Harry Miller, former offensive lineman at Ohio State’s football team, has opened up about his depression, sharing an important message to everyone out there about mental health.
The junior at Ohio State University discussed the mental health challenges that made him consider taking his own life during a recent interview with Today, as he looked directly at the camera and spoke to anyone who has been struggling with thoughts of suicide.
“I would just say hope is just pretending to believe in something until one day you don’t have to pretend any more,” the former Buckeyes player said. “And right now we have all the logic, all the rationale in the world to give up on it. And I just ask, pretend for a little bit, and then one day you won’t have to pretend any more and you’ll be happy.”
“I’m so grateful,” he continued. “And I would just ask to keep pretending and then one day you won’t have to, and you’ll be so glad that you did. And that’s the only advice I think I can muster.”
Miller announced that he was “medically retiring” from football on 10 March in a Twitter post, noting how he had told his coach last year that he intended on taking his life. His coach instantly connected Miller with two doctors, and he “received the support [he] needed.”
A few weeks later, he returned to playing football, with “scars on [his] wrists and throat.” And while he said that his scars weren’t noticeable on the field, they still “hurt.”
“They are hard to see, and they are easy to hide, but they sure do hurt,” he explained. “There was a dead man on the television set, but nobody knew it.”
Miller then noted how he went back and forth on the idea of getting help, at the time, as he said that he would “rather be dead than a coward.”
“I had seen the age-old adage of how our generation was softening by the second, but I can tell you my skin was tough,” he wrote. “It had to be. But it was not tougher than the sharp metal of my box cutter. And I saw how easy it was for people to dismiss others by talking about how they were just a dumb, college kid who didn’t know anything.”
However, Miller acknowledged how he wanted to “vouch for” everyone else who has been hurting in the same way he was, but has not been “taken seriously.”
“But luckily, I am a student in the College of Engineering, and I have a 4.0 and whatever accolades you might require, so maybe if somebody’s hurt can be taken seriously for once, it can be mine,” he continued. “And maybe I can vouch for all the other people who hurt but are not taken seriously because, for some reason, pain must have prerequisites.”
When describing why he decided to publicly share his mental health challenges, Miller explained that while people have called him “brave,” he sees this as just “being honest.”
“I had no intention of this happening the way it did, and people call me brave,” he said on Today. “But to me this felt like not dying, and I felt like being honest. And maybe bravery is just being honest when it would be easier not to, and if that’s bravery, then so be it.”
“But I’ve just been really grateful to one, to receive the help I have, and then two, to learn some things that I can share with others,” added.
Miller recalled how he’s had mental health struggles since he was eight, when he once told his mother he wanted to commit suicide. He also noted that he’s “always been anxious and depressed.”
Once he began college, playing football was a “hard game” for him, as there were times where he made “mistakes” on the field and people would send him hateful messages like: “Transfer you suck.”
“Some people get death threats that I know on the team, and I’m trying to text my mom, that’s the first thing I see, and then you can’t worry about it too much because you’ve got an exam the next day,” he said. “And you have that for weeks and then months and by the end of the semester and you’re like, ‘What is happening right now?’”
Miller emphasised how “grateful” he was that he could speak to his coach about his mental health, and for the “love and affection” he’s received along the way.
“I just kept thinking if only somebody would just say something and and I’m just really grateful that I was able to have received the care and love and affection that I did, so that I could,” he said.
For anyone struggling with the issues raised in this piece, The Samaritans allows you to speak to someone for free over the phone, in confidence, on 116 123 (UK and ROI). If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential, and available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
