Clarke Carlisle has revealed how a bereaved stranger persuaded the former footballer to speak to his family rather than take his own life.
The 38-year-old disappeared from home last month and sparked a missing persons appeal before he was found "very unwell but safe" in Liverpool.
Carlisle has now disclosed that an intervention in a park from a stranger whose friend had recently killed himself led to him getting in touch with his wife.
In an interview with Adrian Chiles on BBC Radio 5 live, Carlisle said: "I was lurking in the shadows, looking for, you know, this place and that place, trying to mind my own business, and this car pulled up while I was sat in a park and a guy came over and said, 'Oh I thought it was you, you know your family is looking for you'. I guessed as much, but I didn't know the extent of how far it had gone.
"This guy you know, sadly for him, his friend had killed himself a few days earlier and he said 'I thought this was you and I could not go by not checking' because he'd heard the state that I was in... I didn't want his help sat in the park, but this guy came and sat next to me and he hugged me and he cried on my shoulder, just urging me to get in touch with my family."
The ex-Burnley and Queens Park Rangers defender has a history of mental illness and had previously launched a mental health charity called the Clarke Carlisle Foundation for Dual Diagnosis.
