Brave, indeed, for a professional footballer to open up on the struggles he’s been facing: It was not so long ago that guys just struggled in silence with mental health issues. Being a role model, a Premier League and International footballer is supposed to be living the dream but for [West Ham’s](https://www.claretandhugh.info/tomas-soucek-the-west-ham-survivor-who-just-keeps-delivering/) 250 game-stalwart **Tomas Soucek** the last two years has been a waking nightmare of challenges caused by stress and lack of sleep.
Which makes his achievements on the pitch even more remarkable, knowing what we now do about ‘Tornado Tom’s’ inner battles: Life got so bad apparently that he even considered early retirement.
Tomas Soucek’s candid admission of his depression and insomnia battles
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As reported in today’s [mirror.co.uk,](https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/premier-league-soucek-mental-health-36221056) Soucek has suffered in silence for the last two seasons with:
_“Insomnia. Depression. Fear of the future. My thirteenth chamber. You don’t believe it, do you? I don’t really understand it in retrospect either. Where others won’t put their foot because they’re scared of the pain, I jump headfirst. I can’t count the scars on my body, I finish matches with my head bandaged, but this hurt my soul.”_
The guy deserves immense respect for opening up about his crisis in his new autobiography entitled _‘Suk”:_ Few of us consider the problems the top professionals encounter as being so severe or debilitating.
Soucek admitted he’d not felt able to talk to his own family about his predicament:
_“Two years of horror. I was ashamed to talk about it for a long time. Even my parents, until I decided to write my confession, had no idea that something bad was happening. Something that bothered me so much that I thought about ending my career._
Soucek doesn’t say whether he’s managed to find peace now, but he deserves enormous respect for talking about it publicly but also performing at the highest level with virtually no sleep. Hats off to you, Tom.