Suicide survivor finds healing through unexpected outlet: women’s football

LAYTON — Nicole Attleson’s happy place is on the field. Attleson is a linebacker for the Wasatch Warriors, Salt Lake City’s full-tackle women’s football team.

“It’s an outlet that I didn’t know I needed,” Attleson said.

But it hasn’t been an easy journey. The Layton mom of two said in 2021, her depression spiraled her into a dark place. “I was fighting a very, very big battle,” she said.

She attempted to take her own life. “I was not able to get out of bed,” she recalled. “It was a constant, ‘Just kill yourself, just kill yourself, you’re better off not here.'”

Experts say 91% of Utahns are affected by suicide, whether they’ve attempted or experienced suicidal thoughts or lost somebody to suicide.

“People think of it as a normal way to deal with a set of problems,” said Michael Staley, suicide prevention research coordinator at the Office of the Medical Examiner.

“That’s where we’ve got to promote better norms around seeking help, knowing that I’m not OK and I’m not going to be able to dig myself out of whatever I’m in all by myself,” said Staley.

Attleson said she wanted to recover, but things didn’t change overnight. “It was still a grind of trying to make things better,” she said.

Then, she found something unexpected while scrolling one day on Facebook. She came across a post about a local women’s football league. “I thought, you know, that might be interesting. I’ll go try a practice,” she said.

‘There is hope’

When the day came, she didn’t want to go. But her family rallied around her. “They pretty much held my hand through it and did for a number of practices so I could get comfortable and out of my shell and out of my head,” she said. “It eventually turned into something I’m really good at and something I really love.”

Attleson said she’s finding healing through playing a sport she enjoys and from connecting with her teammates.

“We’re all different, and we come from different walks of life, but we meet on the field,” she said. “We care about each other. And we’ve become a family.”

And she’s found a platform to talk about suicide and its effect on families.

“I talk about it in the locker room; I talk about it any chance I get because I was in that place of despair; I was in that pit,” she said.

She even wears a sticker on her helmet in honor of her friend’s teenage son, who died by suicide. She wants others to know that they are always enough.

“There needs to be more voices that say, ‘You’re worth it, you’re worth living. There are better days ahead,'” she said. “There is hope.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the Wasatch Warriors women’s football team, visit the team’s website.