Clint Malarchuk:
My name is Clint Malarchuk. I'm a former NHL hockey goaltender. Grew up around horses and farming and ranching, and I'm a suicide survivor, a mental health advocate. I've lived in degrees of pain through a lot of my life, but I'm here today happy, healthy, productive, and feel like I'm in a great place.
Growing up, I also had obsessive compulsive disorder. Fortunately, with that, I was able to funnel all that into obsessing about hockey, and I believe that playing like I did, working like I did, got me to the NHL level.
March 22nd, 1989, I was playing with the Buffalo Sabres. We were playing St. Louis Blues, and in the first period I was kind of sliding across the net as a goalie trying to cut off a pass, and a guy got upended and his skate came up and sliced my jugular vein. I thought I was going to die. I really believed it. You can read my lips in the video saying, "Am I going to live?"
I finished that season kind of on a high note because of the support and my adrenaline. I was kind of like a Buffalo hero because of that gritty attitude to get back in.
I wasn't sleeping, just depression, started to really sink in, and I wasn't telling anybody, because you're supposed to be tough, and that's just what we are supposed to be, and as an NHL goalie, you're supposed to be the rock. I was doing all this silently.
Well, my wife went through basically hell with me. I was in such a bad state before I tried to attempt suicide. I was abusive verbally. I blamed her for everything. One thing I've learned now about PTSD, is that there's a lot of anger issues and you usually vent at the ones you're closest to and love because they're going take it I guess.
Joanie Malarchuk:
It would start at two in the afternoon and at night he would start obsessing and he would just ask, "Why are you here? Why do you love me? What's in it for you?" It was the same question, same questions every night, and then the next day. It was like Groundhog Day. He'd do it all over again, and same question. You could never give the right answer.
Clint Malarchuk:
To be honest with yourself, it is sometimes very hard because of the stigma attached to mental illness. For me finally accepting that I had PTSD, that was the first step of getting well. For whatever reason, it was a hard step, but it took courage for me to do that because it was almost like I was buying into that stigma of, "This is a weakness, I'm not weak. I was a rock in Buffalo." Once I figured out that you're sick, you're not weak.
Joanie Malarchuk:
Go learn about what you're dealing with. If your spouse has depression, anxiety, bipolar OCD, addiction, whatever the addiction is, drugs or alcohol, go learn about it. It seems kind of silly, but learn about what it physically and mentally does, because what I learned was everybody else's spouse that was going through this, they were doing and saying the same things my husband was. You're able to step back away from it and separate the two. You're able to look at what's happening to the person and inside the person and realize, "Okay, this is not them. This is the person I love and this is the disease that's affecting them."
Clint Malarchuk:
It's an illness. It's a sickness or an injury, and it's got nothing to do with your mental strength or anything like that. It takes courage to take that first step and look inwardly and say, "Yes, I do have a problem," or, "I do need help," and get it.