“It was as if he was standing right next to me,” recalls Wall in a powerful and revealing essay for the Players’ Tribune which he posted on Thursday. “She looked me in the eye and said, ‘You have to keep going for your children. There is more for you to do on this earth.’”
Wall considered the dream a “sign from God.” With his world collapsing around him, he finally confided in a friend that he needed help and started seeing a therapist. He saved her life.
wall, who signed a two-year deal with the Los Angeles Clippers in Julyfirst opened up about his mental health in a one-on-one interview at a charity event last month.
“The darkest place I’ve ever been,” Wall said in response to a question about what the last two and a half years have been like for him. “I mean, at one point, I thought about killing myself. There was a time when I had to go find a therapist. A lot of people think: ‘I don’t need help. I can get over it at any time. But you have to be true to yourself and figure out what’s best for you, and I did.”
Wall expanded on those comments in the Players’ Tribune essay, which describes in great detail the confluence of life events that made him feel as if suicide, which he acknowledges is practically a taboo word in the community in which he grew up, was “the only option.”
The five-time NBA All-Star suffered a Achilles injury in February 2019 that forced him to miss the entire 2019-20 season and cost him “the only sanctuary” he ever knew. His mother, Frances Ann Pulley, died 10 months later. Wall remembers calling his mother “six or seven times a day just to get her voice mail” in the days that followed.
“My best friend is gone,” he writes of his mother. “I can’t play the game I love. Everybody just put out their hand. no one is controlling me me. It always comes with something attached. Who’s there to hold me down now? What is the point of being here?
On top of all that, Wall became the subject of trade rumors. finally it was treated by wizardswho selected him with the No. 1 pick in the 2010 draft, to the Houston Rockets for Russell Westbrook in December 2020.
“The franchise I sacrificed my blood, sweat and tears to represent for 10 years decided it wanted to move on,” Wall writes. “I was devastated, I’m not going to lie. That’s when I started debating, literally debating, if I wanted to continue, almost every night.”
Wall said he tried to quell his pain by partying, but his dark thoughts returned when the party stopped and his friends went home, and one night he “came as close as he could get to making an unfortunate decision and leaving this earth.” ”
Wall said the therapy has “slowly changed things” for him. He continues to see a therapist and has found a sense of peace and purpose in being a good father to his two young children and carrying on his mother’s legacy. Wall hopes his story is a lesson to others who might be hesitant to ask for help, as he was for so long.
“He had to be the man of the house at nine years old,” writes Wall, whose father died of liver cancer. “So my whole mindset, no matter the situation, was always, ‘I don’t need anyone’s help. I’ll figure it out. I’ve put effort into everything else, so why not this? Being a product of your environment is not a bad thing. But I think it’s a blessing and a curse. Being a dog, being unbreakable, always having that chip on your shoulder, hey him, I get it. I have been that guy. But the day will come when you cannot do it on your own. And you have to be strong enough that day to ask for help.”
If you or someone you know needs help, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 800-273-TALK (8255). You can also text a crisis counselor by sending a message to the crisis text line at 741741.
