A lot of people think footballers are untouchable. Most tend
to think they are ridiculously overpaid, self-absorbed and out of touch with
reality. They live in a world with a fantasy lifestyle that us mere mortals
just simply can’t relate to.
That was until recently, when a footballer’s cry for help
struck a chord for me so deep, it evoked painful and difficult memories that
I’d struggled to battle through and tried so desperately yet so impossibly to
forget. It’s a curious world we live in where said footballer’s activities
hitting the headlines made me realise just how lucky I am – and how unfortunate
I’d been in the past.
I could never have thought I’d ever have anything in common
with Jake Livermore. We are both English – and that’s where any common ground
normally ends. He earns his wage playing football for Championship side Hull
City. I pay my bills through an administration role and writing. He’s seven
years my junior. Frankly, we couldn’t be any more different.
That was until the midfielder hit the headlines in August.
After testing positive for cocaine in May and being suspended from his duties
pending an FA investigation, the revelation that Livermore and his partner lost
their new born baby in May last year gave the FA a moral decision to make. The
25 year old said he turned to the substance after spiralling into depression
following their loss. The FA deemed the situation ‘extenuating and exceptional
circumstances’ and offered the footballer a reprieve.
Most of the reaction to this has been sensitive, considered
and respectful. But there is always a minority who mock and sit in judgement.
‘He was out snorting cocaine while his poor missus mourned
their loss.’
‘Losing a baby is no excuse to go taking drugs as a way of
coping.’
It’s the easiest thing in the world to sit behind a keyboard
and pass judgement: tapping out 140 characters of bile with no respect or
compassion for the feelings of the person concerned. It’s much more difficult
to try and understand, to empathise and to relate. Losing a baby is one of the
hardest situations anybody can go through. There are other despicable things
that can happen and I don’t want to take away from that. But it takes two to
make a baby, so both parties should be expected to mourn. Just because Men are
from Mars and Women are from Venus doesn’t mean the woman should be the only
inconsolable party, the only one grieving.
I can relate to Jake Livermore because I’ve been through it.
I’ve lost a baby and I’ve grieved. I’ve searched for answers and struggled to
make sense of it. When it happens, you are simply left to deal with it. There
are no manuals, no after care, nothing. All your hopes, dreams and plans for
parenthood are left in tatters and you are left to somehow pick up the pieces
and move on with life.
It just doesn’t happen like it. I have told the story behind
my miscarriage here,
so I won’t go into the details of when and where it happened. But I’ve never
spoke in depth about just how much an affect it had on my life and on our life
as a couple. This is why the Livermore case struck such a chord with me. It was
too familiar – too close to home.
My initial reaction was a feeling of complete numbness.
Although it was early days at seven weeks, probably nothing compared to the
pain Jake and his partner must’ve gone through after actually meeting their
son, Jake Junior who passed at birth, we had discussed names and become excited
at the family life that lay ahead. We had embraced the prospect of being
parents – and that had suddenly been taken away from us in a matter of minutes.
Looking back, the initial aftermath was a blur. I went to the
doctors and asked for help; not really knowing what the standard protocol was
in these situations. Is there a typical way of coping with losing a baby? Ah
yes, silly me. Of course there is. The doctor prescribed me Citilopram and sent
me on my way.
It wasn’t really explained to me what the tablets were
about, what the possible side effects were and the potential change they’d make
to my life. I didn’t know they were anti depressants. In hindsight I was
probably naïve, thinking I could rely on a doctor to turn my monochrome world
back into colour again. Like a little girl, I looked at the GP as a fairy with
a magic wand, who could take my pain away and bring the light back into my
life. Was I depressed? I didn’t feel depressed as in having suicidal thoughts,
I just felt like somebody had turned the lights out in my world. All the life
had evaporated from me. Is that what depression feels like? I had no idea what
to do with myself.
I wasn’t ready to discuss it with him. He had been amazing
during the incident and my time in hospital in Antigua, but it wasn’t enough. I
didn’t know what to say, I don’t think he did, so we couldn’t and didn’t take
comfort in one another. It remained a taboo subject, one that was never to be
talked about and that proved detrimental. Instead, we attempted to move on with
our lives as best we could. Back to work, back to the future, minus our baby.
Minus the future.
When Jake Livermore turned to cocaine, it was clearly an
attempt to block out the monumental pain and loss that he had suffered. Nobody
has the right to say he was selfish. Nobody has the right to act self-righteous
and dictate what the right or wrong way to react in that situation is. There is
no right or wrong. There is nothing. There is pain, inconsolable and isolating
heartbreak and torrential devastation. A loss so severe it turns your world
upside down; destroys the status quo. How do you suggest anyone copes with
that?
Now tell me the death of a child is merely an ‘excuse’ to
take drugs. Explain to me how best to deal with that level of pain. Of torture.
People react differently to grief and should be allowed to do so free from
judgement. When you’re at your lowest ebb, it’s anything to help ease the agony
and anguish.
Our loss was profound to the interaction we had with each
other. He also went to the doctor and, surprise surprise, was also given
Citalopram. With both of us on anti depressants, skirting conversations about
our loss and coming home from work to our apartment together tinged with
awkwardness, my sense of loss was unbearable. I couldn’t cope. My heart had
been set on our baby, a new life, an amazing blessing to anybody’s lives.
I didn’t sit and weep constantly. We just gradually started
to drink more. Neither of us had read the small print on the box of tablets
that warned against the consumption of alcohol with the pills, so we didn’t
know the side effects. Hostility, anxiety, panic attacks, loss of sex live,
mood or behaviour changes. They soon became apparent.
The arguments and fighting occurred normally after I’d had a
bottle of wine and he had a few pints. Or wine. Sometimes it would turn
physical (on my part), most of the time it was aggressively verbal. At first,
we would kiss and make up the morning after, but as it became regular, I think
we just accepted it as the new norm in our relationship. Drinking wasn’t just
reserved for the weekends- it was a midweek thing now. It was a way of coping:
the only way I knew how.
People would ask when we would be trying again to conceive.
That was another taboo subject. Anything to do with children was. Our sex life
was almost non-existent: I’m sure paranoia on his part in case I fell pregnant.
The loss had started to change my personality: I became bitter, resentful and
probably deeply unlikeable. Only at the time I couldn’t see the wood for the
trees. I was in too deep: the mixture of alcohol and tablets proved to be my
release. The two combined became my coping mechanism. My life was over as I
knew it: the cocktail of drugs and wine or vodka made me feel alive again.
Certain personal relationships deteriorated beyond
recognition: I’m not sure if people knew just how bad it got, if they
understood what was going on or whether they just thought I’d had a personality
transplant. I really tried to put on a front, a mask if you like. But it was so
hard. Marriage and babies surrounded me and I felt like I was drowning. I knew
nothing was right anymore. I just didn’t know what to do about it. So if I
wasn’t as close to you if you had a baby during that time, don’t take it
personally. Try to understand. I just lived in a zombie-esque trance. For it
wasn’t life anymore, it was a mere existence.
We got engaged in June 2011. Looking back at the photographs
from that night it was there for all to see: we were both drunk therefore we
were both happy. Let’s put a ring on it. No plans were ever really made for a
wedding. We bought pet chameleons- again an attempt to fill the drastic void
left by our loss. Although they brought colour and fun into our lives, an animal
can never truly be a substitute for a child. Particularly when the animal dies…
I thought about going elsewhere for sex. My high drive
hadn’t been affected and I was in an impotent relationship with no sign of that
improving: one night he caught me drunk texting an old flame from university.
He retaliated but neither one of us would’ve actually done anything about it.
As twisted as things had become, deep down we knew we still loved each other
too much. I was tempted, but that’s as far as it went. We remained loyal and,
as far as I’m aware, in love.
That was, until things reached breaking point for us over
Christmas 2011: I’d had a deeply regrettable violent encounter with an
individual whilst under the influence of my reliable drink and drug concoction
and enough was enough. He told me he didn’t love me anymore- those words jolted
me more than anything ever had since our loss. He was all I knew, my world:
although we brought out the worst in each other, I still believed we were
unbreakable. I was wrong. That was rock bottom. Dad invited me to stay with him
for a couple of weeks in the Far East- and it was the best thing I ever did.
The two weeks in Hong Kong, China and Bangkok did me the
world of good. It transformed my life. The break switched the light back on,
illuminated my world and made my life technicolour again. I saw wonderful
sights, spent precious time with my Dad and had a lot of time to myself, with
myself. I think the time away brought a lot of clarity for me: I stopped taking
the tablets, I didn’t think about them whatsoever. I was too distracted by my
surroundings. I did have one night in Hong Kong where I drank a copious amount
of vodka and met an adorable man from New York. Say no more (well, we were on a
break). After 18 months of anarchy and destruction, I’d found an inner serenity
I didn’t know existed. I’d finally come to terms with our loss- it was time to
try and move on in earnest.
I think looking back we would both admit the relationship
should’ve ended there. But it didn’t: he met me at the airport; we resolved our
differences and both agreed to put the tablets and the past behind us. For a
long time it worked; we even went on holiday to the Far East together for
Christmas and New Year, going to the places I’d visited during my stay earlier
that year, places that aided me so much in my recovery.
But it wasn’t to be. A drunken argument on his part in front
of my family (and at New Year his) brought back painful memories, yet we still
continued in the pursuit of happiness. I knew it wasn’t right, my friends
attempted to scream sense into me, but I am a hopeless romantic who was blinded
by insecurity, love and loyalty. Ultimately, it wasn’t my choice. We had spent
five years together, 18 months of which before I fell pregnant were incredibly
happy times, but he ended it in January 2014.
A week later I found out I was pregnant.
Fast forward almost two years and I am blessed to have a
beautiful and healthy one year old son, Vincent. He makes me forever proud and
there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t feel fortunate to have him in my
life. I’m also privileged to have met the most selfless, wonderful man, Adam. Together,
they both make me strive to be the best person I can possibly be, to live every
day looking on the brightest side with nothing but gratitude.
I could never have imagined I’d be where I am right now:
I’ve never been so optimistic about the future and I can’t wait to spent my
life with my two men – and add to our little family one day. I am lucky to be
surrounded by love and happiness and that’s something I will never take for
granted. I wish Chris nothing but contentment and good health: he was a big
chapter in my life but that is over now and it’s time to look to the future in
earnest.
I pinch myself daily: although I will never forget about the
angel I have over my shoulder, I know that Vincent is never alone at play time.
I see him smiling and giggling into thin air, I know who’s with him. It’s not
just me.
I’m glad that life does go on. The memories are never
forgotten, but time does work wonders as a healer. You develop coping
mechanisms. Without Vincent I would feel like something is missing: I feel like
my calling in life has always been to be a mother- and a wife. Most of us girls
do dream of our picture perfect ending- but realise that life isn’t always how
Disney portrays it.
After being suspended pending an investigation, Jake is back
playing football for Hull City- he’s had a second chance and is grasping it
with both hands. There are struggles, pain and loss. There’s no harm in
admitting that and you’re not defined by how you deal with that. Sometimes to
have a second chance at it, another shot, is more than you can ever dream of.
Life is not a fairytale – but we are always capable of
finding our Happy Ever After.
