“There is help, always.”
In a moving statement posted online last week, Ohio State offensive lineman Harry Miller medically retired from football.
Not because of a broken or beaten body, like some might initially expect, but for something equally important – struggles with mental health.
Miller bravely detailed his decision to seek help after planning to take his own life last year.
He said he shared his intentions with Coach Ryan Day, who put him in touch with medical professionals. Though he attempted to return to playing football, Miller said he continued to struggle with self-harm and felt like a “dead man.”
Miller chronicled the “brutal sadness” and anger he felt, his fear that God would not forgive him and his journey “learning to love.”
While we often feel that public figures, like athletes, owe us an explanation for their decisions, the fact of the matter is: they don’t.
We don’t have the right to know the intimate details of Miller’s life.
He could have retired without an explanation, choosing to privately attempt to put the past behind him.
But, out of kindness and empathy for others, he chose to share.
Miller wrote that he feared some people would see his story as evidence that the young people of his generation are becoming soft.
However, as an athlete and 4.0 engineering student at a well-known university, he said “maybe I can vouch for all the other people who hurt but are not taken seriously because, for some reason, pain must have prerequisites.”
Miller was clear that he is not the only person fighting similar, often hidden battles.
“This is not an issue reserved for the far and away. It is in our homes. It is in our conversations. It is in the people we love,” he wrote.
He is right.
According to the 2019-2020 Ohio Healthy Youth Environments Survey, through which state agencies gather opinions from seventh through twelfth grade students, many young people in Union County feel similarly to Miller.
More than 25% of the respondents at Marysville, Fairbanks and North Union said they struggled with anxiety issues that warranted help from a mental health professional. More than 17% sought help for depression.
Perhaps more troubling is that 14% of local students said they seriously considered attempting suicide during the past year.
I worry that many of them spend too much time asking what is “wrong” with them, while we spend too little asking what we can do to help.
Miller said he is thankful for the resources at Ohio State and the fact that Coach Day led him there.
We have the resources here in Union County, too – among them are help lines, peer support groups and mental health professionals. Many dedicated, caring people are working still to improve and expand the options available.
But, we need to speak up about the fact that it is okay to seek help, and guide our friends and family there.
Miller’s honesty should remind us all that we can’t afford to be apathetic.
“The cost of apathy is life, but the price of life is as small as an act of kindness,” he wrote.
(The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-TALK (8255); The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Union County has a 24/7 crisis hotline that can be reached at 1-800-731-5577 or by texting 4HELP to 85511)
-Kayleen Petrovia is a reporter for the Journal-Tribune.