Damar Hamlin refuses to “worry” about what other people think of him.
The 25-year-old NFL player — who had to be resuscitated on the field after suffering a cardiac arrest during his team Buffalo Bills’ game against the Cincinnati Bengals in January — has made his way back onto the gridiron in recent weeks but admitted that even though he is “still going through” the aftermath of the incident, he wants to “focus” on day-to-day life.
“Some people treat me like they seen a ghost. At the end of the day, it’s like, people don’t even give you the space to process what you’re going through before they want to write you off as something. I don’t like dealing with people and their opinions of me. So I’d rather just keep focusing on what I’m focusing on in my day instead of worrying about what y’all want to hear about. It ain’t really hard to talk about. It’s just, this is my personal life. I’m still going through it. It is not like it’s 10 years from now and I’m reflecting. It ain’t even been 10 months yet,” he told GQ Hype.
The sports star added that after suffering from the rare affliction, he still has negative feelings about the whole thing but refuses to hold onto them.
“One in a million seems a lot bigger when it actually happens to you. I think I’ll probably have that with me forever, until I’m done playing. We all have negative feelings that come [up]. Just don’t grab onto the negative ones,” he said.
Hamlin recently admitted that his medical emergency has given him a “more positive outlook” on things.
“Off the field, it’s just kind of givin’ me a perspective to appreciate life a little bit more and appreciate the small things, the things that are free in life — family, time, peace, happiness, any small things. It’s kind of made me more of a positive person to just have more of a positive outlook on life because life is precious and nothing’s promised for us,” he told E! News.
