I’m Not Really Here

by Paul Lake

  When full-blown depression finally hit me – in my mid-20s, when I was at my most vulnerable – the impact was devastating. With my confidence shot and my career in tatters, I found myself trapped in a world of pain where, in the words of that old Sad Café song, every day hurt.

  Problems rained in from every direction. The smallest of daily chores became a huge effort. Every thought, deed and action weighed me down. All the elements of my personality that had previously given me strength – my drive, my optimism, my humour – were suddenly snatched away, leaving behind a dreadful sense of emptiness. I felt like one of those snakeskin exhibits often found in natural history museums: a hollow, fragile shell, the life and soul having slithered out and departed.

  I was tormented by the triple-whammy of insomnia, inertia and amnesia. I’d lie awake until dawn, equally fearful of the day as I was of the night. I’d use up all my strength just getting washed, dressed and out of the house each morning. I’d forget to phone friends, to pay bills and to keep appointments. Sometimes I’d even bypass food and drink, going through a whole day totally oblivious to my rumbling stomach and sandpaper mouth. My hopelessness ran so deep that nothing, and nobody, could make any difference to the way I felt. I could have scooped the Vernon’s Pools jackpot, or spent the night with Pamela Anderson, and would have still felt depressed the following morning.

  But, while my head was all over the place, the world still turned, and I had to continue fulfilling my role as an upstanding employee of Manchester City Football Club. Like some kind of remote-controlled robot, I’d troop from gym to pitch and from executive box to supporters’ club, feeling like I was everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

  By far my worst nightmare was being in company. The willpower required to bottle up my emotions, conceal my symptoms and feign normality (‘I’m fine, honest!’) left me utterly exhausted, and would only sink me further into despair. As a consequence, I’d find myself withdrawing from social gatherings, wriggling out of meals with my family and avoiding drinks with my friends. I could just about manage a trip to the cinema, only because it was dark and diverting, a place where I could binge on Coke and popcorn and not have to speak to another human being for a couple of hours.

  Crippled with paranoia, I’d steer clear of my local pub and off licence, worried that people would think I’d plumbed the depths and hit the bottle. I’d even go to the lengths of visiting supermarkets and petrol stations late at night, in order to avoid bumping into anyone I knew and having to conduct the same old conversation.

  To relieve the pressure in my head and the sickness in my stomach, I’d go for lengthy evening walks, obsessively counting the number of steps I took as I pounded the pavements to the video shop in Didsbury or the Kansas Fried Chicken in Burnage. Often, following my usual Friday night in the gym, I’d wander aimlessly for hours on end. With my hood up and my head down, I’d pass pub terraces teeming with weekend revellers, groups of students chatting at bus stops, and weary nurses clocking off their shifts at the Alexandra Hospital.

  One particular summer’s night, I found myself standing on a motorway bridge in Cheadle. I leant over the rails and peered down at the grey tarmac and white lines, watching the afterglow of the headlights and tail-lights as the traffic rumbled beneath me. Despite my sombre frame of mind, I didn’t contemplate jumping off; I just remember drawing comfort from watching this vibrant slice of life below, idly wondering about the drivers and the passengers, trying to guess their destinations and imagine their conversations.

  I noticed a police car driving past me on the bridge and, half an hour later, after passing me again in the opposite direction, it stopped. Two uniformed bobbies got out. They crossed the road and came over to ask if I was okay (they didn’t recognise me, thankfully) no doubt concerned that I was about to leap into the path of an oncoming juggernaut.

  ‘Could be better, I s’pose,’ I replied, before assuring them that I wasn’t planning death by Eddie Stobart, that I was just having some thinking time, and that I’d got a lot on my mind at the moment. I told them I was grateful for their solicitude, but that they needn’t worry because I was just about to go home for a few cans in front of the telly. They looked at each other, nodded and headed back to their car. I took a deep breath, turned on my heels, and started the long walk back to Heaton Mersey, counting the steps as I went.

  Not long afterwards, I decided to seek professional help. Never before had I felt so physically strong, yet so mentally weak, and after an emotional chat with the physios at Lilleshall, I took a deep breath, picked up the phone and made an appointment to see my GP. As is typical with many blokes, I’d put my emotions problems on the backburner, thinking that if I left them alone they’d go away, that things would naturally remedy themselves. I was also petrified at the prospect of finally owning up to my frailties, visualising the scenario of being certified doolally and being carted off in a van by the men in white coats.

  Even in the 1990s, admitting to a mental illness came with a great deal of stigma attached. In those days it was still something of a taboo, and was virtually unheard of within the masculine sporting fraternity, where bravado was flaunted and emotions were hidden. To many, the concept of a rich and famous professional footballer suffering with depression was impossible to grasp. Paul Gascoigne wasn’t seen as a troubled, vulnerable young man exhibiting signs of obsessive compulsion; Gazza was just mad as a hatter, off his head, daft as a brush. When Stan Collymore was diagnosed with depression while at Aston Villa, his manager, John Gregory, reacted with cynicism, reportedly asking ‘what’s he got to be depressed about?’

  Driving to my GP’s surgery that morning, knowing that I was about to come clean about my sad little secret, was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. In saying that, I felt a profound sense of relief when I knocked on the doctor’s door. Stepping into his consulting room, I could feel the pressure deflating in my head as I crossed the threshold between denial and disclosure.

  All it took was a simple ‘so tell me how you’re feeling, Paul?’ for the floodgates to open. I told him everything. How football had been my birthright, how I’d been born with the game woven into my DNA. How I’d grown up on local pitches and playing fields, and how happy, secure and free I’d felt in this natural environment. How football had been my sole calling in life, and how it had become ingrained in my personality, like writing is to authors, like painting is to artists.

  I then described how my career had collapsed around me, leaving all my hopes and aspirations in ruins. How the people that I’d entrusted with my health and welfare had let me down. How the game that I’d loved with all my heart had become the bane of my existence.

  The GP was incredibly sympathetic, listening intently to my story and nudging over a box of Kleenex when I lost my composure. It came as no surprise to me to be told at the end of my appointment that I was suffering from severe depression. The doctor wrote out a prescription for a long-term dose of antidepressants.

  ‘I also think you’d benefit from some therapy, Paul,’ he added, ‘so I’ll be referring you to the Priory.’

  The Manchester Priory was situated in Altrincham, a well-heeled town on the border of Cheshire and Greater Manchester. I started to attend the clinic once or twice a week, undergoing hour-long sessions with a psychotherapist. Other than my close family, not a single soul knew about these regular visits, and I took great pains to keep things from the club, worried that I’d be seen as some kind of basket case.

  Not only that, I was scared to death of bumping into a City fan, worried sick that news would leak out that Paul Lake was seeing a shrink. I’d cover this particular base by always going to the Priory with a spare cheque in my pocket that I’d scrawled on. If waylaid by someone in a sky blue shirt, my plan was always to wave the cheque quickly around before claiming that I was en route to present it to some mental health charity based at the centre. Whether anyone would have actually believed this pitiful ruse was debatable.

  In an airy,
white-walled room my therapist explained how our sessions would help to pinpoint my issues and develop some coping strategies. Part of this process, she said, would involve analysis of my recent and distant past to identify what had sparked off my depression. She spent ages grilling me about my childhood, my relationships and my career, paying particular attention to my trip to the States to see Dr Sisto, and more specifically the return journey.

  ‘I reckon it was that flight home from LA that did the most damage,’ she said, pacing slowly around the room.

  ‘Being shoved into that cramped seat made you feel worthless and neglected and ever since then these tensions have built up to create a kind of breakdown,’ she explained. ‘What’s happened is that you’ve closed yourself off from the world, Paul, battened down the hatches, built walls around yourself.’

  She then told me how depression was often linked with feelings of deep loss or sudden change, and how the unexpected halt to my career had ticked both boxes and contributed to my despair.

  ‘Your injury’s been like a bereavement, in a way,’ she said gently. ‘You’re in shock. You’re in mourning. You feel like a huge chunk of your life is missing.’

  I sat there in my comfy Mastermind chair, amazed at how this woman was able to pin down my mindset and dissect my illness with such accuracy. Everything she said rang true; it all made sense.

  ‘You’ve almost been living a lie, haven’t you?’ she continued, as I bit hard into my trembling lip. ‘Pretending that everything’s all right when it’s clearly not, and having to put on a brave face, day in, day out. That must have been so hard for you to cope with.’

  I nodded. ‘It was. It is.’

  And then she sat back down, peered at me over her specs, and told me that, if I was to give myself the best chance of recovery, I had to realise that my depression was a chemical imbalance, not an emotional weakness; that it was an illness, not an attitude.

  ‘It’s not your fault, Paul,’ she repeated in order to emphasise the point.

  Life on antidepressants felt different. Not better, necessarily, just different. My GP had warned me not to view my supply of Seroxat as a cure (‘they treat the symptoms of depression, not the root cause,’ he’d said), and I was told not to expect any sudden urges to break into song or frolic through cornfields.

  What these blue torpedo-shaped pills did do, however, was regulate my mood swings and reduce my stress levels, thus taking the edge off my anxiety and allowing me to get through my day a little more easily. The flip side of this sedative effect, however, was a persistent numbness that blunted my senses and blurred my judgement. It seemed like everything was in soft focus, as if every thought and impulse was on a five-second time delay. This chemically induced fug meant that the most banal decision became a major dilemma, and I’d find myself hovering at newspaper stands, unable to decide between a GQ or an FHM. I felt like I’d gone from being under a cloud to having my head in one.

  Though the aches in my head had subsided, my knee joint was as troublesome as ever. I remember hobbling across the Maine Road forecourt one morning and being collared by a City fan who appeared to be holding what looked like a urine sample.

  ‘Lakey, this is for you,’ he said in a heavy Dublin accent, pressing the vial into my palm. ‘It’s holy water, all the way from Ireland. Hope it helps.’

  Despite not being particularly religious, I was really touched by this man’s kind sentiments. I took the magic potion back home and, each morning for a whole week, gently dabbed it on my operation scars. The fact that it had no discernible effect came as no massive surprise, but it got me thinking about giving some complementary therapies a go. So-called ‘Western’ medicine hadn’t worked, so why not try some alternatives? I’d nothing to lose, other than the contents of my moth-eaten wallet. I was prepared to give anything a go if it meant me making the greatest comeback since Lazarus (© Sid Waddell).

  First up was a course of faith healing. I had found the practitioner’s details on a leaflet, and had been attracted by the glowing testimonials from people whose lives and fortunes had apparently been transformed for ever.

  Driving to her treatment room in Yorkshire, I remember pulling over at a service station and sitting in the car park thinking, what the bloody hell am I doing? Had it not been for another voice in my head telling me to gwan, gwan, gwan like Mrs Doyle in Father Ted, I’d probably have cut my losses and done a U-turn there and then.

  After relieving me of £50, the faith healer, a slight woman in her 40s, gestured to a bed in the middle of the room.

  ‘Lie down, close your eyes and try to relax,’ she whispered, and proceeded to waffle on about inner energy and magnetic fields. Bloody get on with it, I felt like saying as I totted up the pence-per-minute rate. She then held her hands out and hovered them over my knee for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘I sense lots of negative energy on the right side of your body,’ she said. ‘Come back next week, and let’s see if we can sort it out.’

  On the M62 back home I tried to convince myself that my spiritual healing experience had had a positive effect, that miracles could indeed happen, and that it was money well spent. However, after two disappointingly uneventful follow-up visits, my optimism turned to scepticism. I’m sure Madame Faith meant well, and had doubtless given many patients comfort and hope, but I came to the conclusion that I was just clutching at straws.

  I also gave Chinese acupuncture a go, attending a clinic in central Manchester, but again came out feeling disappointed. While the minuscule needles helped to reduce my discomfort and ease my insomnia, they didn’t take away the need for my daily dose of painkillers, and for that reason I knocked it on the head. Knowing what I do now about acupuncture (I went on a course a few years back) I was kidding myself if I thought an ancient therapeutic remedy was going to compensate for a ravaged knee that was missing a ligament. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  The most effective therapy, I discovered, often came from sources much closer to home. One morning, beset with aches and pains, I turned up at Maine Road with a face like a dropped pie. My old pal Niall Quinn – who was himself sidelined through injury – must have sensed I was having a bad day of it.

  ‘Lakey, you’re coming with me. I’m taking you for a proper Irish breakfast.’

  ‘Nah, you’re all right, Quinny …’

  ‘I’m not asking you, big fella, I’m telling you.’

  ‘What about the gaffer … ?’

  ‘Ah, don’t you be worrying about him, I’ll sort it.’

  And with that he frogmarched me across the forecourt and bundled me into his car, driving me to a city-centre café nestled beneath the Mancunian Way flyover.

  A few months before, Quinny had suffered a cruciate ligament rupture similar to mine. Unlike me, though, he was recovering nicely, his operation having been performed by a suitably experienced surgeon in the south of England with a reputation comparable to Dr Sisto’s. Ironically enough, I’d helped Niall to secure the best treatment possible. Not wanting my team-mate to relive my nightmare, I’d advised him to bypass any advice from the club and consult the experts at Lilleshall instead, who subsequently pointed him in the direction of a tried-and-tested knee specialist. (Peter Swales’s tacit approval of this course of action spoke volumes; in my opinion, it was tantamount to an admittance of failure regarding my own treatment.)

  Quinny and I walked into the café to be greeted by a smiling waitress, clearly pleased to see one of her most famous customers.

  ‘Howya, Niall – what can I get you?’

  ‘Two full Irish and a big pot of tea, please,’ he grinned.

  Ten minutes later a colossal plate of eggs and bacon with all the trimmings arrived. You could keep your sodding Seroxat; that morning, it was a good old-fashioned fry-up that dragged me out of the doldrums. My friend, bless his heart, did his best to take my mind off the doom and the gloom, regaling me with his latest family news and chatting about anything but football. So ther
e was no ‘can’t wait for you to be back playing alongside me, pal,’ or ‘I wish you’d had the same surgeon as me, Lakey.’ Instead, it was ‘can you shovel any more in that feckin’ big gob of yours?’ as he watched me hungrily tuck in.

  The internal politics of Maine Road were never usually at the forefront of dressing-room discussions. The average player didn’t give a chuff about AGMs and behind-the-scenes power struggles, and was far more bothered about the tasty secretary in the clingy top.

  In the autumn of 1993, however, it had been a totally different story. The whole club, from the boardroom to the boot room, buzzed with rumours that Francis Lee, City legend-turned-millionaire-businessman, was about to oust our unpopular chairman by mounting a takeover bid for the club. Fed up with Peter Swales’ dictatorship, most fans threw their support behind the former Blues’ hero, most notably the vocal ‘Forward with Franny’ pressure group which organised countless anti-Swales demonstrations, leaflet drops and candlelit vigils.

  The whole thing, in classic City style, was one long soap opera with, if you ask me, definite shades of Coronation Street’s classic Ken, Mike and Deirdre love triangle. In one camp you had the crusty old stick-in-the-mud, entrenched in his ways, desperate to cling on to his one-and-only (even though she was a bit dowdy and in need of a good makeover). And in the opposing corner was the dapper, dynamic entrepreneur, trying his hardest to snatch his bitter rival’s true love with promises of money, glamour and a brand-new start.