Defensive lineman Charles Haley of the Dallas Cowboys (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
Charles Haley was known as one of the NFL’s most bruising pass rushers in a career spent with the Dallas Cowboys and the San Francisco 49ers that spanned between 1986 and 1999.
He was named to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2015.
Haley was also the first player in league history to ever win five Super Bowls. But, as he was accomplishing such large feats, he was also fighting inner demons.
Haley has had bipolar disorder his entire life, something that greatly affects a person’s day-to-day life, and it’s widely believed there is a large part of the population that may have the condition and go undiagnosed.
Formerly known as manic depression, bipolar disorder causes extreme mood swings with incredibly low lows and manically high highs. These things impact an individual’s mood, ability to complete tasks, and more.
“People had been telling me my entire life, you know, that I’m like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Haley said to RG. “I kind of had my walls up and I just didn’t believe what they were saying.”
Playing football, especially on the defensive side, where his primary goal was to apply pressure to the opposing quarterback, helped Haley in a way. But it also served to mask what was really going on.
“I played football, so I worked out all the time, and then if I’d get mad, I could hit somebody and be okay with it,” Haley said. “So, it was just part of the game. It helped mask itself, of me being bipolar just by actions, and I was okay with that.”
Some may ask what the difference is in the day of the life of someone who has bipolar disorder versus what a day in the life is like of someone who does not have bipolar disorder.
In all reality, neither party can fully answer the question.
“I couldn’t tell you,” Haley laughed. “I’ve always had it. I think normal people don’t understand what we actually go through, our thought process, what a smile means. People will see you smile and think you’re happy, but that may not be the case most of the time.”
Overcoming and Thriving
Since he has been diagnosed, Haley feels he’s done a lot of learning. And the learning he has done here has helped not only himself, but also countless other people who suffered from bipolar disorder, or mental illness in general.
The solution to managing bipolar disorder is not necessarily uniform, with different people benefitting from different things, including mood-stabilizing medications like Lamotrigine, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and antipsychotics, just to name a handful.
Making the right decisions on treatment and heading down the right path is about more than just bipolar disorder, too.
“There are a lot of different things when you throw the term ‘mental illness’ around,” Haley said. “That’s why giving it just one label is not good because that umbrella is so big and as athletes, we’ve seen a lot. Growing up in the neighborhoods that some of us grew up in, we’ve seen a lot and we’ve experienced a lot. Sometimes it makes you stronger, and sometimes it pressures you.”
But the most important thing is simply to reach out and focus on what is most important to get past the valleys that come with this condition.
“Ask for help. The biggest key for me is that I found one thing to live for,” Haley explained.
“I found 99 other things to die for, but I found one thing to live for, and to me, every time I go into depression or anything else, I lean on it. That one thing to me is Jesus Christ. I know if I hurt myself that I won’t have a relationship with him.”
Faith has always been important to Haley, and it has been one of the things outside any type of medication or therapy that has helped him to power through.
“Christ has been important in my life always. But I understand that every time I hit my head against the wall, he was there to help me with a soft landing. My faith is strong and it’s strong in Him, and he’s not ever going to let me down. So, I just feel like if I’m going to live for something, I’m going to live to go to glory and stand behind a man who never fails.”
Being an open book has served Haley and others, but one of the biggest things people with bipolar disorder have to face every day is the stigma that will always exist. It’s more than worth facing and fighting against for the greater good.
“And, so, it gets lost a little bit. But in order to get through it, you’ve got to go through it. And I went through it. I went through the ups and downs, and I try to tell people they don’t have to hit the bottom of the floor like I did.”
Haley uses all he has been through to this day as fuel, and in a way, there is almost a silver lining to all of it.
That’s his ability to help others in a way that some individuals who have not been through as many trials and tribulations in life may not be able to. He runs the Tackle Tomorrow Foundation out of Dallas, Texas to provide resources for struggling students and those at a disadvantage.
“I have a foundation in which I help inner city kids and I get up every day to help improve their lives and by doing that, it helps me to improve mine.”
Crissy Froyd is a sports reporter of over 10 years who specializes in quarterback analysis at the high school, college and NFL level. She was mentored by Mike Leach and learned the Air Raid offense and quarterback evaluation largely under the legendary head coach. Froyd has appeared in and worked with multiple publications, including USA TODAY SMG, Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports and Saturday Down South. She also covers canine journalism for Showsight Magazine and resides in Wisconsin with her three dogs -- two German Shepherds named Faxon and Bo Nix, and one Siberian Husky named Stetson "Balto" Bennett.
