Do only weak athletes have mental health issues?

Do only weak athletes have mental health issues? I love this question. An athlete can any have any number of impediments throughout his or her career. We see athletes who come back from serious physical injuries all of the time. We also see athletes with physical disabilities defy the odds and destroy their competition. Just take one look at Shaquem Griffin, a football player who despite having only one hand, was instrumental in the 2017 UCF National Championship (yeah, I said it) and was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks in the 2018 NFL Draft. We don’t question the toughness of athletes who overcome physical setbacks; in fact, we praise them for it, so why would we question athletes with mental health struggles?

The easiest answer is that we expect athletes to be mentally tough at all times. But as we’ve seen with physical injuries, you can overcome a setback and still be considered tough. As another example, what if you have a weakness in your game? Can’t you focus on improving that? Does being tough mean being perfect? No, being tough means getting up when you fall. It means taking a break to fix an injury and training your way back to normal.

Just as a physical injury can cause excruciating pain, so too can mental illness. Just because it’s invisible to another person, doesn’t mean it’s not there. Sometimes things happen and you can’t just get over it or walk it off. Just like you can’t simply get over a torn ACL by ignoring it, neither can you just get over a mental health issue by ignoring it.

At some point, everyone deals with trauma, stress, sadness, grieving, and a host of other issues that can affect your mental health. That doesn’t mean you’re a weak athlete or weak individual. It means you’re human.

Expecting an athlete to be at peak mental performance 24/7, 365 days/year, is no different than expecting an athlete to be at peak physical performance at all times. Think of a bad day as muscle soreness and a bad week or month as a pulled muscle. Even if you try to ignore it, it’s still there. Everyone has emotions and sometimes those emotions don’t make us feel great. Everyone goes through hard times. As long as humans have emotions, we’ll all have to make mental health a part of our focus and training.

If an athlete is dealing with mental illness that too can be overcome in recovery with therapy and an appropriate care plan decided by a licensed mental health professional. Injury builds character, heart, and strength. It becomes a part of your story, but it doesn’t define your story.

What makes an athlete or an individual strong is resilience and the willingness to improve. To improve, you have to admit your weaknesses, no matter if that’s physical, mental or spiritual, and ask for help. That’s strength.