Buffon reveals panic attacks and depression

Paris St-Germain goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon has revealed he suffered with depression and once missed a Juventus game after having a panic attack. Former Italy international Buffon, 40, spent 17 years at Juventus, playing 656 times and winning nine Serie A titles, before his 2018 move to PSG.

But in an interview with Vanity Fair, Buffon says he struggled during his early years with the Italian giants. “For a few months, everything lost meaning,” he said. He added: “It seemed like no-one cared about me, just the footballer I represented. “It was like everyone was asking about Buffon and nobody about Gigi.”

Buffon, who won the World Cup with Italy in 2006, says the turning point came at the age of 25 when he told Juve’s goalkeeping coach he couldn’t play in a Serie A match.

“I went to Ivano Bordon, the goalkeeper coach, and told him: ‘Ivano, get [goalkeeper Antonio] Chimenti to warm up and play. I’m not feeling up to it.’

“I had suffered a panic attack and was in no state to play the match.

“If I had not gone through this experience, that cloud and that turmoil with other people, I may have never have got out of it.”

Matt Johnson – Why you should talk about mental health

Nine years have passed since TV host Matt Johnson ­contemplated ending his own life and five since he became an ­ambassador for the mental health charity Mind.

Yet despite channelling his efforts into de-stigmatising mental illness for others, the former This Morning presenter has only just spoken to a therapist for the first time.

“I probably didn’t go to see someone because I was scared of digging too deep and it getting messy,” admits Matt, 36, who first suffered depression in his 20s.

“It’s such a shame it took me so long. I can’t recommend it enough – I’d 100% tell people to go and talk to an actual professional. Just do it.”

After his close call with suicide while on a Christmas break in Spain in 2009 (“I was on a balcony’s edge with my foot up”), Matt suffered several bouts of depression yet avoided therapy.

“It didn’t fit with the way I wanted to go,” he says. “Maybe in my ­subconscious I didn’t feel comfortable with going to talk to somebody. I wanted to deal with it in a different, more organic way.”

Instead, Matt spent years trying ­alternative therapies to improve his mental wellbeing. “For me, my life was my therapy. I’ve been to Thailand and chanted with monks, when I was in LA I tried yoga and meditating. I’ve done the whole ‘I want to punish myself’ thing too, so ran three marathons.

“I thought talking to people I met was enough. Everything has been a forward step in self-discovery, but sitting down and having a talk with a professional didn’t happen until a few months ago.”

“I have grown up in a world where therapy is for broken people and that perception is wrong”

It wasn’t a drop in mood that finally persuaded Matt it would be good to talk. “I have grown up in a world where therapy is for broken people and that perception is wrong,” he says.

“We think it means accepting there is a problem, which isn’t necessarily the case. When I finally went, it was not as somebody who wanted to fix anything – I’m in a really great place – but because I’ve got a busy year coming up.

“I’m very good at creating ideas and then not following them through, so that was the reason I signed up. Then, in a way, everything fell into place – all the stuff about my past all made sense.”

Matt has been surprised to discover even his close friends aren’t as comfortable talking about mental health. “The stigma attached is terrible,” he says. “Recently I shouted across the gym to a friend to say I was leaving as I had a therapy appointment. He jumped across the room to shush me up because he was so worried I was going to embarrass myself. He couldn’t believe the fact it didn’t bother me to say it out loud.

“He’s intelligent and has seen so much of the work I’ve done to raise awareness of mental health, but was still saying ‘shhh, let’s not talk about therapy out loud’. There’s still work to be done.”

This is one of the reasons Matt joined forces with life coach Ben Bidwell. They met on a plane to Ibiza and discovered a mutual interest in mental health. “I told him about my work for Mind and he told me about his work as The Naked Professor and we had a ‘eureka!’ moment of making a podcast together.”

In the weekly show, the pair interview household names such as Davina McCall and Busted singer Matt Willis about their own experiences of mental illness. “We want to start conversations about mental health and see where they go,” Matt says. “When I first spoke publicly about my own experiences five years ago – to my ‘TV parents’ Eamonn and Ruth – it was a huge, huge shock as I was one of the very tiny number of people talking about the issue.

“Now you see a lot more public figures opening up but I’m concerned it’s not a true reflection of what is happening in rural and working-class areas in the UK.

“The stats just haven’t improved. Suicide is still the biggest killer of young men, so while ­discussions may be happening in magazines, on TV and in the cities, I’m not sure the message is getting thought in rural parts of Wales, the valleys where I come from, for example. My story might have been very different if I had stayed in Caerphilly.”

Matt also believes drastic action is required when it comes to the state of our mental health services. “What’s the point of TV shows helping us recognise the signs of a problem just so someone watching can say ‘that’s me’, then wait up to 10 weeks to see someone?

“We need to make therapy affordable and accessible because the people who are struggling with purpose and finance are the ones who really need help.

“There was a moment for me in 2016 where I didn’t have any work lined up and had debts. I’d also had a break-up. I was in bad shape and suffering from chronic sleep deprivation so took myself to the doctor as I didn’t want to end up back where I was in 2009.

“It was quite a desperate moment and my GP gave me seven minutes to discuss what was wrong, diagnose me, give me tablets and tell me to expect a letter within seven days. I then had to call a number on that letter to sort a counselling appointment six weeks later. I never took the tablets and never phoned them back – and no one ever followed me up.

“It’s shocking. The entire mental health sector is massively underfunded and needs to be straightened out.”

The Naked Professors podcast can be downloaded on iTunes, Spotify and Acast.

Mind has a confidential support line on 0300 123 3393 (9am to 6pm, Monday to Friday).

If you need to speak to someone, Samaritans are available 24/7 by calling 116 123 or by emailing jo@samaritans.org

Never take a bad work day home again, using these 3 steps

It’s about creating a space to transition from your work self to your home self, according to peak performance researcher and consultant Adam Fraser.

What are you carrying home from work with you? We don’t mean the tangible, practical items — the empty sandwich container or the folders of papers to look over — but the invisible stuff that can weigh us down — that critical comment made by a coworker, the disappointing numbers in the weekly report, the important meeting that keeps getting rescheduled. Do you ever wish there was a “delete” or “pause” button you could push to stop your brain from whirring?

Australian performance consultant Adam Fraser hasn’t invented a pause button, but he has come up with a trick to help people stop bringing home their bad days: Create a “third space” that gives you the mental room to transition from work life to home life.

The third space doesn’t need to be a physical area. It could be “the drive home, the ferry ride, the bus ride, walking the dog, going to the gym,” as one CEO told him. It’s just about taking the time to power down from your day and decide how you’d like to show up at home. Because if you don’t do this, you risk passing your grumpy mood to the people you live with. “Even if you live on your own,” Fraser adds, “how you transition home determines whether you unwind, relax and socialize or obsess and worry about the day.”

To set yourself up for a restorative evening, Fraser suggests these three steps.

Reflect on your day. Ask yourself: “What went well? What did I achieve? What might I do better tomorrow?” These questions are intended to remind you about your successes, nudge you to learn from your experiences, and adjust for the future.

Rest by doing something that makes you present. This might mean doing sudoku, exercising or meditating. It could also be as simple as taking a shower and changing out of your work clothes before you engage with other people. Fraser likes to bring his two kids and dog to the park, where they all run around. “We are idiots for 45 minutes,” he says, laughing.

Reset by asking yourself: “How do I want to show up at home?” Rather than flying in the door with your work day trailing behind you, try to be purposeful as you step into your personal life.

You can spend as little as 15 minutes in your third space, says Fraser: “It’s not when you show up, it’s how you show up.”

Watch his TEDxQUT talk here:

Leigh Griffiths says mental health is reason for football break not ‘any other issue’

Celtic striker Leigh Griffiths says he is taking a break from football due to mental health issues, not “gambling, drugs or any other issue”.

In December, Celtic boss Brendan Rodgers said Griffiths would be unavailable for “a number of months” due to ongoing personal issues.  “He’s reached a point where it’s a struggle for him. We are going to give him all the professional help he needs to get him back in a good place again.”

Griffiths released a statement on Twitter on Sunday morning calling out the “laughable lies” he has had to face in the press and on social media, demanding anyone with “real evidence” come forward, saying “let’s see it”.

It read: “Despite what has been written about me, rumoured or said to you from afar, I just want to settle one thing and to make it clear once and for all.

“I am off work due to my mental health state. Not gambling, drugs, or any other issue that has been written about me since December.

“I’m putting this out there now because family and friends are being asked questions and they’ve been told to say nothing. But I’ll not be silenced, especially by newspapers and idiots who can write tweets and make up stories and it grows arms and legs due to people’s sad and pathetic lives.”

PM to promise NHS mental healthcare boost for under-18s

Theresa May is to promise a major expansion of NHS mental healthcare for children and young people in an attempt to tackle the “scandal” of most under-18s not receiving treatment.

Health service managers said they hoped the move would end the persistent criticism that only a minority of young people receive help for debilitating conditions such as depression, eating disorders and psychosis.

The pledge will be included in the NHS long-term plan to be launched by the prime minister and the chief executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, at a hospital on Monday.

For years MPs, psychiatrists, mental health charities and families have accused the NHS of letting down troubled teenagers by not ensuring that more of them received treatment.

The NHS responded by agreeing to increase the proportion of those with a diagnosable mental health condition who get treated from 25% to 35% by 2020-21. However, key people, such as the children’s commissioner, Anne Longfield, said that even the revised ambition was inadequate and cast doubt on the NHS’s commitment to ensuring “parity of esteem” between mental and physical health.

The long-term plan – which will set out how the NHS plans to spend the extra £20.5bn a year it will receive by 2023-24 – will make clear that many more under-18s will receive care over the next few years.

Stevens has been considering pleas from Claire Murdoch, NHS England’s national mental health director, and Paul Farmer, the chief executive of the mental health charity Mind, to increase the treatment target from 35% to 50%.

When questioned by MPs in October about the 35% figure, Stevens assured them the target would rise as part of the plan to deliver “a more ambitious set of service expansions and reforms in mental health, as well as in other areas”.

He said improvements in access to treatment meant 30.5% of under-18s were already being helped by specialist NHS child and adolescent mental health services (Camhs), and the NHS was “on track” to meet the 35% target by 2020-21.

May has pledged to dramatically improve NHS mental healthcare for people of all ages as part of her personal agenda to address the “burning injustices” in British society she identified when she took office in July 2016.

The prime minister has made better help for under-18s a key priority, and unveiled plans to give schools a key role and introduce a maximum four-week waiting time for young people to start receiving help, although initially only in some parts of England.

Stevens has cautioned that serious staffing problems across mental health services limit the NHS’s ability to expand Camhs care to deal with the growing number of under-18s affected by mental ill-health.

He told the public accounts committee of MPs: “We want to get to a position where ultimately every child who needs a specialist NHS mental health service is able to get it, but that might not be the same as every child with a diagnosable mental health condition, which at the moment is what the 30% or 35% is tracking.”

May will reveal key elements of the plan on The Andrew Marr Show on BBC One on Sunday morning, with the health and social care secretary, Matt Hancock, giving further details on Sophy Ridge on Sunday on Sky News.

Mental health campaigners made clear the plan must significantly increase the number of children and young people who receive help. They said that, just as NHS bosses would not allow under-18s with a serious physical condition, such as cancer, to go untreated, the same should apply to those with psychological or psychiatric conditions, some of which can lead to self-harm and suicide.

“The previous target of treating just a third of under-18s with a diagnosable mental health condition simply isn’t good enough, particularly given that the most recent statistics on the number of young people experiencing mental ill health showed there has been a significant increase in the last decade,” said Dr Bernadka Dubicka, the chair of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

“If they were waiting months or even years for cancer treatment there would be an outcry, which is why we’ve repeatedly asked the government to address this issue.”

The college has lobbied Stevens to commit in the plan to treating at least 45% of children in need by 2023-24, and wants to see that increased again to 70% by 2028-29.

Anne Longfield, a vocal critic of the delays and rationing of care families face when seeking help for their child from Camhs, said all young people with mental health problems should get help.

“I’ll welcome any progress being made to improve services, but any system that does not provide Camhs support to every child who needs it will still be failing thousands of children. I can’t ignore that. Nor would any of us if it were physical illness under discussion.

“The government must aim higher and provide clear targets and timetables so that by 2023 no child who needs help is turned away.”

Emma Thomas, the chief executive of the charity YoungMinds, said: “We’re facing a mental health crisis for young people, with more than a million having diagnosable mental health problems and the vast majority not able to access NHS support.

“Parents and young people tell us every day that they have been left to cope on their own while their problems have got worse, with some dropping out of school and becoming suicidal.”

  • Childline in the UK can be reached on 0800 1111, or by confidential email via its website.
  • In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org.

Patients share experiences of Mental Health Hospitals

There is still a huge stigma around mental health hospitals. Many horror films are set within abandoned mental health hospitals, creating a common perception that they’re places of outdated, horrific treatments and people screaming in the corridors.

This isn’t reflective of reality. 30-year-old Rebecca has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital three times. The first was in June 2008, the second October 2009, and the third June 2010. All of these admissions were for anorexia.

Rebecca reported: ‘For the first admission, I had no idea that psych hospitals really existed and had no ideas of what it would be like. ‘I was very annoyed to be admitted to hospital because I wanted to carry on losing weight.

‘For the second admission I knew what I was expecting and had a definite target set before I was admitted so I knew what I needed to do.’

Rebecca was sectioned for each admission, which she says made her feel annoyed at that she’d fallen back into the situation where she’d had all control taken away from her over and over again. She said: ‘The first psych ward I was in felt a very strange experience as I had no idea what to expect. ‘We were basically left to our own devices except for meal times and 30 minute supervision after.

‘The majority of the staff were very unsympathetic and had no real understanding of eating disorders. ‘My consultant always dismissed what I said as something all people with anorexia say and I felt very much like my individual feelings and opinions were ignored. ‘I also feel this admission made my eating disorder worse as I met lots of other chronic anorexia sufferers who didn’t want to recover. ‘As this was my first admission, I was very naive to everything but I quickly learnt all the tricks and my anorexia strengthened.

‘I spent all my time in the hospital exercising in my bedroom and the staff just said they would give me more calories to compensate. ‘They didn’t try to help cure my exercise addiction. I was admitted to that first hospital for a year and when released, I instantly set about losing all the weight I had gained. ‘I went for follow up once a week for 4 weeks and then had a community nurse who I saw once every two to three weeks but she was easy to deceive and I was able to make it seem that I wasn’t losing weight.’

Rebecca says each admission has been different, as one hospital was amazing, with all caring staff who always trying to help and listen. She ended up working with one medical professional to get better, doing group therapy and keeping busy. She said: ‘It had a much more homely feel and we could have interaction with other patients on other wards whereas the first admission had been me only ever interacting with eating disorder patients.

‘I was in that second hospital for about 7 months and when discharged, I had follow up once a week for four weeks and was then left to the care of my community nurse.’ Rebecca is currently under the care of her community mental health team which she says has saved her life. She went back to university and completed her degree.

When asked whether she feels there are any misconceptions around mental health hospitals, she said: ‘I think there are bad depictions of psych wards but unfortunately, because the quality of treatment in different psych wards is so variable and my experience in that hospital at the start of my third admission (before I was sectioned) actually shows some of these negative depictions are true.

‘I think some people don’t differentiate between different mental illnesses and I think there is often a stigma that psych hospitals are just full of manically crazy people locked up. ‘This is not the case and there are a lot of ‘normal’ people in psych wards with normal lives, normal jobs and having normal conversations, it just so happens that they are also struggling with a mental illness but this doesn’t make them mad or crazy.’

21-year-old Christopher was 16 when he was admitted to a mental health hospital after experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations as well as depressive episodes. He said: ‘I was heartbroken when sectioned, although it was needed – I originally entered voluntarily although due to my mental state deteriorating and me trying to leave the unit, I was place on a section 3 which lasted about two months. ‘I was under the crisis team, and was prescribed medication to help my psychosis and depression. ‘This didn’t help and eventually I stopped taking medication. My parents became worried about this, and liaised with the crisis team to get me taken into hospital.

‘The ward I was on was lovely. While I was the only ‘child’ on an adult ward, I was on constant observations. ‘The staff were fantastic. They helped a lot with my progression and were able to get me out of my room and doing things. ‘There was a lot of routine when I was on the ward. Fixed medication and meal times, which was good as it stopped you from neglecting yourself and becoming lazy.’

Christopher was in hospital for around four months, which he says felt like an ‘age’. When he came out, he decided straight away that he wanted to become a mental health nurse. He went back home with his parents and had follow up appointments weekly with an early intervention team, who helped him get back into college, where he started to do nursing. He said: ‘I didn’t experience too much of a stigma, the hospital I was in was on the grounds of a general hospital. ‘I did feel that you would ‘stand out’ as the MH patient, although this was probably just paranoia.

‘I’ve seen stigma on social media, and in the press. This is definitely improving though.’

Hannah, 26, has been admitted to a mental health hospital three times. The first was under child and adolescent mental health services to an under 18 mental health ward when she was 12, and twice with adult services at 18 and 23.

She tells us: ‘Admissions were due to severe anxiety which developed into an eating disorder and food restriction. ‘I felt I could control my anxiety by not eating, or only eating my very small group of “safe foods”. Unlike many eating disorder admissions based on anorexia and bulimia; I was admitted with Food Avoidance Emotional Disorder and didn’t have the thoughts of being too fat or needing to excessively exercise, rather that I was too thin but my anxiety wouldn’t allow me to eat as food was ‘dangerous’.

‘My first admission was one of the most traumatic days of my 14 years living with my mental health issues. ‘My parents had told me we were going out somewhere only for them to divert to the hospital where the staff were waiting for my arrival. ‘I remember trying to jump out of the car to run away and shaming my parents for lying to me about where we were going. ‘Now that I’m older and can understand the situation, I know that my parents did it out of love and with my best interests at heart, essentially saving me from major health complications.

‘I was admitted with absolutely no understanding of my anxiety or eating disorder and felt completely out of control. At 12 it was difficult to understand what “mental health” was and it was difficult to not be in control of the decisions being made regarding treatment – being under 18, ‘My parents and medical team had control over all decisions being made. ‘I was fortunate to not be sectioned and I am grateful looking back that my parents and nurses were able to support me in understanding their decisions and agreeing to treatment, however there were other patients on the ward of similar ages under section for various mental health conditions.’

Hannah says that her admissions at 18 and 24 were a lot easier, but she was still severely unwell. At 18, she spent three weeks on a drip on a medical ward before being admitted to the mental health ward. She said: ‘Having been admitted previously, I feel this allowed me to understand what was happening and the process of what was ahead of me in terms of hospital stays and treatment plans. Not that this made the reality of physically and mentally working on that treatment plan any easier as such but at least I could identify the path ahead.

‘Being admitted to an adult mental health ward as opposed to child and adolescent was a complete eye opener. I don’t know how I imagined it would be, but it was nothing like I thought it might be. I was one of the youngest patients on the ward on both occasions and was on a ward with severely unwell patients. ‘It was scary, intimidating and overwhelming and as much as the nurses made great efforts in making me feel settled, some of my fellow patients made me feel very unsafe.

‘I had two occasions when the same patient attacked me and although the staff were very quick in reacting, I feel it highlighted the difficulties at present with limited services and facilities for varying degrees of treatment required by individuals.’

Hannah says being on a psychiatric ward was like ‘no other experience’ she will ever go through. She explained: ‘Looking back I find it equally fascinating and awful how bad it was but at the time I couldn’t find any humour to lighten the situation. ‘The child and adolescent unit I was admitted to was outdated and not fit for purpose. It was a separate building to the main hospital in which a trolley would bring breakfast, lunch and dinner to us from the canteen.

‘One room was set up as a school which all under 16 patients had to attend, there was a girls ‘dorm’ and a boys ‘dorm’ with a couple of individual bedrooms and a shared bathroom. ‘The unit did have a weekly schedule of activities and group sessions such as art therapy, occupational therapy, and psychology sessions however not all activities were available for all patients dependent on their treatment plan.

Black Mirror: Bandersnatch star Will Poulter quits Twitter

Bandersnatch actor Will Poulter has quit Twitter, following the response to his role in the Black Mirror episode. Will, who appears as Colin Ritman in the “choose your own adventure” Netflix drama, says he needs to change his relationship with social media.

Some people commenting on Bandersnatch called Will “ugly” for his appearance in the show.

“In light of my recent experiences I am choosing to take a step back, of sorts, from Twitter,” he wrote. He also thanked people who had commented on the show for their responses to the show “whatever they may be”.

Bandersnatch is about the dark and difficult adaptation of a book into a video game by a group of software developers and has several different endings. In the show, Will plays a game creator – and he’d tweeted to say he was “nervous” about the episode’s release.

Comments about his appearance were posted after Bandersnatch came out on 28 December 2018.

Will announced he was leaving Twitter less than a week later. “As we all know there is balance to be struck in our engagements with social media. There are positives to enjoy and inevitable negatives that are best avoided,” he said. “It’s a balance I have struggled with for a while now and in the interest of my mental health I feel the time has come to change my relationship with social media.”

Will added that he would occasionally continue to tweet for several anti-bullying organisations. “I hope that this shift to reduce my personal expression and increase the focus on issues that matter will result in a better outcome for everyone.”

Government on course to miss NHS mental health workforce target ‘by 15,000’

At the current rate the NHS is on course to miss its 2021 target of adding another 21,000 mental health staff to the workforce, according to an analysis by the Labour Party.

Using NHS Digital data, Labour says that if the increase in mental health staff continues at the current rate of growth it will miss its target by over 15,000 workers.

It comes as a survey showed that nearly all GPs fear that young patients may come to harm because of long waiting times for mental health services.

In July 2017 then health secretary Jeremy Hunt announced a big expansion of NHS mental health services promising:

  • 2,000 additional nurses, consultants and therapist posts in child and adolescent mental health services;
  • 2,900 additional therapists and other allied health professionals for adult talking therapies;
  • 4,800 additional posts for nurses and therapists working in crisis care settings.

The plan also set out to encourage psychiatrists and mental health nurses not substantively employed by the NHS to return to return to work and to boost retention figures for existing staff.

But the latest figures show that the total number of staff working in mental health trusts is only 1,524 higher than in August 2017.

Labour’s analysis also found that:

  • The total number of mental health nurses has fallen in every month this year;
  • The number of psychiatrists has increased only 3 per cent over 12 months.

According to the latest NHS Digital Workforce Statistics, the total number of staff working in mental health rose by 6,747 between August 2017 and August 2018. Labour says this figure includes around 5,000 staff who have been reclassified as mental health staff as a result of community provider trusts being taken over by mental health trusts.

Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s shadow minister for mental health, said: ‘This Government’s failure to act on the mental health workforce crisis could threaten to turn the burning injustice of mental ill health that the Prime Minister pledged to tackle into a raging inferno.

‘Mental Health’s share of the wider NHS budget will not increase over the next three years so services will continue to suffer as clinical staff leave in greater numbers, unless the NHS long-term plan addresses the current workforce shortfall.’

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: ‘Mental health is a key priority for the Government. We are transforming services with record amounts of funding, with the NHS spending almost £12bn on mental health in 2017/18.

‘But we want to go further, which is why the Prime Minister has made parity between physical and mental health a priority for our long-term plan for the NHS supported by at least an additional £2bn a year.’