Tag: sports

A mental illness journey: Clinging to hope after hitting personal rock bottom

Rock bottom, looking back, came 11 days after the Green Bay Packers lost to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC championship game.

My life, along with my family’s fabric, had slowly unraveled for months, spiraling into the abyss of mental illness. We had every reason to be happy in the fall of 2014. I was in my first season on the Packers beat, a dream job. My wife, Kelly, and I had three healthy, amazing boys. Each day was vibrant.

Depression doesn’t need permission to disrupt. It can strike when you least expect. That fall, Kelly had what can only be described as a mental breakdown. What followed was a routine of suicide attempts and psychiatric hospitalizations, each flailing treatment an unsuccessful solution. It felt like the illness was always one step ahead, no matter what we did.

Then in late January 2015, rock bottom.  more

FEATURE: Bucks man opens up about battle with psychosis in bid to end mental illness stigma

At 16-years old Martyn was a star footballer – however his sporting dreams were shattered when he was told he may never walk again following a devastating injury.

Although the doctors’ fears did not become reality – Martyn was unable to pursue his passion, and found himself sinking into a deep depression.

Years later, after developing paranoia, voices in his head and an addiction to drugs and alcohol, Martyn attempted to kill himself in a desperate bid to end his mental turmoil.

Now 34, the Chalfont St Peter resident is a trustee at mental health charity Buckinghamshire Mind, and is a passionate advocate for Bucks County Council’s (BCC) Time to Change Campaign – which aims to end the stigma surrounding mental illness.  more

San Antonio Man Working To Erase Stigma Of Schizophrenia

A San Antonio researcher seeks new treatments for schizophrenia while a San Antonio man strives to live a life of purpose with the disease.

Thirty-year-old Fonda White was a football standout at Marshall High School on the North Side of San Antonio. He dreamed of becoming a professional football player. But that dream was shattered in his 20s when he began hearing voices.

“A lot of voices. A lot of seeing things. Paranoia. Those kinds of symptoms coming up, fully blown, when I was age 25,” White said.

White didn’t understand what was happening to him, and it scared him; so, he tried to ignore it. He tried to keep playing minor league professional football. He kept trying to go to school, but the symptoms interfered with his life and activities. He started missing practice. He started missing school.  more

Tyson Fury has beaten his demons to become a champion for mental health

The heavyweight boxer who used to pray for death has shown that depression and addiction don’t have to be for ever

As a psychiatrist whose job is to preserve healthy minds, it feels a little unusual to be championing a mental health advocate who punches people in the head for a job. But that’s where I find myself with Tyson Fury.

On Sunday, having set my alarm for silly o’clock in the morning, I got up, boiled the kettle and sat down to watch two grown men try to knock each other into states of unconsciousness; the kind I’d always been taught to avoid at medical school. I’m not really a fan of boxing. Besides the risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy induced by a head injury (“punch-drunk syndrome”), I’ve never understood how bloody violence is permissible in society so long as it’s within a ring?   more

Mind and body: How do Louisiana colleges help athletes maintain their mental health?

As a former collegiate gymnast, Lauren Li, found comfort at LSU after experiencing emotional distress at Penn State.

“Anxiety, depression, eating disorders: It was tough just talking about it because being used to suppressing those emotions,” said Li, who was on LSU’s highly ranked team over the last three seasons. “I had to, like, learn how to be comfortable talking about it and seeking help for it if I wanted to help myself.”

It is no secret that expectations are high for athletes at universities across the country. These pressures take a toll, emotionally and physically, on athletes in all sports. And there has long been a stigma that discourages many of them from seeking mental and psychological help.  more

Here’s why anxiety in boys can look like anger, and how some famous role models can help them get through it

The movie theater is sold out, and Jalen Moore has folded his 6-foot-8-inch frame into a mid-row seat.

Confinement alone makes this a stressful situation for Moore, who might still be playing in the National Basketball Association if not for the anxiety attacks that began last spring, while he was belted into a stuffy cabin seat on a plane before a game.

What’s worse, the movie he and his girlfriend are watching is “A Quiet Place.” The screen shows a post-apocalyptic world where anyone who makes the slightest sound is set upon by man-eating demons.

Moore feels hot, and begins to sweat. Instinctively, he looks for the exits, and he knows his girlfriend will understand if he decides to leave the theater. It’s happened before.  more

Mental Health Is Finally Trending

The conversations we’ve needed to have for decades are finally taking place.

Mental health is trending. Now, more than ever, mental health is being portrayed in television series and in movies. While central characters cope with mental illness, celebrities are sharing their own personal experiences struggling with mental health disorders as well.

For so many years, mental health has been considered a taboo topic, and men especially feel like they can’t talk about their own struggles “due to long-standing societal norms.” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, a former athlete turned famous actor, opened up about his “battles with depression during his teen and early adult years.” He encouraged men to talk to someone about their mental health concerns and get treatment, instead of “bottling up their emotions.”

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps explained how depression almost ended his career. Phelps credits therapy as his saving grace for helping him through a dark time in his life, and he encourages others to seek out therapy or other types of treatment as well. Fortunately, this position that men should be tough and be able to handle it (it being emotional or psychological issues) has been challenged as more male celebrities and athletes come forward about their trials with mental illness.  more

Depression Nearly Took His Life—Then His Bike Saved Him

THIS NAVY PILOT CONQUERED HIS DEMONS ONE RIDE AT A TIME.

The night was black and the fog was low on Michael Espinosa’s pre-dawn ride to Richmond, Virginia, which made for oddly beautiful yet eerie conditions.

He had risen at 1 a.m., left his home in Norfolk an hour later, and by 3 a.m., he entered the mouth of the Virginia Capital Trail in Jamestown on his Kestrel Talon. As he moved silently along the Route 5 Corridor on that early October morning, he may as well have been pedaling in a planetarium. All the stars were on top of him.

It was an impulsive ride. Just hours prior, Espinosa had cheered on a friend in a half marathon and felt inspiration strike. He had dabbled in triathlons and badly missed racing—the competition and culture, sure, but mostly the euphoria of finishing. He wanted to do something like that for himself.

So the 24-year-old cleared his schedule for a Century, a feat he had completed on the same path back in the spring. But then he heard a voice in his head: “Sure, you could do 100 miles … or you could do 140.”  more

DARK DAYS Tyson Fury reveals harrowing story of suicide attempt during depression, voice that saved his life

The former unified heavyweight world champion fell to an astonishing low after achieving his ultimate high

Tyson Fury has told the shocking story of his depression-induced suicide attempt for the first time. Having previously admitted to mental health issues and drug addiction during his time away from boxing in 2016 and 2017, Fury is known to have endured a tortuous spell in his life after winning the world heavyweight titles.

However, he has now revealed the lowest point of this period – when he attempted to take his own life.
“I tried to commit suicide,” Fury told the Joe Rogan Podcast, “I’ll tell you what happened.

“I was waking up and I didn’t want to be alive, I was making everybody’s life a misery, everybody who was close to me I was pushing away.
“Nobody could talk any sense into me at all and I’d go very, very, very low at times, very low. And I’d start thinking all these crazy thoughts.
“I bought a brand new Ferrari convertible in the summer of 2016, and I was in it and I was on this strip of the highway where I am.  more