Fire Skip Bayless

On September 10, 2020, also known as National Suicide Prevention Day, Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Dak Prescott opened up about his struggles with anxiety and depression after the suicide of his brother and being in quarantine. In response to his brave openness regarding mental health, Skip Bayless - sports critic for FS1, called him weak and questioned his ability to lead the Cowboys as a team. This was beyond irresponsible. It was harmful and dangerous. There have been calls for him to be fired from FS1. Let me be clear - he should be. He should have been immediately as a matter of fact. The fact he hasn't is a moral and ethical failing on Fox's part.

What Bayless stated was essentially because Dak didn't have a traditional or textbook, for lack of better terms, form of depression, Dak should have kept his mouth shut and done his workouts. So called clinical depression looks different for everyone. Many people suffer what can be termed circumstantial depression. This happens when things in life happen that someone who otherwise does not have ongoing depression get depressed. Being stuck in quarantine during a lethal global pandemic and losing a sibling with - whom you were very close - to suicide would absolutely cause circumstantial depression, which is and should be treated as seriously as clinical/bipolar/et cetera forms of depression.

The route Bayless wanted Prescott to take is something I have come to call Ignore & Override during my decades long battle with anxiety, depression, and PTSD. Ignore & Override is stuffing the mental feelings down deep with a variety of unhealthy coping mechanisms including, but not limited to, substance use/abuse for self-medicating, sabotaging your life by making rash decisions, self harm including cutting/disordered eating/lashing out at loved ones, throwing yourself into so many projects including employment you don't get enough rest and results in burnout - ANYTHING to not feel the emotions. Once that burnout hits, you crash, HARD. It's when you get the lowest of the low and your world comes crumbling down. The suicidal ideation starts. If there's nothing or no one (including pets) you can look to as a reason to stay, you very well may attempt suicide - possibly succeeding. For some folks, you get dissociative. Meaning, you feel out of your own body. You're not feeling directly and I cannot begin to explain how deadly that mental space is because that is when suicidal ideation is nothing more than a list of "what ifs" and start experimenting. It is extremely difficult to get out of that. Many don't.

Depression, in its variety of forms is lethal, even with treatment. On average, 22 veterans per day commit suicide. In the past 15 years, we lost Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington, Kate Spade, and Anthony Bourdain to suicide - all of whom had long standing battles with mental illness - who had seemed on top of the world to those they were closest to. To be disparaging to Dak Prescott for being open about his mental health struggles when this country has a mental health epidemic with criminally negligible mental health care infratructure is beyond dangerous. It is actively harmful to those who struggle. We are in a very harsh reality in this country with millions unemployed, being evicted or about to evicted, losing their employer based health care, losing access to care, being quarantined, facing the reality more than 190,000 people have died from COVID-19 with conservative estimates showing that number will double by the end of the year, having to be evacuated from their homes due to wildfires or hurricanes due to climate change. All of these things on their own can cause or exacerbate mental illness; combine them and the approximately 20% of the population struggling with mental illness need Dak Prescott's message more than ever. Hearing Bayless call him weak and questioning his ablility to lead has criminally catastrophic consequences for which he should lose his employment immediately.