Our captain Jake Reeves has opened up on the most difficult time in his football career – and urged anyone struggling with their mental health to seek help as soon as possible.
To mark World Mental Health Day, Jake talked to us about a spell at Bradford when career-threatening injuries left him fearing that his playing days would be over.
“When I was out injured for two years at Bradford the club organised someone for me to talk to someone,” our in-form midfielder recalled. “I was told that it could benefit my mental state of mind - and it turned out to be brilliant for me. It can help massively by tweaking how your mind thinks about things, so that you see situations in a positive light.
“Everyone will have different scenarios that are specific to them, but the main thing when anyone is struggling is that they shouldn’t bottle up their feelings. Though you can seek advice from someone professional you can also talk to a person close to you or someone you can relate to who you trust.”
From his own experience, Jake added that making the vital first step to seek help is often the hardest, but he believes it's well worth the effort in the end.
“A key point is to keep going and you have to be strong enough to want the help in the first place as it’s hard to talk to people in the first place about the issues you face. From my own experience I would recommend talking as much as you can, let it out so that you can get it out in the open. It’s never as bad as you first think and there are people out there who care about you.
“One of your team-mates may appear to be the most charismatic in the room and have loads of personality, but he might be struggling away from football, so we should all be there to help in any way we possibly can.”
World Mental Health recognises the importance of talking openly about mental health and AFC Wimbledon recognise that it’s vital to raise awareness as much as possible.
Our Foundation Director Phil Rudling said: “We deal with mental health needs across many of our projects, including our weekly Kicks and Community sessions for young people and our older health projects such as Walking Football and Active Ageing during the week, plus weekly Walk and Talk sessions on Saturdays.
“One of our participants recently summed up his involvement with the following words, ‘It has improved my mental and physical health – I have talked with many new people and learnt about new cultures.’
“The Foundation also support several members of our staff team who have had issues with their mental health and we’ve built a strong relationship with Kingston MIND over the past few years.”
If you're struggling with mental health, there are plenty of ways to seek help. Having worked and supported Mind over the years, we strongly recommend this charity, which can be accessed by clicking on the link below.
For more about what we offer people of all ages, visit our AFC Wimbledon Foundation website.