 It's tough, I can't really explain it, it's hard to unless you go through it, but depression, wouldn't you? When I was growing up, the only thing that really mattered to me were sports. Hayden never stopped moving. He was constant motion. He was always the biggest and the fastest and as a sibling it was a little frustrating because he really didn't have to put too much effort into it as he was younger. He just kind of showed up and was great at everything. From the time that I can remember as a kid just knowing in the back of my mind it was I'm either going to be a professional baseball player or I'm going to play in the NFL for you know X amount of years. And I asked Hayden, I said, what do you want to do, do you want to play baseball? You want to go to college? He goes, well I really want to play baseball. So he went to play with the Pittsburgh Pirates down in Bradenton, Florida with their minor league camp and he did well. I remember going and watching and saying, oh my gosh he's going to get called up because he was just lights out throwing strikes and doing really well. He would start calling during the week and say, hey what are you doing this weekend? I said, oh nothing. Can you come down? I'm like, what's he want me to come down there for? And he would every week call me, come down, come down, come down. He wanted me around all the time. We would have phone conversations and he would tell me that he was struggling and he would tell me that he was starting to not be able to feel his hands when he would pitch or he didn't know where the ball was going. I just didn't understand that because again my entire life of watching him play he was just great. I kind of felt this weird feeling in my hand where the ball just wasn't sitting right. You know my hands were getting really sweaty and I felt like I didn't have control like I normally did. And then sure enough I let like a 94 mile an hour fast ball go and it hit this kid in the head and it like knocked him unconscious and they had to like come and scoop him up off the field and for me it was just sheer embarrassment. I feel like I finally knew that something was really dark and something was really going on when we would FaceTime him and he was in a dark room in the middle of the day by himself. And I mean I, as far as his camera is away from me, I mean I couldn't even play catch with a kid and I'm supposed to be a professional baseball player and it was just, it was horrible. It really affected me on the field obviously and then off the field it just created a downward spiral in my life. He would get to the point with drinking that he would black out because he just didn't want to have those feelings anymore and it was very tough on us because he didn't come to us. He actually went to a pitching coach and just said, you know, I'm not enjoying this anymore. And he said, look, he said, I've never seen a kid try to fix something so hard in my life. He says, I've been doing this all my life. He says, we've done everything and he wants to move on. And the pitching coach said, well what do you miss? And he just said, I miss the football part. So he said, well go play football. And so I always told Hayden, it's gonna, it's gonna work out, it's gonna be okay. And I remember him telling me, mom, it's not working out, I'm done. I'm gonna go play football. And I told him, I thought he was crazy to sit there and walk into another sport that he had played one season of in high school. I mean, I thought he was insane. Really that moment where I decided to hang it up and leave baseball behind me was huge for me. I felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulder because I got to just leave that crap behind me. I honestly thought that I was gonna leave everything behind me. I get to South Carolina, you know, and I'm still drinking, I'm still turning to drugs, trying just to numb that pain, I guess, of having my childhood dream ripped away from me. What I went through for those three years was horrible. And he was drinking like he was at a bar. Like he was heavily drinking in a family setting just on a Saturday night with the rest of us to the point where he was getting like really intoxicated and really blacking out and kind of mean. And he's never been like that. I can't really explain it. It's hard to unless you go through it. But depression, when you feel like nobody's there, despite my family being so close and they're willing to do whatever. But when you're in that headspace and you're in that dark spot, you do, you feel alone. You feel like nobody's there, nobody cares. So I guess for me in those years, that's why I turned to drinking and pills and cocaine, anything that I could give my hands on to numb that feeling of embarrassment where I wouldn't have to explain myself to my family as to why my life was like unraveling. And one night it just caught up to me. I'll never forget my husband and I were at our lake house. I remember him coming in to the bedroom and saying, we have to go to Columbia. And I'm like, why are we driving to Columbia? And he goes, Hayden tried to take his life. When you get this message, it's pretty important. Please call me as soon as you can. Please call. At that point I wanted out. I just I'd fought for so long and I just I wanted it to be over. And for some reason, I got a second chance at this thing. He was embarrassed, humiliated. He was in this room and the room was like almost like a jail cell. We had five minutes that we were given to speak to him. And he held his head down and he wouldn't talk to us. And I said, Hayden, we have five minutes with you. You have to share with us what happened. It was the best and the worst thing that's ever happened in my life because when I made that decision, when I was sitting in that hospital room kind of reflecting on everything that I had done, I made a promise to myself like, I'm not going to do this again. For whatever reason, God looked down on me and gave me a second shot at this thing. And I made a promise. I'm going to make the most of this opportunity. Coach Mushchamp, he tried to call the hospital every single day. Even though they told him every single day, he was like, hey, you can't talk to him. And he demanded. He's like, I need to talk to him. And for four days called and just got rejected. Just having that support system in moments like that is just crucial. You don't know which way is up. You know, you're looking for help any way you can get it. And for those people to be there for me really helped save my life. And he started just on his own, just cleaning up. He hasn't had a drink since that night. And I dove straight into football and I was working out two, three times a day. You know, guys on the team were like, man, this guy's, he's a kiss ass and he's trying to show the coaches, but I didn't care. I blocked everything out and I dove in 100%. And I just became a freak. Anything that I could do football lies, I was doing it because I was going to make it work. Braven select, Hayden Hurst. And all of a sudden, boom, my phone rings and Ozzie Newsom's on the other line. It's like, man, this is really happening. Once they showed it on the television and Hayden called the four of us together. And we had a wonderful embrace because we were thrilled for him. Because a lot of the emotion and anxiety and hard work that he put in came through and all that wonderful call. Shortly after the draft, he said, mom and dad, I want you guys to retire. And I thought, I said, no, not hardly. He goes, no, no, no, he says, I want to have a foundation for suicide prevention and I want you guys to run it for me. He goes, mom, I want to start a foundation and I want to focus on young people because I want young people to learn the tools and the foundation for handling anxiety and learning from it. I got a lot of respect for what you did. He came out and talked about me and my mom have a foundation about suicide prevention. Yeah. Respect the hell out of you for talking about it, man. Appreciate your brotherhood. You collabed with him. Absolutely. When you are the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and you're scrutinized so much already and you come out and you talk about, hey, I was feeling this way with depression. You know, I suffered loss in my family with suicide. What a brave thing to come out and talk about and then for the kind of the backlash that he got I thought was just completely outrageous. When Hayden has his cleats for a cause at December 6th game, he's not only representing his foundation, he's representing Dak Prescott and Solomon Thomas because that's what it's all about is getting the message out and letting people feel comfortable talking about their feelings. I think my message would be, don't make permanent decisions on temporary feelings. That there are resources out there to help you. You are loved. You are wanted. You are appreciated. You are put on this earth for a reason. We can do something to help you out. Don't hide it. You gotta be strong. Come forward with it. Let us know what's going on. Don't think that you are the only one out there having these feelings or thoughts and go to someone. Keep fighting. Keep going. Because as bad as dark as it gets, I promise you there is someone out there who cares and loves you and wants to see you succeed at whatever you do. It doesn't have to be professional sports. I promise you there is somebody out there in your life that loves you and that will support you and will help you get out of that situation.