Sordell: My battle with depression
FORMER Coventry City striker Marvin Sordell has broken his silence on his battle with depression.
The ex-Sky Blues forward lifted the lid on life with mental health issues on Twitter as part of World Mental Health Day.
More than half of people in Coventry who have suffered from mental health problems said they had to deal with stigma or discrimination as a result, according to a Telegraph survey.
Three in four Telegraph readers who answered our survey into mental health for World Mental Health Day said they personally had suffered from a condition.
Another 20 per cent said a family member had suffered from a mental health problem instead.
“For a period I suffered from depression, and one of my biggest releases through some of my toughest times was writing poetry,” Sordell, who is now at Burton Albion, revealed.
“For World Mental Health Day I wanted to share something I wrote a few years ago that for me, summed up my journey and what it felt like at the time.
“It’s okay not be okay, and it’s okay to talk.”
In our survey, of those who said they had a mental health condition, 54 per cent said that they personally had experienced stigma or discrimination as a result.
In a related question, 20 per cent of these people said they had been treated unfavourably at work in relation to their mental health, while 25 per cent said their employers were aware of their condition but did not provide any support.
Telegraph readers did not rate the mental health services available to them very well in our survey.
A total of 57 per cent of people rated mental health services in their local area as ‘very poor’ or ‘somewhat poor’.