Ben Gordon, the former Mount Vernon prep star, UConn national champion and NBA standout, is opening up about his personal demons, going into detail on his struggles with depression and the many times he nearly took his life.
In a chilling first-person account in The Players’ Tribune, Gordon relives his nightly battles, describing them as a large black cloak that was suffocating him.
“I would be up on the roof of my apartment building at four o’ clock in the morning, just pacing to the edge of the ledge, looking over — pacing back and forth, back and forth — just thinking, I’m really about to do it, B,” Gordon wrote.
“I’m about to escape from all this s–t. I was obsessed with killing myself. It’s all I researched, all I thought about. One night my panic attacks got so bad that all I could think about was escape. … You become like an animal. It’s instinctive.”
It was after his 11th and final season in the league when Gordon was living in Harlem. He no longer had basketball. He became convinced he was in purgatory, that he was no longer alive. Gordon had never seen a therapist, but he couldn’t imagine talking about his problems would solve anything.
“My whole career, I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. But now that I don’t have basketball anymore, the wolf is coming out,” said Gordon, who played for the Bulls, Pistons, Hornets and Magic. “Now I don’t care about cutting my hair anymore. Now I don’t care about shaving. Now I don’t care about anything except the thoughts inside my head.”
Eventually, he got help, after getting arrested three times between June and November of 2017. And it helped him, just talking out what was going through his mind, realizing he was dealing with depression.
“The goal doesn’t have to be perfection. It can just be peace and acceptance with yourself,” the 36-year-old Gordon wrote. “I know for athletes especially, that might sound like some bulls–t. That might sound soft. We’re trained to think that way. It’s almost like we’re brainwashed. But the whole reason I’m telling you my story is because I know — I know — there’s players out there who need help. And to those players? I would just say, Don’t worry.”