The Importance of Mental Health

I wrote this several years ago in the weeks after a successful run to a Final Four. Since this point, a lot of athletes have started openly talking about mental health. Hopefully that continues because it’s an insidious problem.

Would you trade places with me?

I’m coach of a 40-6 record, ranked 4^th in the country, made it all the way to the national title game, wound up Runner-Up, best performance in school history.  Add to that a couple likely All-Americans, four all-region selections, the Conference Player of the Year and then me being honored as Conference Coach of the Year and an NJCAA District Coach of the Year.  On top of that almost ZERO drama within the team, backed by great support from their parents, as well as my athletic department and the other coaches within our department.  As far as a season goes, what a run, a thrill ride with 14 wonderful hard-working players that deserved every moment of success this year.   This is the description of an almost perfect season, it’s a dream season which any coach would enjoy. 

Except I didn’t. 

Yes, you read that correctly.  I didn’t enjoy much of our season.  It was a grind, it was miserable—there was little joy in it.  You can read that again—it’s not mistyped and you didn’t read it wrong. 

I’ve debated whether to post this, whether as an article or a blog-post, looking for reasons not to, mainly because this is personal, it affects me—it’s real.   I’ve revised my thoughts now several times—so this is something like the tenth attempt, and it was this constant revision that made me realize—yes, this is important, very important, because if this is something worth writing over and over, it’s worth sharing.

There are tons of coaching articles about knees, elbows, ice or heat, physical health in general, but when’s the last time you saw someone discuss the subject of mental health out into the open.  It’s a dirty subject.  We talk about athletes needing to be tough—but what does that mean?  Everyone says they support mental health issues—and then Facebook-share posts saying ‘repost this if you know someone who suffers from a mental health disorder’, as if that really does anything.  You know what—it doesn’t.  I can share a dog picture just as easy and show as much true commitment.  Then again—do you know anybody who suffers mental illness?  Anyone willing to talk about it at all?

My mom, my sister, my wife—all were/are health professionals, so I’m really aware of this sort of thing, the causes, the symptoms, the treatments.  That’s not me patting myself on the back.  The opposite really—because I know enough to be cocky, enough to think—that would never happen to me. 

It’s a long descent into depression. It went slow for me—like a frog in a pot with the temp gradually turned up until it boils to death and never notices it.  Heck—I could justify a bunch of it BECAUSE of coaching…lack of sleep, weight gain (lot of fast food when out recruiting…), sore joints, or a lack of desire to do anything other than sleep—let’s face it, good lazy days on a couch CAN be wonderful.  It starts just a little at a time…you’re the frog.  And then you’re in denial, figuring you just need to push through the grind, that the mind can triumph over the body’s weakness—never thinking that it’s your own mind that is the enemy.  It all feels normal, no different than the day before, no need to worry about that water boiling all around you.

You can deny it by getting a doctor to treat things like energy or sleep.  I changed my diet to more healthy food ( including going vegetarian twice and giving up pop/caffeine twice as well), tried to live with a fixed sleep cycle, a bunch of little things to fix the lack of energy and willpower.  It seemed to work—but those are the high points, the ones where depression takes its knee off your throat, stops turning up that pots temperature…because sooner or later, the other shoe’s going to drop and you head back down into a depressed state, and start the cycle of solutions or stages of despair once again.  Sometimes that despair can cause suicidal thoughts.  I’ve learned though that it isn’t at the bottom that you think about suicide really—it’s on the way up from the bottom, when you start rising, the point where you still remember the thought but are regaining energy, have the power to take action.  Don’t panic—I’m not nor was I ever suicidal—but it’s a scary thought to feel despondent and uncaring about your own personal situation, especially since I firmly believe that enough work, enough practice will make you successful.  But not with this.

How can you tell? How do you know the difference between a bad day, just being tired, or if you have depression?  Is that sudden surge of energy from being rested or are you manic?  Are you cleaning your office because it is a mess or have you developed obsessive-compulsive disorder?  Are you yelling at players because you are competitive or are you having rage issues?  Heck—how can you diagnose any of these—because everything is in your mind.  You can’t, at least not right away.  You just keep grinding ahead, letting doctors know how you are doing, trying different things to see what works, what doesn’t.  Medicine is an art as much as it is a science and mental health issues are massively more complicated—because we are all unique, all individuals, so that what gives me respite will not necessarily work for anyone else.

Sure, I thought it was mental—mental in the sense that it was just the grind of recruiting, coaching, the travel, the paperwork and that I’m not 25 anymore.  Like I said—denial.  But there’s that frog boiling again—over Labor Day weekend, I realized it had been two months since I went on a ‘date’ with my wife.  Of course, it’s volleyball season, so that’s ‘normal,’ right?  But those little things started piling up—I stopped taking our dogs for walks…too much effort.  I stopped helping with laundry and dishes–too tired. I stopped playing Xbox with my son…again, too tired.  Think about that…too tired to sit and press buttons with my fingers.  It got to the point that I didn’t even care to watch stuff on TV or anything else—too much effort, just easier to sleep or lay on a couch and do nothing.

I’m lucky.  My wife is a health professional, I have friends who are as well.  They saw the changes in me and said something, suggesting I could be suffering from depression.  The fact I didn’t want to play board games or video games, watch violent movies, or have anything to do with volleyball…that was too much, so six weeks ago, I ‘broke down’ and got help—I finally realized they were right.

That realization created another big problem.  I feel like I’m damaged somehow, that simply by writing this, I lessen who I am as a person, that others will read this and then if they meet me, think, “That’s that suicidal angst guy—steer clear of him.”  At best, the feeling’s that awkward one you go through junior high with when you are awkward in every which way, except now I’m an adult, I’ve lived it already and know it sucks.  To get help, the afflicted person has to realize there’s a problem, and given the frog analogy, that’s hard to do.  I didn’t realize any of this until now, this year, when, with hindsight, I’ve suffered this for years, maybe even most of adulthood in which case it’s taken a quarter-century for me to realize there’s a problem. 

What about others around you?  Have you known them that long?  If it isn’t obvious to me for 25 years, is it obvious to someone else after six months or two years or a decade?  Do your players suffer from this?  Think of the normal stress in a teen’s life—now add in a mental illness.  It can be overwhelming for a teen because every teen in the world is absolutely sure no one else has ever, EVER, gone through what they are experiencing.  There are signs that something could be going on:  mood swings, intense feelings, radical weight change, headaches, or choosing to use drugs, hoping for an escape from their feelings.  I think it’s a good checklist for adults, too.  Do the signs mean they have something going on?  Not necessarily—let’s face it, teens go through mood swings, body changes, etc. anyways, but those signs offer us a chance to let parents or qualified adults know what’s going on, so that they can check and see if the feelings are normal or symptomatic of a real health problem.

So how do you help?  It depends—and it can depend on you.  I suppose the very first step’s admitting something’s up, that there’s a problem.  It’s easier said than done—after all, how many people like admitting they are wrong, especially to themselves?  With a broken bone, it’s an easy solution—put it in a cast, let it heal.  With mental health, depression, there’s no set solution, no perfect way to fix what could be a short-term problem or could be something I’ll live with the rest of my life.  That’s scary to think about. For me, I don’t like the idea of artificially chemically altering my body (other than with caffeine), so my doctor’s working to minimize the need for drugs, hoping we can manage it through a substantially altered diet and a change in other habits (which may be tougher to deal with than medicine…).  There’s also talk-therapy which can get to the root of issues a different way, too, and it doesn’t work like you see on TV—I know that now.  Ditto for pharmacological solutions.   I just made the assumption that what I’d seen, what I’d read was the truth because I didn’t want to deal with any of it (there’s my denial again).  If I’d accepted five years ago what I know now, maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get to this point, forgetting to enjoy my amazing team, my loving family, and everything else awesome out there in the world.

Please, PLEASE, take mental health seriously.  Problems aren’t always obvious, they are insidious, and often, maybe usually, hidden by those who suffer things like depression.  Talk to my players—they wouldn’t think I was depressed.  Watch videos of us, you won’t think “Hey, he’s got depression,” and you’d never know it from me being out recruiting and talking to people with a smile, explaining why we’re one of the best college programs in the country.  None of those people know.   But it’s there.  And it’s real.   Please be more active than simply hitting ‘share’ on Facebook.  Be honest with yourself and your own mental health, look out for your players and staff, and make sure they are all right.  Pay equal attention to the mental health side of coaching and sports.  Don’t wait, don’t be late realizing how important it is (my mistake).  You can make a difference.   I promise–I know.