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Your support makes all the difference.Jonathan Trott has credited Dr Steve Peters with helping to get his career back on track after stress had him doubting if he wanted to carry on playing at all.
The 33-year-old batsman, in action on Saturday for Warwickshire in the Royal London One-Day Cup final against Durham, said he felt under so much pressure earlier this year that he dreaded waking up if he knew he was going to play cricket.
That was how he felt when he aborted his comeback in April - after earlier dropping out of England's doomed Ashes tour to Australia - and it was at this point that he turned to sports psychiatrist Peters, known for his work with Liverpool Football Club, the British cycling team and five-time world snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan, for advice.
"I wasn't sure if I wanted to play cricket any more," Trott told the Daily Mail. "I was in that sort of place because of the way it had made me feel, 24 hours a day. It became a relief to be away from it. Not to be at the ground. But there was always a ticking clock knowing you had to go back."
He described how he got in touch with Dr Peters, who has also been drafted in by Roy Hodgson to work with England, as a last-ditch attempt to salvage his career.
"It was literally that all-in moment," Trott said. "The last throw of the dice. I was saying, 'Help me; thank you for your time; can you help me? I know you are very busy'."
After his first trip to the Peak District to visit Peters, Trott said he felt better almost immediately.
"I'd found someone who understood me," Trott said. "Someone I could speak to. I called Abi (Trott's wife) and I just said 'I'll be fine now'."
Peters labelled what Trott was going through as "situation anxiety", not depression.
In the wake of his departure from Australia last November, Trott was initially described as suffering from "burnout", which was questioned and criticised by pundits in the media - including his former England team-mate Michael Vaughan.
Trott denies his troubles Down Under had anything to do with the rapid bowling of Mitchell Johnson after Vaughan questioned at the time if his technique was the problem against the powerful Australian.
Trott gave a candid interview to Sky shortly before announcing he would take a further break from the game, which prompted Vaughan to wish him a speedy recovery on Twitter, but Trott was still unhappy with Vaughan's previous assessment.
"I spoke to a lot of people and a few of them said I was a bit too open and a bit too honest in that Sky interview. But there were a few people who had a go at me and I suppose it gives a true reflection of their personality," he added.
"I guess there will always be people who don't like you. That's what Steve said, and that's fine. But it was quite hard to take, from someone who had played in the England team. That's the measure of the person you are dealing with I suppose."
Since then he has worked with Peters and made a successful return for Warwickshire and is not ruling out a future return for England.
"I'm just enjoying playing for Warwickshire right now and if I get the chance to play for England again, great," he said.
PA
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