Former NBA Player Jay Williams On One Of His Darkest Moments: ‘I Saw A Pair Of Scissors…’ (VIDEO)

March 17, 2015
Chicago

At age 21, Jay Williams had a life that many people usually dream of: He was a rookie actor in a NBA with a remunerative agreement with a Chicago Bulls and a earnest future. Then, in 2003, it all came to an sudden hindrance when Williams got into a near-fatal motorcycle accident

Suddenly, Williams found himself mislaid in some-more ways than one. Physically, his liberation was a struggle, and emotionally, a wounds ran deep. Basketball had been all to Williams, though now he felt he had nothing. There were dim moments in a time after his collision — including one in that Williams envisioned finale it all.

It was reduction than 3 months after Williams had been expelled from a hospital, and he had a singular impulse alone in his apartment, as he tells Oprah in a above video from “Super Soul Sunday.”

“I was praying a lot during that time. we bounced behind from request to annoy so quickly,” he says. “I had no suspicion who we was, who we wanted to be, if we was going to be means to travel again or run again.”

Williams’ relatives knew of their son’s frail mental state and always attempted to be with him to offer their comfort and support. This sold time was different. “My relatives did a unequivocally good pursuit of not vouchsafing me be alone,” he says. “I indeed suspicion it was a sign…”

At a time, Williams says he was “very high” on morphine, that he believes impacted his judgment. “This is how delusional we can spin when you’re on a hypnotic tap,” he says. “I saw a span of scissors there, by a bed. we only remember meditative to myself, ‘If we could strech those scissors, afterwards we merit not to be here.’ Because they were put there for a reason.”

So, Williams reached for a scissors.

“I grabbed a corner of a scissors with my pinky and we pulled it in,” he says. “I remember sitting there only perplexing to take those blades and only lift them over my wrist — over a tattoo that says ‘believe’ on my wrist, looking during it, saying, ‘I don’t trust in anything anymore.'”

In that moment, Williams had mislaid his faith. “I was angry. we always try to do things right, I’d be on time, I’d left to charities. Just kind of thought, ‘I can’t trust we would do this to me,” he says.

That’s when Williams’ mom came in and saw his with a scissors.

“[She] started screaming during me,” Williams says. “Takes a scissors out of my hands and only grabs my hand, and starts to pray. And said, ‘Promise me you’re never going to harm yourself again. You’ve been left here for a reason.”

That final judgment jumped out during Williams, who couldn’t know because his life would have been spared. “What reason do we have to be here? To be done fun of? To be told by everybody that I’m a failure?” he wondered.

Still, his mom prayed. This is a form of umbrella adore and support that Williams credits with assisting him spin things around.

“It was a consistent support of a people who desired me that unequivocally pulled me by those dim times,” he says. “I don’t consider it was until later, a integrate of years later, until we started going to counseling, started to try to go to church. we put my faith into something bigger — and it was by my mom and my father assisting me trust that [I was] left here for a purpose.”

“Super Soul Sunday” front Sundays during 11 a.m. ET on OWN. You can also tide a module live on Oprah.com/supersoulsunday Facebook.com/supersoulsunday

Need help? In a U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for a National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

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