ESPN has done a five-part series on Mental Health in sports, shining a light on an issue that’s become increasingly mainstream over the last year. I haven’t yet read the pieces as of this writing, but I see that the authors have profiled players who have “come out” and publicly shared their mental health challenges.
My sister Latoya has dealt with, and still deals with, depression; we talked about it on my podcast. At an event I did with the G-League earlier this year, the speaker after me was a psychiatrist (or psychologist?) who started off by sharing how mental health had/has always been a taboo topic in the Black community, especially for males who have to wear the mask of masculinity and strength.
While I have never personally had the mental health challenges ESPN and my sister addressed, I know and have known many people who do and have; often they can’t talk to anyone because of the reasons I’ll explain below. Hopefully more discussion on the topics, along with well-known and publicly successful people sharing their own struggles, makes discussion more mainstream.
For Your Game
The toughest aspect of anything mental, whether teaching/explaining it, having it as an issue, or getting help with it, is that we can’t see or touch our minds. Thus it’s discounted and treated as less serious than, say, a broken leg. But you know; What’s happening in your head controls everything that happens (or doesn’t happen) from the neck-down.
#WorkOnYourGame