The former player urges others facing mental health issues not to suffer in silence
LEYTON Orient legend Martin Ling has revealed he considered suicide twice while struggling with mental illness.
The first time, during his tenure as manager of Cambridge United FC, he was behind the wheel. He considered driving into an oncoming lorry.
The second, he was managing Torquay, and while walking alongside a railway line he started to think about how best he could jump in front of a train.
Ling, 52, who oversaw Orient’s return to the Football League this season as director of football, having previously represented the club as player and manager, is speaking out to help others facing mental health issues.
Suicide is the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, which is why The Sun launched the You're Not Alone suicide prevention campaign, to raise awareness and break down the taboos around mental health.
It was back in 2013, while manager of Torquay, that Ling's depression reached crisis point.
“It was like I had two heads,” says Martin, 52. “One side of my head was telling me suicide is a good idea.
"Who is going to suffer? You’ll be out of all your pain, you’ll have nothing to worry about and all the pain will go away.
“And then the other side will be saying to me are you serious?
"How about your family? Your wife and your two children and your parents?”
At the height of his anxiety, he says it felt like his head was going to explode.
“I convinced myself that I had a brain tumour. I went to Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital but after being in bed for three hours I knew there was nothing wrong. It was the mental health," he tells The Sun.
“I decided I was going to go home and as I was driving down the M4 I thought I was having a heart attack.
"It felt like my heart was coming out of my chest. I could hardly hold on to the wheel.”
A desperate Ling rang his wife in a panic. She was the one who broke it to him - there was nothing wrong with his heart and he was confused as to what was really happening to his head.
It was all about his mental health, she explained.
Martin, who also played for Swindon, Southend and Brighton, sought treatment and found himself at The Priory clinic.
“When I go and see my doctor every three months now to get my tablets, first question he asks is ‘have you got any suicidal thoughts?’,” he says.
EVERY 90 minutes in the UK a life is lost - to suicide.
It doesn't discriminate, touching the lives of people in every corner of society - from the homeless and unemployed to builders and doctors, reality stars and footballers.
It's the biggest killer of people under the age of 35, more deadly than cancer and car crashes. And men are three times more likely to take their own life than women.
Yet, it's rarely spoken of, a taboo that threatens to continue its deadly rampage unless we all stop and take notice, now.
That is why The Sun launched the You're Not Alone campaign. To remind anyone facing a tough time, grappling with mental illness or feeling like there's nowhere left to turn, that there is hope.
We have shared the stories of brave survivors, relatives left behind, heroic Good Samaritans - and have shared tips from mental health experts.
The aim is that by sharing practical advice, raising awareness and breaking down the barriers people face when talking about their mental health, we can all do our bit to help save lives.
Let's all vow to ask for help when we need it, and listen out for others. You're Not Alone.
For a list of support services available, please see the Where To Get Help box below.
Martin says that during his playing career between 1982 and 2000, he never heard mental illness being discussed.
“What you’ve got to remember is one in four people suffer from mental health. If there’s one in four then there’s a lot of people who aren’t talking about it,” he says.
Martin is speaking out about his own experience to encourage others suffering from mental illness to speak out and seek help like he did.
“I can talk about this and it’s quite cleansing, whereas before I didn’t want anybody to know, I didn’t want people to feel sorry for me.”
He says: “I never got nerves in my life as a player or a manager, that’s where this illness throws me because I wasn’t that type.
“Then I realised what I used to do was suppress my feelings.”
He says he just didn’t want anyone to know that he was feeling the way he was, explaining that he didn’t want to make their lives a misery either.
“Press it down and it will go away,” is how he used to think.
“I’ve learnt that if things worry me now, I get them out.”
You need only head down the corridor at Brisbane Road, to the manager’s office, to hear another horror story of depression.
Justin Edinburgh, 49, the man who ended the O’s two-year absence from the Football League, was manager at Rushden & Diamonds between 2009 and 2011.
Edinburgh and his squad were on the team bus heading to an away game and goalkeeper Dale Roberts had not turned up.
Team-mates tried to ring the former Nottingham Forest stopper yet there was no answer.
If you, or anyone you know, needs help dealing with mental health problems, the following organisations provide support:
“We left it with senior members of the club and I got the worst phone call I could imagine, that he’d taken his life,” Edinburgh recalled.
“I had to pull the coach over and tell not only colleagues but friends. It was the worst thing and feeling and one I would never wish on anyone.”
Justin learnt so much from that experience and is now on his guard for any sign of mental anguish among his team.
“It’s a macho industry and not something you want to let the dressing room know, that you feel low or not up to training or you've got problems,” he says.
“There’s nothing wrong with being open and honest about that because your health and life is so much more important than that.”
Martin says: “My advice would be don’t suffer in silence.
"If you don’t come and talk about it and you don’t share it, it won’t get better.”
