A former NBA player talks about serious depression in an essay

Miles, the NBA's third-choice selection in 2000 at the high school exit (before the one-and-done era), gained instant fame during his first two seasons in the league with the Los Angeles Clippers.

Today, at age 37, he began his essay by writing about the shock of life that he experienced as a 18-year-old overnight celebrity who was suddenly winning millions of dollars after having grew up in a violent neighborhood of East St. Louis. Miles recounted that he had been arrested under the threat of a pistol while he was a teenager, shortly after signing with the Jordan brand, riding in private jets and creating cameos in Hollywood movies.

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Forced to retire in his late twenties, knee injury, Miles said that basketball had helped him escape and heal the trauma that he had suffered on the street. growing. He said that after the death of his mother, Ethel, following a harsh fight against cancer in 2013, he had become deeply depressed and "almost gone crazy."

"When she died, I will not lie, it broke me," he writes. "I did not leave home for a year, I never went outside the garden before, for real, I just did not want to do anything.

"I stayed stuck in my mother's home in East St. Louis for about three years, I worked all my life to get out of there, and I was back in. Just … taken to trap, carrying my weapon everywhere with me I could not sleep I could not escape my own head I could not find peace (…) I was paranoid I had my license hidden porterage, so I always had a gun. "

Miles added that because he had lost much of the money that he had earned throughout his career in the NBA, his commercial contracts had gone bad or that the company had not been successful. 39; money had been sold to him – he declared bankruptcy in 2016 – he was found in a dark place considered to resort to violence for revenge.

"The worst thing was that I had people who owed me a lot of money and that I got to a point where I saw red, really," he wrote. "I had the impression of being able to hurt someone or end up in jail."

Miles said that the help of his former teammate, Quentin Richardson, had pushed him out of a deep depression and getting back on his feet. The two former players, who made a very striking move during their two seasons together during the Clippers' period, became neighbors. Richardson helped edit the Miles test for The players' forum, which ultimately aimed to destigmatize mental illness.

"I know guys like me are not supposed to talk about depression, but I'm going to talk about it," Miles wrote. "If a real mother (expletive) like me can fight with, then everyone can fight with her."