Week 3: Professional Athletes Experiences

Hello Everyone! Welcome back! This week I will be talking about professional athletes taking on mental and physical health experiences.

First we will start off with DeMar BeRozan who is currently playing for the Chicago Bulls. BeRozan in his early years of playing in the NBA had expressed to the public about his struggles with depression. In 2018, he expressed while playing for the Toronto Raptors that “depression had gotten the best of me”. He was later interview by the Toronto Star that in February he stated “It’s one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we’re all human at the end of the day,” continuing “We all got feelings … all of that. Sometimes … it gets the best of you, where times everything in the whole world’s on top of you.” (Insider 2021).

This topic of trying to find understand was discussed in my first blog about how athlete are still human and never could realize our boundaries. But, BeRozan was one of the athletes that portrayed the reality. He became a role-model that many looked up to because he expressed the reality of the struggle any athlete can and will go through at some point in their lives.

Our second professional athlete is Abby Wambach. She played for the US women’s national team. A two time hall of fame and a gold medalist express in her retirement letter about her addiction and alcohol abuse before her retirement. The New York Time did an Interview with her in 2016. In the interview Wambach expressed, “”My alcohol abuse was during off-seasons or before days off, mostly, and I would binge drink. It was my habit. In the end, when things spun out of control, I was nearing the end of my career.” (Insider 2021).

Wambach was acting out due to not knowing what life would be like without soccer. She didn’t want to let go so, using substance and obtaining anxiety from the use took Wambach down a rabbit hole. But life can turn around, when you ask for help. Currently Abby Wambach has been 5 years sober and expressed to the world that ever since, “I started talking about it, I immediately felt like this is what I’ve been needing to do. The number one thing anyone should ever say to somebody is that they’re not alone.”(Insider 2021).

For anyone out there athlete or not, you are not alone. You have friends, families, peers, and more who will be there in an instant if you are in need.

Our last athlete will be discussing today will be Amanda Beard. A olympic swimmer who had been struggling with poor body image and self harm.  Amanda’s first Olympic Games was when she was just 14 years old. Throughout the years she expressed in her memoir that she struggles with depression, self-image, and self-harm.