The most universally loved man in rugby officiating, Nigel Owens is doing great things to combat the stigma surrounding mental health problems by being incredibly open and honest about his struggle to accept his homosexuality, which eventually resulted in an attempt to take his own life.
Owens has spoken before about how difficult it was to accept that he was homosexual, but in a recent interview with CNN, he went into detail about how dark of a place he was in, and revealed that at one point he spoke to a doctor about the possibility of chemical castration, such was his desire to not be gay:
I didn't want to be gay.
I actually went to the doctor at one stage to see if I could be chemically castrated in any way, if it would get rid of me being gay.
Looking back at that it was a horrific thing that one would have to do but that's what I was going through at the time.
Horrific indeed.
We can only imagine how difficult it was for Nigel Owens to address those feelings, but we are very glad that he was able to go on and become the man he is today. Owens' continued to pay tribute to his family and friends for helping him out of that dark time, and he is clearly trying to help others who are in a similar position to the one he once was by sharing his experiences.
And he's a damn fine ref too.
via Independent.ie
