While the mental health stigma is still a real thing, it’s progressively evolving into a conversation that’s more acceptable to have as more and more people open up about their struggles. However, with athletes, in particular, many find it difficult to admit their internal struggles to themselves, much less anyone else.
Athletes are supposed to be tough and fearless. I know when I was growing up as the coach’s daughter my Dad’s solution to pretty much anything was to “walk it off.” In general, I observed that you weren’t supposed to be sad or overwhelmed, at least not for more than a few minutes, but you were supposed to be tough.
That didn’t work, but it did help. It didn’t work because I did struggle with mental health no matter how hard I tried to brush it off, but it did help because even in my darkest moments, I was able to reach deep down into my competitive spirit and not give up. My biggest win has been finding ways to care for myself and overcome those challenges over and over again.
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), approximately 1 in 5 adults in the U.S.—43.8 million, or 18.5%—experiences mental illness in a given year. That includes athletes.
In recent years and even months, more and more athletes are opening up about their struggles with mental health. NBA superstars Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan both went public in early 2018 with their stories drawing overwhelming support, gratitude from countless others, and wide praise for their transparency. While their stories are incredible, there are many, many more and it’s time that we share them.
Athlete Mental Health Quotes
Also see: 42 Mental Health and Mindset Quotes
“It’s not nothing I’m against or ashamed of. Now, at my age, I understand how many people go through it. Even if it’s just somebody can look at it like, ‘He goes through it and he’s still out there being successful and doing this,’ I’m OK with that.” – DeMar DeRozan on his struggle with depression
“Call it a stigma or call it fear or insecurity — you can call it a number of things — but what I was worried about wasn’t just my own inner struggles but how difficult it was to talk about them. I didn’t want people to perceive me as somehow less reliable as a teammate, and it all went back to the playbook I’d learned growing up.” – Kevin Love
“Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another. It’s part of life. Like DeMar said, ‘You never know what that person is going through.’” – Kevin Love
“Mental health isn’t just an athlete thing. What you do for a living doesn’t have to define who you are. This is an everyone thing. No matter what our circumstances, we’re all carrying around things that hurt — and they can hurt us if we keep them buried inside.” – Kevin Love
“I hit an all-time low. I didn’t leave the house. I was in a complete depression. It took putting one foot in front of the other every single day to get through it to the point where I made it back on the team and won a gold medal in 2008. You’re always going to survive the pain of loss. I can live with that confidence inside of me.” – Hope Solo
“Some people hide their pain. I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t feel good about myself a lot of the time, but it’s nothing I’m ashamed of.” – Jerry West
“You feel like because you’re not happy — when you should be happy — that you’re hurting people around you and a burden. At a certain point, it just gets easier to shut up because people get sick of hearing you’re not OK when you’re not sick on the outside.” – Imani Boyette
“For the longest time, I thought asking for help was a sign of weakness because that’s kind of what society teaches us. That’s especially true from an athlete’s perspective. If we ask for help, then we’re not this big macho athlete that people can look up to. Well, you know what? If someone wants to call me weak for asking for help, that’s their problem. Because I’m saving my own life.” – Michael Phelps
“We all want to be the best versions of ourselves. And talking to a therapist, being vulnerable, opening up about what you’re dealing with, it only helps. Nobody can deal with life all alone.” ― Michael Phelps
“It’s OK not to be OK. To show weakness, we’re told in sports, is to deserve shame. But showing weakness, addressing your mental health, is strength.” – Mardy Fish
“For anyone who hasn’t had it happen to them, they don’t understand how deep and how dark it is. It consumes you. It’s not just on the field. It never goes away. … It’s this ongoing battle with your own brain. You know what you want to do — in your heart. But your body and brain won’t let you do it.” – Rick Ankiel
“Here I am, this big macho football player, and these people were fighting for their lives. That was when I truly realized what being tough meant. I realized that someone needs to stand up for these people. This has become my purpose on this planet. Football is just my platform.” – Brandon Marshall
“When I first heard the term ‘mental health,’ the first thing that came to mind was mental toughness. Masking pain. Hiding it. Keeping it inside. That had been embedded in me since I was a kid. Never show weakness. Suck it up. Play through it. Live through it. Now, I realize that mental health means the total opposite.” – Brandon Marshall
“Depression is something that’s in you. It’s not wanting to get out of bed, continuously feeling sad and down on yourself. It’s not wanting to exist, sometimes. There’s no on-and-off light switch. When I hear coaches, athletes telling people to ‘snap’ out of it, it makes me mad. Because you could be pushing them down that dark hole further.” – Allison Schmitt
“It’s been painted as me wanting special treatment because of anxiety. No, I’m saying I need the same type of support as anyone who is struggling. Call it whatever the hell you want to call it. There are specific injury doctors for players with bum knees and sprained ankles.” – Royce White
“If I can come back from it then anybody else can. I’m no special person, just a human being made of blood and bone,” – Tyson Fury (heavyweight boxer)
“If mental health can bring somebody as big and as strong as me to my knees, then it can bring anybody to the knees.” – Tyson Fury
“I had an unhealthy relationship, my very first one. I didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out she was verbally and emotionally abusive. I didn’t know the signs, so having to go through that led me through some depression. I was super young, so I didn’t know how to deal with stuff like that. I thought I wasn’t worthy. I thought I wasn’t good enough for anybody else, and so that leads to depression. But I was able to come out on the other side thanks to the love and support of my family. So, I want to go out and educate others.” – Stephen Weatherly (Minnesota Vikings)
“I tell everybody today, “Listen, just because you’re feeling good and everything else, don’t lose track of your counseling time … You have to understand, first of all, I congratulate myself on saying I need help. I tell people this all the time.” – Terry Bradshaw
“It’s one of those things you constantly have to think about. You have to consciously stay on your mental health, because if you don’t, you can look up and you’re depressed or you’re just not in the right state of mind. I’ve seen guys succumb to that. It’s tough to dig yourself out of that hole. I was there, to be honest. I was there this summer for a while. I got a therapist and I’ve been trying to work that out.” – Josh Richardson
“Because you’re not crazy, dog. You’re not damaged. You’re just human like the rest of us.” – Ben Gordon
“I was numb to all feelings, numb to all emotions. I really didn’t care about anything in the day. I didn’t care about waking up or going to sleep. I was just going through the motions. It’s not like I wasn’t working hard or trying hard, it was just like everything was just blah. It was like that for a few months.” — Solomon Thomas, San Francisco 49ers’
“I underestimated mental health, honestly. I had anxiety, a little bit of depression just being locked in here.” – Paul George, as told to reporters about his experience in the NBA bubble
“For almost three years, I held myself hostage. I put on the mask. I hid my struggles from the world and from those closest to me. Why? Because as an athlete, that’s how I had been trained. I had been taught to persevere. To never show weakness. To be proud. I thought my pride was what was keeping me going. But in reality, it was holding me back. I was never going to seek the help that I needed. I think God knew that. And sitting in that jail cell, it dawned on me that maybe getting arrested was God’s way of setting me free. He was shining a light into my darkness.” – Gerald McRath
“Mental health is a huge issue and a real thing in our world right now, especially the world we live in where everything is viral and everyone is part of the media. [You] can get on social media and be overcome with emotions and thoughts of other people and allow that to fill in their head when things aren’t necessarily true — whether it’s getting likes on Instagram or something being viewed or getting bullied or whatever it may be. “All those things create emotions and put things in your head about yourself or your situation in life that aren’t true. I think it’s huge. I think it’s huge to talk. I think it’s huge to get help. And it saves lives.” – Dak Prescott
“…sometimes it feels as if we aren’t as far along in that conversation as we might think. We’re comfortable with the general idea that mental healthcare is important — and telling people that you’re dealing with mental health issues has become pretty acceptable. But underneath all of that? There’s still a lot of stuff that I think we don’t see, and don’t talk about. And that stuff can be ugly. ― Liz Cambage
“There is so much strength in your weakness. Understand that. There is help for you, like there was help for me. I didn’t want to find it at first and it nearly cost me my life. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think about that. But I did find help. And it changed my life. ― Hayden Hurst
“Athletes most likely don’t get help for depression or mental health issues because they can’t even admit that it’s an issue. That is so fundamentally at odds with being a competitor. This is war. It’s a game of strategy. It’s a game of maneuvering and posturing. You need to show the world that you are strong.” ― Sasha Cohen
“As a student-athlete, as a college football player, you base your whole schedule around your football schedule. Your academic schedule, everything. A lot of us at the age of 18, 19, 20 maybe were able to make really smart decisions and you stay out of trouble, but when you don’t have that umbrella, that schedule of your training, your meals and your rehab and your practice and your meetings and your film and all that … that’s what makes me really nervous about all this and concerned for the mental health of these players.” ― Matt Leinart
“It’s a stigma where it’s seen as a weakness. When you bring it to light, a lot of people in this world have it.” ― Lane Johnson
When I started coming out and talking about it, there was a part of me that felt weak or felt vulnerable or didn’t feel that manly by doing that. But at this point, I’m comfortable with it because I know everyone deals with it. They might not be comfortable talking about it, and that’s OK. But I know a lot of people are dealing with the same emotional things.” — Justise Winslow
“In 2019, during my second year in Colorado, I made another really significant breakthrough — I contacted the NHLPA, which put me in touch with an OCD specialist. And meeting that person changed my life. … For the first time in my entire adult life, I felt understood. In those sessions, I began to understand that one of the key steps in the healing process is not only acknowledging that what’s going on in your brain isn’t normal, but also, more importantly, acknowledging that it isn’t your fault.” — Colin Wilson
“After that meeting, Jake Lawler came in and said, ‘Coach, you saved my life.’ He said, ‘I was the guy sitting there thinking of doing something bad and you woke me up.’ It just reinforces the fact that you never know.” — Coach Mack Brown
“[People] don’t get that we have anxiety, that we break down. They just think we’re perfect.” — Simone Biles
“I began to realize that, as an athlete, the myth of mental toughness is perpetuated as an asset — or in some cases when a player isn’t perceived as tough enough, a deal-breaker. And for many players it can lead us to struggle in the shadows. From an early age, that type of mental toughness led me to live half-truths with my parents, friends, teammates, coaches, and even my wife. There were times when people in my life would notice bags under my eyes, and I’d have to assure them that it was just because of a bad night’s sleep. Things like that went on for years. Now, though, for the first time in my life, I am truly mentally tough. Not because I’m “acting like a man,” but because I have rid myself of the stigmas that surround seeking help. I was ashamed at first. But now I know that I am strongest when I’m being helped by those who want the best for me.” – Marcus Smith II
“I never will hold back from asking or telling someone, even if it’s something simple. ‘Hey, this little thing’s annoying me today.’ Just tell them. They want to hear it. People that love you want to hear it, and if you don’t have people that love you, therapists want to hear it. People want to help you. Professionals want to help you. So many people in this world are willing to help anyone going through these things. It might be a specific situation that makes it feel like you’re alone, but you’re never alone.” – Drew Robinson
“One, just owning up to it and saying it. We don’t talk about things, and in certain communities we really don’t talk about our feelings. It’s just, ‘Put it in a box and forget about it, push it to the back.’ That’s something I think has hurt us as a society. And it’s something that’s going to change with more athletes speaking up about it.” – Brittney Griner
“If I’m being honest, these feelings of anxiety and depression — they’re not things of the past. I know I’m supposed to be this Cinderella story. The kid from SC State who became a Pro Bowler and proved everybody wrong and all that. But those feelings are still something that I live with, and I try to overcome them each and every day.” – Darius Leonard
Feeling like you’re in a crisis? Here are some resources:
- 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
- NAMI Helpline: (800) 950-NAMI
- Text “NAMI” to 741741
- Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- HOFH Call Center Crisis Line: 866-901-1245
People do care and do want to help you. Make the call. Dial one number at a time. You’re worth it.
References:
NAMI. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-by-the-numbers
Love, K. (2018, March 6). Everyone Is Going Through Something | By Kevin Love. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/kevin-love-everyone-is-going-through-something
Smith, D. (2018, February 26). Raptors’ DeRozan hopes honest talk on depression helps others. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.thestar.com/sports/raptors/2018/02/25/raptors-derozan-hopes-honest-talk-on-depression-helps-others.html
Staff, Z. B. (2012, June 29). Fitness magazine scores with Olympians Hope Solo, Lolo Jones, Kerri Walsh. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from http://archive.boston.com/sports/blogs/thebuzz/2012/06/fitness_magazin.html
Gleeson, S., & Brady, E. (2017, August 30). When athletes share their battles with mental illness. Retrieved March 22, 2018, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2017/08/30/michael-phelps-brandon-marshall-mental-health-battles-royce-white-jerry-west/596857001/