A Calgary city councillor tweeted about his personal struggles with years of suicidal bouts, for the first time, on World Suicide Prevention Day and says it’s time to fight the stigma.
“I just broke the back of a 4.5 yr deep depression, with many days where suicide was close. People are struggling all around us,” Brian Pincott wrote on the social media platform.
Pincott says beyond very close friends, he had not previously shared his experience publicly.
“At its worst, I described it to my psychologist one day, I said, ‘In the picture of my life, I don’t exist,'” he said.
“As I went further and further down the hole, not recognizing that I was getting further and further down the hole, I started doing things like peeling off family, having no contact with family. Then I peeled off friends and had no contact with friends to try and survive.”
‘Stopped existing’
He says he lost 35 pounds and focused completely on his work.
“Brian, the person, stopped existing and Brian, the councillor, was the only thing left in my life,” he said.
“If I can just concentrate on my job, on Brian the councillor, at least there will be one group of people that I will try not to let down, to disappoint, and I will be able to survive in some way.”
But later that year, Pincott did confide in his family doctor and a psychologist, who together convinced him to consider prescription medication options, which he had until then resisted.
“For a period of a-year-and-a-half to two years after that, I think I saw my family doctor, on average, every two weeks. We went through nine versions of medication. I saw psychiatrists and psychologists and I am thankful that I had a doctor who was tenacious, who didn’t give up on me when I was ready. In 2015/2016, when I was ready to give up, I didn’t care anymore, I had a doctor who wasn’t ready to give up and she kept working at it.”
By early 2017 he felt better equipped to handle things.
“My goal now is to work with her to have the tools in place to be able to interrupt the cycle earlier as opposed to when you are sliding too deeply down the hole,” Pincott said.
He’s far from alone in struggling with suicide and mental health issues.
Men 3X more likely to die by suicide
Statistics Canada reports 4,054 Canadians died by suicide in 2013, suicide rates among men were three times higher than women, people between 40 and 59 had the highest rates and single people have higher rates than those with partners.
Suicide is also a leading cause of death among young people ages 15 to 34.
‘Listening can be the greatest assistance,’ Sharon Basaraba says, on responding to someone with suicidal thoughts. (Twitter)
“I am generalizing here but typically women and younger men are able to discuss challenges more openly, get support that way,” Sharon Basaraba told Daybreak Alberta in November.
“That might not really be true for middle-aged men, in their 40s and 50s. They are kind of the sandwich generation, emulating their fathers, that kind of stoicism, be strong, it is a weakness to admit that you are vulnerable, that you have lost your job, you define yourself that way.”
Brandy Payne, Alberta’s associate health minister, says Pincott was brave to speak out.
“I’m grateful for those who’ve come forward to share their experiences,” Payne said in a statement to CBC News.
Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. Reach out, support, understand what some are struggling with. https://t.co/WUQgi4IicV#yyc#yyccc
“And I hope that hearing these personal stories helps fight the shame surrounding mental illness. We can all be a part of the conversation around mental health and suicide.”
For Pincott, the issue will always be there, but it’s a matter of learning to face it head on.
“I feel stronger. It is something that I can raise awareness about to break down the stigma because stigma doesn’t serve anybody,” Pincott said.
“Stigma leads to suicide, stigma leads to self-medication and doesn’t serve anybody. It sure as hell didn’t serve me.”
Pincott says the issue is not related to his decision to not run for city council in the upcoming election, but that his doctor is not unhappy with that decision.
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, there are resources available. In Calgary, call the Distress Centre at 403-266-HELP (4357). In Alberta and the rest of Canada, call 1-877-303-2642.
In order to be calm and at ease with ourselves, we need regular periods where we do something rather strange-sounding: process our emotions. Here is a guide to this essential psychological move.
Now, in a special video, his wife, Talinda, has shared footage of him laughing and joking with family members just 36 hours before he took his own life.
In an emotional tribute on Twitter, she wrote: “My next tweet is the most personal tweet I have ever done. I’m showing this so that you know that depression doesn’t have a face or a mood.”
In her next post she wrote: “This is what depression looked like to us just 36 hrs b4 his death. He loved us SO much and we loved him #fuckdepression #MakeChesterProud.”
Shilpa Narayan was 14 years old when the distress she had tried to hide for years erupted into tears after a teacher asked how her day was going.
“I looked at her and I just started crying,” she recalls.
At that moment, thanks to intervention by her teacher, Narayan took the first step toward treatment for the anxiety and depression she had suffered from since the age of 12.
“Everything was scary, everything was daunting,” said Narayan, now 20. “Some days I couldn’t speak. At the end of the day, I felt I had run multiple marathons but hadn’t won any of them.”
Anxiety disorder and depression were clinical terms the teenager didn’t understand at the time. She just knew that she felt overwhelmed.
Narayan’s teacher took her to the school counsellor.
“She probably saved my life at that point,” Narayan said.
But many children and teens suffering from a mental disorder never get help.
According to the Children’s Health Policy Centre at Simon Fraser University, 70 per cent of the estimated 84,000 children and youth in B.C. who suffer from a mental disorder do not receive treatment.
CHPC director Dr. Charlotte Waddell said child and youth mental health need to be a high priority — and early intervention is key.
“If you wait until someone becomes an adult, you’re leaving that young person with sometimes five or 10 years of severe symptoms,” she said.
“That young person has stepped off the developmental pathway that they needed to be on to be able to complete school, the chance of going to university or entering the workforce.”
Studies have found that 50 to 75 per cent of mental disorders start in childhood. Anxiety is common in early childhood, as is depression in the teen years. Suicide is the second leading cause of death among youth across the country, according to the Canadian Mental Health Association.
Narayan can trace her first signs of anxiety and depression back to elementary school.
“I was lost, confused, I was angry at myself because I just knew there was something there and it was bad … I tried to push it away,” she said.
She hid her struggles from her parents and tried to mask what she was feeling by pushing herself into sports and clubs.
“I didn’t want to be trapped in my own thoughts,” she said. “I told myself it was just a phase I would get through.”
But Narayan began to have anxiety attacks and would start shaking in class. Plagued by fears of failure and of disappointing her parents, she felt the stigma of mental illness.
Roxanne Pope, the teacher in whom Narayan confided, said she became worried after noticing the teen’s demeanour had changed.
“She’s usually very outgoing. She started to be withdrawn and started to disclose she was struggling,” said Pope.
Narayan recalled trying to verbalize how she felt when she met with the school counsellor.
“All I could tell her was that I hate the way I’m doing things. I hate myself,” she said.
School counsellors, doctors or nurse practitioners are the first point of contact for many children and youth seeking help, says Waddell. A referral might then be made to a child and youth mental health team run by the Ministry for Children and Family Development.
Cognitive behavioural therapy — which aims to change patterns of thinking and behaviour through one-on-one or group counselling — is the preferred treatment for anxiety and depression. It has more lasting results than medication, which is less effective and can have side-effects, according to the CHPC.
The counselling services offered by the ministry are good, said Waddell, but often they aren’t available or there aren’t enough spaces.
“We simply don’t have enough services on offer,” she said.
Narayan’s school counsellor referred her to community counselling at Surrey’s Pacific Community Resource Centre. The service was free, but the counsellors were graduate students on practicum, meaning they would switch every six months. It made it difficult for Narayan to establish trust.
“I’m having to re-tell everything, because there’s only so much they have in their notebooks,” said Narayan. “No one is at fault in this. It’s just how the system works.”
At one point in high school, she filled out a referral form for a ministry-funded counselling service. She had an intake interview, but was told that her conditions were not severe enough and was put on a nine-month waitlist.
“What is the definition of bad enough? Is it self-harm to the point that you’re in the hospital?” said Narayan.
“If someone is going through the extreme, please take them in. But at the same time, don’t tell someone else that they aren’t bad enough (to receive treatment).”
When medication was suggested to Narayan, she was upset by the idea that she had a chemical imbalance. On her first round of anti-depressants, she suffered side-effects, and when her anxiety mounted she ended up hospitalized.
Child psychiatrist Dr. Matthew Chow said seeing patients wait for treatment spurred him to start Youth Wellness Associates, a youth psychiatry clinic with expedited treatment access times.
“We do have a lot of youth and children who wait on waiting lists or who never get help at all and, as a result, encounter significant disability. Ultimately some, unfortunately, die from their illness through suicide,” said Chow.
At Youth Wellness, which is based at the Three Story Clinic in Vancouver, child and adolescent psychiatrists assess patients within four weeks of referral. They are then referred to other specialists, providers and clinics.
Depending on where a child or youth lives in the province and even within the Lower Mainland, access to care varies, said Chow.
“Basically, the further east you go, past Boundary Road, the longer the waits get,” he said.
He said as populations have shifted, he’s noticed fewer referrals from Vancouver and increasing demand in Surrey, Langley, Port Coquitlam and Maple Ridge, where there are more young people.
Many of Chow’s patients are intercepted early in their illness or when symptoms are mild to moderate. He said too often the system forces people to wait for treatment until they’re very sick or suicidal.
“It’s a fundamental principle of medicine that the earlier that you can intervene in an illness, the better the outcome will be,” Chow said.
Narayan, now a student at SFU and an advocate for mental health, continues to receive treatment. She credits her ability to get through high school and transition to university to five teachers who banded together to help her navigate the system and get access to care.
They also encouraged her to open up to her parents, who are proud of her advocacy work.
“Living with my anxiety and living with my depression, I find it’ll never get easy for me,” she said. “But I feel like through my life I will learn tools that will help me manage it better. We expect ourselves to turn off the monsters, but how realistic is that? Rather, let’s say, let’s turn down the volume of the monsters.”
Eight years after first experiencing the signs of mental illness, Narayan told her story to an auditorium of Grade 7 girls at Elgin Park Secondary in Surrey. They were the same age she was when her anxiety and depression began.
Naryan asked the group how many felt stressed. Most raised their hands.
“Know that you’re not alone,” she told them.
Ashley MacDonald was hospitalized numerous times as a child due to depression, including a six-month stay in an adult psychiatric ward.
Services struggle amid surge in youth reporting mental health issues
Ashley Macdonald began suffering from symptoms of anxiety in Grade 9, along with depression, an eating disorder and a self-harm addiction. At times she couldn’t get out of bed or eat.
“It felt like you were very heavy, like you’re just draped over, covered in something thick,” Macdonald said of her depression.
At crisis points she would call 911 and was hospitalized multiple times — including a six-month stint in an adult psychiatric ward when she was in Grade 12.
After her health stabilized, she moved into a transitional living program with Options Community Services Society.
Now 19, Macdonald is able to study and work. She attributes her progress to cognitive-behavioural therapy.
She’s one of thousands of children and young people in B.C. who have been hospitalized due to mental health issues — and the province’s counsellors and clinicians are struggling to cope.
Canada-wide, emergency department visits for youth who have mental disorders rose 45 per cent between 2006/2007 and 2013/2014, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. In-patient hospitalizations increased by 37 per cent in the same period.
According to the Ministry of Health, approximately 3,800 children and youth were hospitalized for mental health and substance-use related reasons in 2013-2014 in B.C.
B.C. Children’s Hospital in Vancouver has 20 beds as part of a provincial in-patient program for children and youth, as well as six beds in a psychiatric emergency unit. In the rest of the province, there are six in Prince George, eight in Kelowna and 10 at Surrey Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Matthew Chow, a child psychiatrist with the counselling group Youth Wellness Associates in Vancouver, said that due to the lack of beds in youth wards, youth sometimes end up in an adult psychiatric ward.
The stigma of mental illness is evident in how the health system treats patients with mental health disorders compared to, for example, young cancer patients, Chow said.
“We treat them (young cancer patients) really, really well — we do everything in our power to make it a comforting experience because we know it’s scary,” he said. “Yet, in the mental health system, we don’t do that. We have people being put in adult units or being treated by adult specialists, and it’s really frightening for them, and it’s not fair.”
Macdonald still attends counselling and hopes to inspire others to seek help for their mental health struggles.
“I feel like there’s a lot more people out there who are struggling than what we actually see,” she said. “It’s kind of this big, dark secret out there.”
The collaborative was established in June 2013 and has since grown to 64 local teams across the province, involving around 2,600 people.
“It was formed in response to family doctors identifying that children and youth and families did not have sufficient access to mental health and substance use services,” said Valerie Tregillus, project director of the collaborative.
“We were being told by school counsellors and clinicians and doctors that they feel they’re facing a tsunami. I think that there’s no question that there’s underfunding for this high-need population and the return on investment is massive.”
• Rosemary Newton is a graduate of Langara College’s journalism program and recipient of the 2016 Jeani Read-Michael Mercer Scholarship
Sometimes, all it takes is one person, one story, to help you realize you’re not alone — and knowing you’re not alone can be the first step in getting help2. For “Daily Show” host and comedian Trevor Noah, that person was Jim Carrey.
On Friday, Noah showed his serious side in an acceptance speech at Friday’s Just for Laughs Awards, where he was awarded Comedy Person of the Year. In his speech, he credited Jim Carrey as being the first person to help him accept that he was experiencing depression. Carey was also in attendance to receive a Generation Award.
According to The Daily News, Noah said in his acceptance speech, “Jim Carrey was one of the first comedians that described the beast that many of us face in this room and that’s depression. I didn’t know what that thing was. I just thought I liked sleeping for weeks on end sometimes.”
“I was like, ‘Oh shit, that’s what’s going on,’ and I thank you because, you know, I found a way to fight it,” Noah told Entertainment Tonight Canada.
This isn’t the first time Noah has spoken out about depression. As a teenager he had severe acne, and told NPR he went on medication that makes you both “depressed and suicidal.” He’s also been open about depression on his own show. Once, chatting with his guest, comedian Neal Brennan, he dispelled the myth that people who have depression “aren’t supposed to smile.”
What’s funny about it is that people go, ‘If you’re depressed you can’t smile, if you’re depressed you can’t tell jokes,’ but as comedians, that’s like the one thing most comedians share. It’s just that monkey on [our] backs.
See also: A Blueprint When Feeling Blue: How A Mental Health Diagnosis Can Be Empowering – click here.
Mental-health coaches, the first of their kind in Canada, are helping those with depression, anxiety and at-risk drinking
Each day, Antonio was slipping deeper into depression. His parents were ill, he feared being laid off from work and he was unhappy in his relationship, which he had moved to Toronto for.
But when he started thinking about suicide — and at one point two years ago came “really, really close” to taking his own life — he knew he needed help.
“I felt jailed, trapped,” says Antonio, who asked that his last name not be published. “I was in a very dark place.”
He confided in his family doctor, who suggested he participate in the Partners Project run out of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). It’s a three-year study looking at the effectiveness of a mental-health coach — the first role of its kind in Canada — who calls patients with depression, anxiety and at-risk drinking, the most common mental-health problems in primary care.
Adam Whisler, one of the mental-health coaches, says patient response has been largely positive.
“It’s been really awesome to talk to people who would otherwise be completely isolated or who are very nervous to go and speak with someone in person (about mental health),” he says. “By talking to them over the phone, it can help them drop their guard a bit and feel more comfortable.”
The Partners Project, which started two years ago, is meant to bridge primary-care providers and the larger mental-heath services community.
The way it works is a family physician, or nurse practitioner, refers a patient to the project. A treatment plan is designed by a psychiatrist, who supervises three specially trained mental-health coaches.
It’s the coaches who regularly call the patients, usually weekly for about 20 to 30 minutes, to check in and provide support. The coaches then share the information from those calls with the overseeing psychiatrist, whose treatment suggestions may include medication, different dosages, blood work and referrals for formal therapy. Those recommendations are then given to the patient’s doctor so he or she can implement them.
The program is meant to assist family doctors, who don’t always have the resources when dealing with mental health and addictions issues, and may have limited time for followup and support. It can also prove crucial for those in rural and remote areas, where there are limited mental-heath services.
In Ontario, 1.3 million people suffer from co-existing physical and mental-health illness, and many aren’t getting the treatment they need because the health-care system isn’t designed to focus on both at the same time. That’s according to the Medical Psychiatry Alliance (MPA), which is supporting the study that’s being funded by Bell Let’s Talk.
At first, Antonio was reluctant to participate because he didn’t want to share personal details on the phone with someone he had never met. But he couldn’t afford a therapist and was desperate. So he gave it a try.
“After a few months, I was feeling better and doing better,” he says, noting the mental-health coach helped him set goals, monitored his symptoms and asked how he was responding to his anti-depressants.
“There was continuous feedback between (the Partners team), my family doctor and me. And that was very important. I felt like I was taken care of.”
This kind of integrated care was adopted from similar models in the United States and could become a widespread practice in Ontario. Those overseeing the project say results so far are encouraging.
“Our hope is that this model can assist us in meeting the health-care gaps and increasing access for mental-health services for patients in the primary care context,” says Athina Perivolaris, a senior project manager for the MPA.
Adam Whisler is a mental-health coach, a new role for Canada that involves calling patients once a week to provide support for those dealing with depression, anxiety or at-risk drinking. (ANDREW FRANCIS WALLACE)
“If we are able to do that, our hope then would be that we can take this model and have it widely adopted throughout the province.”
The MPA was established in 2014 with funding from the province, an anonymous donor and four partners (CAMH, the Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto and Trillium Health Partners). It’s tasked with improving access to better-integrated mental and physical health care in Ontario.
About 150 family doctors, mostly from the GTA, are working with the Partners Project, but researchers are trying to recruit more physicians in rural and remote areas.
As part of the study, patients are placed in one of two groups: one that keeps getting usual care and another that receives usual care, plus the extra phone support from a mental-health coach.
In some cases, the study’s researchers identified serious problems with patients, such as PTSD, drug use, mania and psychosis, which had been missed by family doctors.
“Even when physicians detect some distress, they do not necessarily have the time to find out what the problem is,” says Perivolaris.
Dr. Charles King of Village Family Health Team in Toronto welcomes the extra support and has referred about 35 patients to the project.
“The idea is that you want to actively manage depression, anxiety and at-risk drinking. Typically a lot of people fall through the cracks with those problems.”
Whisler has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology, is a former youth worker and does mental-health research at CAMH. In order to participate in this project, he and the other coaches received special training that includes symptom-monitoring and how to speak with patients so they better understand their symptoms.
For those with mild to moderate symptoms of depression and anxiety, regular chats with a mental-health coach may be sufficient, says Whisler. Coaches can help them with life skills and goals so their situation doesn’t worsen and require formal therapy.
“From a system-level perspective, that makes a massive difference in reducing wait times for psychiatrists and psychologists and also reducing the cost to the overall health system.”
For Antonio, regular phone sessions with a mental-health coach — a “comforting and reassuring” voice — made all the difference.
“I’d probably be gone had I continued on that destructive path.”
He’s now putting many of the skills he learned during their discussions to good use. For instance, he recently broke up with his partner — something he says would’ve pushed him over the edge a couple of years ago — but he’s managing.
“I’m not exactly 100-per-cent OK . . . but I’m not where I was.”
“We act how we think and feel. When we remove the negative thought, with it goes the drama and pain.” – Anon.
Negative thoughts serve absolutely no purpose. Zero. None. Not-a-one. Know what else?
Negative thinking has absolutely nothing to do with you as a person. Toxic thoughts don’t define your character, and they can’t determine your destiny. Wedetermine the power of each negative thought. Unfortunately, we often grant negative thoughts too much influence – and this is what causes damage.
The Buddha once said: “Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.”
Notice the word unguarded in Buddha’s teaching. As he is with most things pertaining to the mind, Buddha is once again supremely wise. Sometimes negative thoughts have a tendency to hang around – this is when cognitive reframing (i.e. ‘cognitive restructuring’) is essential.
Dr. Alice Boyes, a former clinical psychologist and author of The Anxiety Toolkit, describes cognitive restructuring as “a core part of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT),” which Dr. Boyes says “is one of the most effective psychological treatments.”
No, you don’t need to participate in CBT to learn cognitive restructuring.
In fact, in this article, we’re going to teach some fundamentals of cognitive restructuring. While you may not become an expert on the technique, you’ll walk away informed and – more importantly – empowered.
HERE ARE 5 WAYS TO REFRAME NEGATIVE THOUGHTS:
1. OBSERVE THE THOUGHT
Take a seat in the far back of your mind and simply observe the negative thought. (Think about how you’d watch a bird flutter about on a rooftop.)
Negative thoughts are generally a product of cognitive distortions, or irrational thought patterns, something recognized by psychologists and psychiatrists the world over. You don’t require psychotherapy or medication – you only need to observe a thought, and then watch it dissipate.
2. QUESTION ANY RUMINATIONS
Ruminations are patterns of overthinking, e.g., “I have this problem, which I can solve if I just keep thinking about it.” Unless you’re actively engaging the frontal lobe of your brain – that is, attempting to solve a problem – most ruminations are pointless.
The question then becomes “How do I reframe these thoughts?”
Here is a suggested course of action:
(a) Create two columns on a sheet of paper. Label the first column “Thought” and the second column “Solution.”
(b) When the rumination appears, write down the time. Write anything of use in the “solution” column.
(c) At the end of the day/week/month, count the number of times the thought appeared and any insights.
Is there anything of value? If not, re-read #1.
3. DETERMINE THE EVIDENCE
Another way of reframing your thoughts is to evaluate the evidence behind them.
For example, if you’re always thinking “I never have enough money,” it may be helpful to assess the evidence and come to a solution (if needed).
Once again, you’ll create two columns. In Column (A) write any supporting proof that you “never have enough money,” e.g. bank account balance, always asking for money, etc. In Column (B) write any objective evidence demonstrating the contrary, e.g. having shelter, food, clothing, and so on.
What information is conveyed through this exercise? Can you say with 100 percent honesty that you “never have enough money”? If so, what’s the next course of action? Do you create a budget and limit your spending?
4. PRACTICE MINDFULNESS
What better place to mention mindfulness than after talking about money – a near-universal stressor?
Christopher Bergland, a three-time champion of the Triple Ironman triathlon and scientist, explains mindfulness as “much more basic than most people realize.” Bergland breaks down his approach to mindfulness in three steps: “Stop. Breathe. Think about your thinking. Anyone can use this simple mindfulness technique throughout the day to stay calm, focused, optimistic and kind.”
Structured mindfulness meditation practices and techniques, such as Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) exist for those people seeking more formal training.
5. UNDERSTAND IMPERMANENCE AND NEUTRALITY
We touched on this during the introduction, but it’s worth repeating: negative thoughts are fleeting and temporary; without any real power of their own.
No matter what negative thoughts cross your mind, it is crucial to understand these concepts. In fact, you can even create and recite a maxim, for example, “This is a negative thought. I’ll observe but not engage, as it will quickly flee.”
One terrific way to demonstrate the powerlessness of a negative thought is to distract yourself. Do something that will occupy your mind, so there’s no room for the negative thoughts.
We wish you peace, happiness, self-love and self-compassion.
Stephen Hawking has one of the greatest minds of our time. He is well known for his work in theoretical physics, and was born on January 8, 1942, (300 years after the death of Galileo) in Oxford, England. As a young child, he wanted to study mathematics, but once he began college, he studied Natural Sciences. Then, during his first year in Cambridge at the age of 21, Hawking began to have symptoms of ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Doctors gave him two and a half years to live.
Now, at the age of 74, he continues to teach, research, and provide the world with beautiful messages. He says that his expectations were reduced to zero when he was given the ALS diagnosis. Ever since then, every aspect of his life has been a bonus.
One of the most brilliant minds did not allow these life challenges to stop him. He continued studying. Hawking has twelve honorary degrees. He has dedicated his life to finding answers about the universe, the Big Bang, creation and scientific theories. He cannot speak or move, bounded to a wheelchair, but he has found ways to inspire the world, encouraging us to find the mysticism in the stars. He says:
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. If you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
Recently during a lecture in January at the Royal Institute in London, Hawking compared black holes to depression, making it clear that neither the black holes or depression are impossible to escape. “The message of this lecture is that black holes ain’t as black as they are painted. They are not the eternal prisons they were once thought. Things can get out of a black hole both on the outside and possibly to another universe. So if you feel you are in a black hole, don’t give up; there’s a way out,” he said.
When asked about his disabilities, he says: “The victim should have the right to end his life, if he wants. But I think it would be a great mistake. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.” He continues with an inspiring message about disabilities:
“If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one’s physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal.
My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.”
Stephen Hawking does not only encourage the scientific minds to pay attention, but inspires the rest of us to take notice that there is connection between the stars and each one of us. His disabilities have not stopped his curious mind and sense of wonder.
His daughter, Lucy, shared with the crowd at the lecture, “He has a very enviable wish to keep going and the ability to summon all his reserves, all his energy, all his mental focus and press them all into that goal of keeping going. But not just to keep going for the purposes of survival, but to transcend this by producing extraordinary work writing books, giving lectures, inspiring other people with neurodegenerative and other disabilities.”
Raising consciousness
‘THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT OF OUR ERA’
Michael Phelps locked himself in his bedroom for four days three years ago. He’d been arrested a second time for DUI. He was despondent and adrift. He thought about suicide.
Family and friends — “a life-saving support group,” Phelps calls them — urged him to seek professional help. He got it. And now he wants others who are suffering from mental health issues to find the help they need.
Some will scoff at this. Phelps is the golden boy of the Olympic Games. Fame and fortune are his. Really, what could be so bad in his life?
That is never the right question. People from all walks of life suffer from a range of mental illnesses. Roughly 44 million Americans experienced some form of mental illness in 2015 (the most recent year for which numbers are available), according to estimates by the National Institute of Mental Health. That’s nearly one in five people aged 18 or over.
Brent Walker, associate athletic director for championship performance at Columbia University, says he didn’t want to deal with the mental health side of performance when he began working in the field. Now, he says, “it is difficult to separate the mental health piece from the performance side of it.”
NBA legend Jerry West has struggled for decades with dark bouts of depression and low self-esteem. Sometimes people tell him he’s brave for speaking openly about it. He says that’s not courageous so much as honest.
“Some people hide their pain,” West says. “I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t feel good about myself a lot of the time, but it’s nothing I’m ashamed of.”
Wilbert Leonard, a sociology professor at Illinois State, says he thinks consciousness in the broader world can be raised by prominent voices from the sports world — like Phelps, West and Marshall — and perhaps begin to chip away the societal stigma too often attached to mental illness.
“It’s John Wayne syndrome, that stiff upper lip — keeping your feelings to yourself and not letting anyone know you’re hurting,” Leonard says. “That plays out in the sports world and it plays out in the larger society.”
Athletes face pressure to perform, often in the face of intense public scrutiny, while competing in a culture that inhibits them from seeking the help they need.
“For the longest time, I thought asking for help was a sign of weakness because that’s kind of what society teaches us,” Phelps says. “That’s especially true from an athlete’s perspective. If we ask for help, then we’re not this big macho athlete that people can look up to. Well, you know what? If someone wants to call me weak for asking for help, that’s their problem. Because I’m saving my own life.”
Millions of Americans suffer from mental illness every year, but sports fans may forget that their favorite athletes are just as susceptible to psychological distress as the rest of us.USA TODAY Sports
Imani Boyette
SCREAMING IN A SOUNDPROOF ROOM
The first time Imani Boyette tried to kill herself she was 10.
Boyette, 22, is a center for the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream. She suffers from clinically diagnosed severe depression that she attributes to a combination of circumstance (she was raped as a child by a family member) and happenstance (her biological makeup).
“You feel like because you’re not happy — when you should be happy — that you’re hurting people around you and a burden,” she says. “At a certain point, it just gets easier to shut up because people get sick of hearing you’re not OK when you’re not sick on the outside.”
Boyette says she tried to kill herself three times. “I wasn’t looking for help,” she says. “I wasn’t looking for resources. … I didn’t have anybody I could talk to, I could touch, who understands this hell I’m in.”
That’s why Boyette is telling her story. She wants to be the role model she wishes she’d had in her darkest hours, not that it’s easy to do.
Her brother, JaVale McGee, plays for the NBA champion Golden State Warriors and her husband, Paul Boyette Jr., is a defensive tackle for the Oakland Raiders. They met when both were athletes at the University of Texas. She told him then about her childhood abuse, by way of explanation of her night terrors.
“After I got married, I went into a deep depression, which makes no sense whatsoever,” she says. “It’s, like, the happiest time in your life. And it’s hard to convince your husband this is not because I don’t love you. I just can’t love you out of this depression, out of this fog.”
She describes the days when she can’t even get out of bed or brush her teeth. It’s as if she were in a straightjacket, she says, screaming in a soundproof room where no one can hear her, even her husband. Soon the screams are more like echoes and she envisions a glass wall where she presses her hand against his.
“I tell him just being there is enough,” she says, eyes moist. “You don’t have to understand or see my pain, but just acknowledge it. And be there.”
Mardy Fish
‘IT’S OK TO NOT BE OK’
Mardy Fish was ready to play Roger Federer in the fourth round of the 2012 U.S. Open when he mysteriously withdrew from one of the biggest matches of his life for “health reasons,” as his handlers said at the time. It was for severe anxiety disorder, which over time had led Fish to panic attacks, sleepless nights and days barricaded inside his home.
“It’s OK not to be OK,” he says. “To show weakness, we’re told in sports, is to deserve shame. But showing weakness, addressing your mental health, is strength.”
Sports is measured in the binary way of wins and losses; facing up to anxiety is more complicated than that. “There is no quick fix where all of a sudden you wake up and it’s gone,” Fish says. “There is no sports movie ending here. This is the reality of sports stars being real people.”
He says 2012 is when “it all came crashing down” and he could no longer find his “happy place.” His psychiatrist prescribed medication. That helped. He has since slowly begun to ween himself and set small goals. One was traveling alone for the first time in years.
Fish married Stacey Gardner, an attorney and model, in 2008. “I’m so glad my struggles happened when they happened,” Fish says. “I can’t imagine being single and young, going through this. My support system has been massive.”
Fish took off the 2014 Tour to have a catheter ablation operation to correct misfiring electric impulses in his heart, then made a brief return to competitive tennis in 2015. He has since become a serious golfer. He finished tied for second in the American Century Championship celebrity tournament recently, behind former pitcher Mark Mulder and ahead of NBA star Stephen Curry, who was fourth.
Isn’t golf stressful?
“The truth is you want stress in your life,” Fish says. “You don’t want an actual anxiety-free life. What would the fun be there?”
Rick Ankiel
HARDLY ‘IMMUNE TO INNER PAIN AND TORTURE’
Rick Ankiel was on the mound for the St. Louis Cardinals against the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the 2000 National League Division Series when he found he couldn’t do what had always come so naturally. Ankiel, the pitcher, couldn’t pitch anymore.
He threw five wild pitches in an inning; no major leaguer had done that since 1890. More starts produced more wild pitches. He was never the same.
“For anyone who hasn’t had it happen to them, they don’t understand how deep and how dark it is,” he says. “It consumes you. It’s not just on the field. It never goes away. … It’s this ongoing battle with your own brain. You know what you want to do — in your heart. But your body and brain won’t let you do it.”
Ankiel would eventually have to give up his pitching career. Remarkably, he would come back years later as an outfielder. He is one of two players in major league history who have started a postseason game as a pitcher and hit a home run in the postseason as a position player. (The other? Some fellow by the name of Babe Ruth.)
Anxiety on the mound led to obsessive thoughts in his daily routine. TV analysts called him weak. They said he lacked mental toughness.
“I can’t imagine how bad it’d be with social media nowadays,” he says. “There’s such a stigma, especially with men, that you can’t falter, and that you shouldn’t get help.”
Ankiel found himself envious of players who had physical injuries that rehab could fix. He turned to therapy, breathing exercises and different medications — mostly to no avail.
Ankiel was USA TODAY Sports’ high school baseball player of the year in 1997. Some touted him as the second coming of Sandy Koufax. And then, poof, it was gone.
“It was beyond frightening and scary,” he says. “We’re getting paid millions, but that doesn’t mean we’re immune to inner pain and torture.”
Ankiel wrote about all of this in The Phenomenon: Pressure, the Yips and the Pitch that Changed My Life, which came out this year. It tells of how he tried vodka and marijuana to calm himself. Nothing worked. Enter Harvey Dorfman, the late sports psychologist, who became a father figure in Ankiel’s darkest hours and helped “save my life” as his pitching career unraveled. Dorfman, who wrote The Mental Game of Baseball, helped Ankiel face his abusive childhood.
“For athletes, you want to try to turn over every stone possible to be at the best of your ability,” Ankiel says. “So if there’s a doctor or counselor who can help you, why not turn over that stone? Having a culture conducive to mental health is big. I think we’re getting there. Just about every (MLB) team has a psychology department. I’m glad we’re starting to understand. We’re all human, and I think the more we talk about mental health, the better.”
Royce White
‘BIGGER THAN DIAGNOSIS AND LABELS’
Royce White left the NBA three years ago amid demands for a better mental health initiative from the league. Today, playing basketball in Canada, he speaks bluntly about mental illness and salts his conversation with colorful metaphors and off-color language.
He grew up in Minneapolis, largely raised by a single mother and grandmother. Speaking his mind always came naturally.
“I didn’t have men around me growing up who saw having anxiety as weak or not tough enough,” White says. “I grew up with a lot of diversity. Instead of having that traditional one-male role model, I was allowed to have many. And maybe it’s just where I’m from, but that whole masculinity (stereotype) — men can’t show weakness (crap) — wasn’t around.”
One of White’s male role models was his fiery high school coach, Dave Thorson, now an assistant coach at Drake, who led White to therapy. An in-school family practitioner ultimately diagnosed him with generalized anxiety disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder. Since, he’s embraced his illnesses rather than hide them in silence.
“The million dollar question is, ‘Does what you go through make you better or worse?’ I actually look at my anxiety as a blessing,” says White, who was an All-America under Fred Hoiberg at Iowa State in 2011-12.
White, the Houston Rockets’ first-round draft choice (16th pick overall) in 2012, says the headlines that surfaced in 2013 — referencing the panic attacks and anxiety he experiences on planes — were blown out of proportion and misleading because his overall message was calling for a more prudent mental health policy and better understanding. White flew 20 times at Iowa State and now flies with his team in Canada.
“It’s been painted as me wanting special treatment because of anxiety,” White says. “No, I’m saying I need the same type of support as anyone who is struggling. Call it whatever the hell you want to call it. There are specific injury doctors for players” with bum knees and sprained ankles.
White says when he requested an individual doctor, NBA officials then told him if they made an accommodation for him they’d have to do it for 450 players. He played in just three NBA games — zero points and seven personal fouls for the Sacramento Kings — as he bounced around the NBA and its developmental league for several seasons.
Last season White played for the London (Ont.) Lightning of the National Basketball League of Canada, where he is the reigning league MVP and the Lightning are the reigning champion. His last affiliation with the NBA was the Los Angeles Clippers’ summer league team in 2015.
“It’s not about me in the NBA,” White says. “You hear all the time about mental health stigma and people being ashamed. Well, there are people across the country who need help, say they need help, and aren’t getting it. We should be talking about them, too.
“Mental health is bigger than diagnosis and labels.”
Allison Schmitt
‘THERAPY IS THE BEST TOOL ‘
Swimmer Allison Schmitt executed a flip turn, as she’d done many thousands of times before, as she competed in an event in Austin, Texas, in 2015. And then, out of nowhere, midway through the 400-meter freestyle, she quit.
“That last 200 meters I was like, (expletive) this,” she says. “I knew I gave up, but I didn’t know why.”
The answer, as it turned out, was what she calls “the invisible illness” — depression.
Michael Phelps, her friend and frequent training partner — was at the meet. Months earlier, Phelps and Schmit sat in a burrito restaurant and discussed the suicide that week of actor Robin Williams. Schmitt had said she could understand why he did it. At that point, Schmitt says, “Michael knew something was up.”
Schmitt had contemplated suicide herself. She’d thought about driving off the road on a snowy night to make it appear as accident.
Phelps approached her on the pool deck after she quit on that 400 free. Bob Bowman, who coached them both, also arrived. And Schmitt’s pain soon came pouring out — the tears, the sadness, the emptiness. Schmitt says she began seeing a psychologist soon after. Therapy, she says, “makes training for the Olympics seem easy.”
She found it difficult to be vulnerable and talk about her weaknesses. She’d been taught all her life to rush through, persevere and come out stronger. She felt embarrassed and ashamed.
“But now, therapy is the best tool I’ve encountered in this life,” Schmitt says. “For a lot of athletes, their arena is their sanctuary. But for a lot of struggling people in society, the therapy room is a place of peace they can’t find anywhere else.”
Not long after her tearful epiphany on the pool deck, Schmitt found out her 17-year-old cousin in Pennsylvania had committed suicide. Schmitt says this promising basketball player “had it all going for her. She was the life of the party, always making people laugh.” Schmitt pauses. “But, no one knew how dark of a place she was in.”
This, Schmitt says, is why she is pursuing her master’s degree at Arizona State to become a licensed clinical social worker and counselor. (She earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Georgia in psychology.) She realized after her cousin’s suicide that mental health struggles should not be hidden.
“Depression is something that’s in you,” she says. “It’s not wanting to get out of bed, continuously feeling sad and down on yourself. It’s not wanting to exist, sometimes. There’s no on-and-off light switch. When I hear coaches, athletes telling people to ‘snap’ out of it, it makes me mad. Because you could be pushing them down that dark hole further.”
Brandon Marshall
‘MY PURPOSE ON THIS PLANET’
Brandon Marshall remembers a group therapy session when he noticed the scars on the wrists of the woman sitting next to him.
“I was just like, damn, this (expletive) is real,” Marshall says. “Here I am, this big macho football player, and these people were fighting for their lives. That was when I truly realized what being tough meant.
“I realized that someone needs to stand up for these people. This has become my purpose on this planet. Football is just my platform.”
This was during Marshall’s three-month stay in 2011 at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital and affiliate of Harvard Medical School, where he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. That was the first time he had a name for the illness that had led him to run-ins with the law and light-switch behavior he never understood. He says his diagnosis had a salutary effect on his family, including his mother, Diane Bolden. Marshall says she was able to confront her own depression and is now five years sober.
“I made everyone around me healthy,” he says.
Marshall and his wife Michi founded Project 375, an organization dedicated to eradicating the stigma surrounding mental health by raising awareness.
“Where we are now with mental health is where cancer and HIV were 20 years ago,” Marshall says. “It’s extremely important for us to have this conversation not just in sports, but in society. It’s important for us to change the narrative.
“There are over 100 million people living with some type of mental illness and those people then touch so many people in their lives.”
“It’s a lot of preventative work,” he says. “I know when my most stressful times are, and so I plan for it. During the season, it’s very stressful. So I have to be proactive. BPD can be different from one person to the next. For me, I don’t use medication. I consult my doctor on FaceTime or Skype when needed. I meditate. I use my Christian faith to hold me accountable.”
NFL players are seen as gladiators who can fight through anything, Marshall says.
“Well, we can do that — by being honest and vulnerable,” he says. “This is America’s sport, so whenever we’re able to take our masks off — to 90 million people, avid football fans — it provides the ability to move culture.”
Jerry West
THE DARK PLACE THAT ‘DOESN’T GO AWAY’
Jerry West is Mr. Clutch. He’s The Logo. He’s a master architect, building teams behind the scenes.
He’s also, at 79, a lifelong sufferer of depression. Or, as he calls it, the dark place.
West sees his suffering less as an illness and more as a product of a tormented childhood of abuse at the hands of his father. That’s part of why West turned to basketball as a scrawny kid — a “misfit with no confidence,” in his words — in West Virginia. It was a safe haven where he could build confidence.
“Everyone is driven by different things in life,” West says. “To some degree, based on some of the things I saw growing up, I was looking for an escape. I was just looking for something that I’d be appreciated for. I guess I was looking for a sanctuary.”
Sometimes he played all by himself in a fantasy world where he always splashed a game-winning buzzer-beater. “For anyone who saw me,” he says, “they probably said, ‘My God, this kid is crazy.’ ”
He emerged from childhood sanctuary to be one of the greatest players in history. The darkness never left him, though. “I feel that same sadness at times now,” he says.
He took his West Virginia Mountaineers to the championship game of the NCAA tournament, where they lost. His Los Angeles Lakers made the NBA Finals nine times — and lost eight.
Team camaraderie buoyed him during his playing days. As a team executive — with the Lakers, Memphis Grizzlies, Golden State Warriors and, newly, the Los Angeles Clippers — he’s often alone in his day-to-day operations. “You’re the judge, jury and executioner,” he says.
The kid who wanted to be a hero, sinking all those game-winners in imaginary games, says he never wanted credit for his successes as an executive, though he helped to build dynasties with the Lakers and the Warriors.
“You’ll never see me on a (championship) podium or in a picture,” West notes. “It was never about me. Yet, on the other hand, there are times when I’d be down and out and you feel like you’d want someone to come up and say, ‘Hey, you’re pretty good at what you’re doing.’ That’s when the (depression) kicks in.”
West says he thinks he’s able to see talent and character through a different lens than other executives.
“Some of these kids, these players, they’re survivors,” he says. “In many cases I thought I was a survivor. That’s who I’m attracted to. Someone who’s been through something. And I always want to know, who was the person who made you feel? Or when was the moment when you felt like you belonged? Instead of going inward.”
Freud theorized that pain turned inward becomes depression. “It’s got to go somewhere,” West says.
For a long time, he had no idea why he felt the way he felt.
“I thought this was how all people felt,” he says. “I’ve always been different. But I like to think I’m different in a good way.”
Michael Phelps
ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN’T GOLD
For most of his solid-gold life, Michael Phelps saw himself in much the same way as the outside world did.
Phelps is 32 now and he wants the world to see him as husband, father and, yes, history’s most decorated Olympian — but also as a depression sufferer.
“It’s good for athletes to be open about who they are and for people to see we’re far from perfect,” Phelps says. “We’re not gods. I’m human like everybody else.”
When Phelps opened up about his difficulties he found he could help others while helping himself.
“Once I started talking about my struggles outside the pool, the healthier I felt,” he says. “Now I have kids and adults come up to me and say they were able to open up because I was open about my life.”
Phelps retired after the 2012 Summer Games in London — or so he said — but ended up coming back for a last hurrah in Rio in 2016, this time with his infant son Boomer and newlywed wife Nicole to cheer him on. Now he swears he’s really retired. And he doesn’t have to worry about what’s next; his calling as an advocate for mental health found him.
That story of mental anguish includes ongoing “depression spells.” He remembers they’d often come after his Olympic highs. All that glitters isn’t gold.
“You’re at the highest level of sport you can possibly get,” he says. “Then you’ll want to do something new, something crazy. That high to low can put you in a dark spot.”
Sometimes that darkness was consuming.
“Isolation can be crippling,” Phelps says. “When I’d see my therapist, I remember beforehand how much I hated going. Then every time after I’d walk out the door, I felt like a million bucks.”
Now he says he has the tools to get through the dark times and “I’m able to be a better husband, a better father, a better son, a better friend.”
Our brain is not designed to create happiness, as much as we wish it were so. Our brain evolved to promote survival. It saves the happy chemicals (dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin) for opportunities to meet a survival need, and only releases them in short spurts which are quickly metabolized. This motivates us to keep taking steps that stimulate our happy chemicals.
You can end up with a lot of unhappy chemicals in your quest to stimulate the happy ones, especially near the end of a stressful workday. There are a number of reasons why your brain goes negative. The bad feeling of cortisol has its own survival purpose. It alerts you to an obstacle on the path to meeting your needs so you can navigate your way to good feelings. But once you do that, your brain finds the next obstacle. You will feel bad a lot if you follow your survival brain wherever it leads. Fortunately, there’s a simple way to rewire this natural negativity.
Let’s start with an example I call the Dog Poop Paradox. Pet mess was everywhere when I was young because picking up after your pooch was not the norm. Then customs changed and the streets were gloriously cleaner. Did that make anyone happy? NO. People barely noticed. They do notice an oops, however, and they get plenty mad about it.
Our brain evolved to scan for problems and it is skilled at finding problems when it looks. For example, reporters predicted the downfall of civilized society when the bicycle was invented. They warned that people would flit from here to there instead of having long conversations, and that we’d retire early from exhaustion instead of conversing in the evening. We have inherited the brain that helped our ancestors notice threats in time to act. We are skilled at finding threats, even as we seek rewards.
You may think there aren’t enough positives in the awful world around you. But you don’t have to perform in Carnegie Hall and rescue orphans from burning buildings to create positivity. Any positives, no matter how small, will build the pathway that seeks and expects positives. Just appreciate the absence of dog poop on the path in front of you and neural connections will develop. It may seem false to seek out positives when negatives are so apparent. But as explained in my prior post (7 Reasons Why Your Brain Goes Negative), your present lens is false and in need of correction.
It’s hard to go positive when everyone around you is going negative. Your mammal brain wants to run when the rest of the herd runs. In the state of nature, you’d end up in the jaws of a predator if you ignored your group-mates’ threat signals and waited to see the threat for yourself. Mammals bond around shared threats, and fighting the common enemy raises a mammal’s status within its group. If you ignore the perceived threats that animate your group mates, you will probably pay the price in social rewards. Positivity has a cost, but the benefit is greater.
PARE Your Negativity
When you build your positivity circuit, you will PARE your negativity with Personal Agency and Realistic Expectations.
Personal Agency is the pleasure of choosing your next step. You can never predict the results of your efforts but you always get to choose the next step toward meeting your needs.
When Your Cortisol Surges
Realistic Expectations are the alternatives you generate when your cortisol surges. Though it’s natural to have a survival-threat feeling when your efforts fail to bring immediate visible rewards, you can remind yourself that your survival is not actually threatened. Most human achievement came from efforts that did not bring immediate visible rewards. When your results are disappointing, you can adjust your expectations and take another step.
PARE and you will REAP, because Realistic Expectations lead to Acting Personally. You will stimulate your own happy chemicals instead of just hoping the world stimulates them for you.
