Guest of the show RMC Sport Club on Twitch, Pascal Papé, former captain of the XV of France, spoke at length about his life story, which began with adoption at the age of six months until a serious injury when he was at the peak of his career which cracked his shell to the point of pushing him to the point of attempting suicide.
It is a powerful and poignant testimony from a former captain of the XV of France and vice-world champion in 2011. Pascal Papé (44 years old), former second line of Bourgoin, Castres and Stade Français, spoke at length in the show RMC Sport Club on Twitch about his extraordinary personal story, which he told in the book Double Game published in 2016.
Born to a mother who prostituted herself and took drugs, the former French international (65 caps between 2004 and 2015) spoke of the psychological flaws that accompanied him – from the traumas of his childhood caused by the imposed visits of a biological mother whom he did not want to see – until the explosion of the “pressure cooker” after a serious injury with the XV of France in 2013, to the point of pushing him to try to end his life.
From his abandonment in a room to his adoption
“I was adopted, I arrived in the Papé family – because that is not my birth name – at the age of 6 months. I came from a biological mother whom life had abandoned too quickly . She was a prostitute, had addiction problems with drugs and alcohol. After I was born, she left me alone in the apartment a lot. When the police broke down the door and came to take me away. room, I had been alone for almost two days because I was starving. I had already developed an abdominal hernia from screaming. I already had a big mouth at the time. (smiles) but it saved my life. My life begins like this. I am certainly not a wanted child and I will never blame my biological mother because her life was not easy.”
Unwanted visits from his biological mother
“I found myself in the Papé family at the age of seven months after a little 'internship' at the DDASS, which is ASE (social assistance for children) today. I fell into a wonderful family where, according to the memories of my earliest childhood, I am a full member I receive the same love as my three big sisters I started my life being pampered and loved but very quickly, I understand that I am not going to. to be a child like the others because every Wednesday I have to go see someone I don't know but who I'm forced to see. It will be my biological mother but I realize that this lady doesn't necessarily have it. want to see me, she is uncomfortable. My adoptive mother told me that it was my biological mother, my parents immediately told me the truth. One day, I am in the room. waiting and I hear my adoptive mother talking to social assistance and being yelled at while being told:
“Madame Papé, you cannot love him like your children, at any moment, he could go back to his biological mother. He must not call you mom or dad.”
“Imagine the shock that this can cause in the head of a child of four or five years old. From then on, I don't know my future, I have a sword of Damocles over my head and I don't know not if the next day I'm still going to be with the family, they tell me: 'your mother is going to want to take you back, she's making an effort and you're going to be able to return to live with her. It's terrible because it deconstructs you, you don't.' you don't know what the next day will bring, behind it, there are symptoms of insomnia, bedwetting until 12-13 years old because you are in anxiety, in permanent stress, you have a lump in your stomach. belly. I spent my early adolescence like that. I never went back to my biological mother but I grew up with this uncertainty of the next day. We didn't listen to the little 12 year old guy who said: 'I don't want to. no longer see her.' and where I said: 'we're going to stop because I don't want to anymore'. The children's judge said to himself: 'we have someone who decides what he wants to do'.”
“With this learning of life, I developed a split personality in the sense that I hid from everyone who I really was. I hid that I was adopted, that my sisters were not not my real sisters from my rugby friends at school I always found subterfuges to show that I was like the others. Hiding my life created a fault, something sensitive in me. I grew up, I metamorphosed physically, I was good at rugby, I went to Bourgoin, I became international very young. It happened very quickly but I hid my life from journalists. One day, a journalist told me. 'said: 'I followed you when you were young but you didn't have the same name' The fear I had There, I had this feeling that my truth was being discovered but I. bounced back saying that I hadn't been recognized by my father because he hadn't done the paperwork.”
A fault buried with rugby… until the explosion in 2013
“My career having gone, I hide it from everyone. This subject is less on my mind, I am captain of the French team. One day, I injured myself during Italy-France (February 3, 2013) , I'm a captain, I'm proud of that. I take a knee to my vertebrae and I no longer feel my right leg. The surgeons tell me: 'we don't know if the sensitivity in your nerve will return.' The pressure cooker that I had inside me since I was little exploded. I said to myself: 'Is this my life? I questioned my existence. was not approved, desired. I found myself at the base of my life, a less than nothing, who was going to be of no use whereas a few hours before, I was perhaps at the peak of my career. Complete explosion. level of rugby and family. My household exploded because it was a whole, I realized a lot of things, I already had three children. I put my existence and my life in doubt: 'is-. Do you deserve to be there?' The insomnia returns, the back pills because the pain was terrible, the sleeping pills, those because you're starting to get depressed, the molotov cocktail And one day, I see myself outside of my body. to tell me:
“The only thing you want is to sleep. So you're going to sleep forever.”
“I took whatever it took to try to sleep, I tried (to commit suicide) at that time. I did my therapy, it's easy to talk about for me today Today I really saw myself outside of myself as if I was watching the scene, taking pills, falling asleep until my father came and saw that I was leaving. . He hit me so that I would come to my senses in the space of three months…”
“At that time, I was not followed at all. In my life, I saw 45 psychologists, social workers, I no longer wanted to be the center of interest of these people because they brought me closer of my past and my truth. I had built a wall towards these people because I was behind the wall.
The first day of the rest of his life after the suicide attempt
“Once you take the pills and you've done the stupid thing, it's the first day of the rest of your life. I was lucky to have Doctor Savigny, currently with the XV of France, who had already had this experience with an ultra-known player before me. He immediately sent me to a rest home where we treat this type of pathology. I loved it because this place saved my life. There was nothing in the room except a bed, a desk, a blank sheet of paper and a pencil. It allowed me to confront myself and take stock of myself. I said: 'Perhaps you should accept yourself. You have three children, you will have to explain your story to them'. I loved this three-week stay. to my children and this is the start of my book. My therapy was words for evils. I took a step forward to heal myself by breaking the wall. I worked with Meriem Salmi, who follows Teddy. Riner since its beginnings, for the rest of my career. I found serenity in speaking and writing.”
His teammates were unaware
“I remember Julien Bonnaire's message, once the book was released: 'this story is incredible, I've never seen anything'. It was dangerous to have this secret too buried. The day I I broke down, it was power 10 but I wasn't ready to accept my story (…) If young people express what they have to say, it will make them happy on the pitch.
