- Ben Stokes says he takes medicine every day to help him deal with mental health problems.
- The England Test captain stopped playing cricket last year to focus on his mental health.
- The 31-year-old’s father died two years ago from brain cancer, and Stokes played no cricket for six months.
Ben Stokes, who is the captain of the England Test team, has said that he takes medicine every day to help him deal with his mental health problems.
Stokes stopped playing cricket last year to focus on his mental health after having a number of panic attacks.
Ged, the 31-year-father, old’s died two years ago from brain cancer, and Stokes stopped playing his sport for six months as he tried to deal with the loss.
“I never thought I would be on medication to help me for that kind of stuff. I am not embarrassed or ashamed to say it because I needed the help at the time,” Stokes said in an Amazon documentary, which will be released on Friday.
“But it’s not done just because I’m back playing. I still speak to the doc, not as regularly, and I’m still taking medication every day. It’s an ongoing process.”
Since early this year, when Stokes was named England’s red-ball captain, he and the team’s new Test coach, Brendon McCullum, have led the team’s impressive comeback.
But Stokes still finds it hard to keep up with the busy schedule of international cricket.
The World Cup winner said in July that he would stop playing one-day internationals because it was “unsustainable” for him to play all three types of cricket.
Stokes let himself be filmed for the documentary even when he was at his worst, because he wanted to keep the conversation about mental health going.
“I find sometimes people are a bit nervous to go into the detail about that kind of stuff with me. It’s perceived you can’t feel a certain way, that’s a sign of weakness to show that you are not mentally feeling great,” he told The Telegraph.
“People think they can’t ask people who have struggled. No. It’s fine. I’ll happily tell you as much as I possibly can.”
Stokes said that at the time of his father’s death, he was angry at the people in charge of cricket in England and wondered if he was “playing for the wrong people” because he wasn’t able to see him as much as he wanted while he was fighting cancer.
“So I had a real thing with cricket at the time I took a break. I was really angry at the sport because it was dictating when I could see my dad,” Stokes said.
Stokes will play for England in the second Test against South Africa on Thursday at Old Trafford. England is currently down 1-0 in the three-game series.
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