effects as well as the main mental health symptoms. He said that his approach now, as a manager, is to view depression as being like any other sporting injury: you have to give it time to heal, and he knows what to watch for in his players to make sure their mental health is as strong as their physical health. he talked about making sure that he players know they can talk to him about these things as well, and helping them cope.

Later in the programme, Flintoff spoke to Shane Warne, the great Australian spin bowler, who was renowned for his "sledging" - the use of taunts and other verbal remarks during a game, to try to put a batsman's mind off his game. Warne said that sledging is one thing, but if he knew a batsman was suffering with depression he wouldn't use that to help him, describing it as being like a physical injury: "you don't want to see someone get hit" (making an analogy to aggressive bowling and the risk of injury). He viewed depression as being similar to a sporting injury and believed that you shouldn't aim to cause that kind of harm.

This led Flintoff to ask what happens when you play a solo sport, as opposed to a team sport? He spoke to snooker player Graeme Dott about his experiences, and Dott spoke about what depression medication does, and the fact that he will probably be on them for the rest of his life.

Dott said that meds are not "happy pills", but rather "they make you feel normal". For Dott, if he fails to take his medication regularly, he can end up in a downward spiral again. But the point of them isn't to make you feel happy (as I know very well, and Dott explained, they generally don't) but rather to make you able to function in the world. Dott described some severe symptoms, that I can also recognise: uncontrollable crying, paranoia, and complete lack of interest in anything. The pills keep those things at bay and help you see the world a bit more clearly, is all.

The next sportsman Flintoff spoke to was Barry McGuigan, who is Chairman of the Professional Boxing Association. McGuigan spoke of having a strong support network with his roots and his family being close, but recognised that a lot of other boxers don't get the support they need. He talked about seeing fighters going into the ring when they were "not 100% psychologically right" - echoing Neil Lennon's words about depression being a type of sporting injury like any other. McGuigan talked about how he would encourage a boxer to seek help if he spotted symptoms of depression, and if he felt the boxer was not coping well with it, would pull them out of a fight rather than send a person into the ring when they were not in good mental health.

McGuigan also raised an issue that was another common theme in Freddie's interviews: the need for professional sportsmen to put up a "front" and never to be perceived as "showing fear". Too many people view depression, or admitting to depression, as a sign of weakness. For players who are seen as the "heart and soul" of a team, or "happy-go-lucky", such as Freddie Flintoff, Vinnie Jones (interviewed later in the programme) or Ricky Hatton (also interviewed later in the programme) all these players felt like showing "weakness" or admitting to struggling with depression, would send "shockwaves through the dressing room" (a phrase from the Vinnie Jones segment).

This type of pressure - focussed on how other people are affected by you - comes across particularly in Jones' comments. Vinnie Jones described reaching a low point at which he took a gun into the woods, intending to kill himself. He said that he felt, "You feel so degraded in yourself ... why do all these people have to go on putting up with me?" and listed his wife, family, team mates etc. He said also that the thing that brought him back from the edge was thinking "what if it makes it worse for those left behind?"

Another key aspect of depression, and the problems that are related to it, was raised by Flintoff and Ricky Hatton, both of whom turned to alcohol to try to self-medicate the problem away. Of course, alcohol and depression are actually a very bad mixture and the consequences are usually much worse, and simply heighten the depression. For heavy drinkers, such as Flintoff was renowned for being (an image he felt he had to maintain as the "happy-go-lucky" "life of the dressing room") it got even worse, and Flintoff referenced his "pedalo" incident when talking to Piers Morgan about the press' relationship to sporting depression.

Morgan argued that the press have no responsibility to be gentle about players' mental health, citing as normal and even necessary, the "brutal relationship" between sportspeople and the media. He suggested that it was the responsibility of the managers or team captains to look after their players and not to put them on the field when they were at risk of psychological injury in this way. Morgan went as far as to point the finger at Flintoff, who was captain to Steven Harmison, in failing in this responsibility.

More interesting was Morgan's description of his developing understanding of depression in professional sports players. He talked about not being able to comprehend the idea of being "depressed" (which he understood as sadness) when you had stuff that most people can only dream of, and would do anything if it meant they could have a go. However, he also talked about getting to know some players as people, once they'd retired, such as Flintoff. he said that he'd then come to realise more about depression as an illness. He also mentioned that cricketers have the highest suicide rate among sportspeople, and being shocked by it.

The symptoms that came up time and again were:

• Lethargy, or the feeling of not wanting (or being able) to do anything
• Crying (uncontrollably, as Dott put it)
• Suicidal feelings
• Panic attacks/hyperventilating
• Physical sensations of discomfort or pains
• Paranoia/"everyone's talking about/looking at me, waiting for me to fail"

The extra pressures from being a successful (i.e. gained a professional deal) sports person came with the need to appear "strong' and "not show any fear"; the year-round cycle of training and playing that makes one's sport, and one's sporting success of failure, a part of your identity; the media spotlight; and having to maintain a public persona.

Flintoff spoke with a sports psychologist about how attitudes have been changing in sport, again, focussing more on recognising the sports player's mind as being an important part of that player's game, and how good mental health is just as important as good physical health and fitness. The psychologist also mentioned a figure that "10% of the UK population in each year experience anxiety or depression". Seeing it more in sports people comes about as we become more aware of what depression actually is - an illness, not a "mood".

Flintoff finished the programme with two messages of hope.

First, he visited Arsenal football club, who run a scheme to use sports to help people overcome depression. To Flintoff, who had experienced (and had been talking to those with the same experience) sport as a cause, or exacerbation of, depression, this seemed like a paradox. He spoke with some of the people attending, including one person who told Flintoff he'd been diagnosed at age t10, and still needed treatment to help him. He discovered that, as well as th ebenefits of physical exercise, there was also a support group, the chance to make new friends and to get advice, that all worked to help those involved.

He was also reminded of the value of people like himself, who have media recognition through sports or whatever, to talk about what they've been through and to raise awareness of depression as something that's an illness and that needs treatment - for people to get help.

The other message of hope was for Flintoff himself. In his closing remarks for the programme, he talked about how it was giving him the strength to be not "Freddie the party-animal", but simply to be himself. He said that his conversations with the various people in the programme had helped him confront and tackle, and make sense of, the things that he had experienced himself.

That's a very important space to reach, I feel, and over the past 4 years or so I have been on that journey too, though not perhaps with the same illustrious names as Flintoff can associate with! It is very important to me that awareness should be raised in the general population, too. For years I struggled on thinking depression was just a matter of getting the right mood, and I believed the myths - I, like Piers, couldn't understand how a rich, famous, sports star could be depressed and put it down (both for them, and for me) as self-obsessed melodrama and we should just get over it. Of course, now I know that that's bullshit, but that's just it: too many people don't know.