Olympian Alexi Pappas wants you to start talking about mental health.
It’s a silent rule in sports: Winning is celebrated, injuries are tolerated. But depression? Please keep that a secret. |
In a video Op-Ed this morning, the Olympian and author Alexi Pappas explains how after she returned from racing at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, that attitude almost broke her. She found herself struggling with severe clinical depression and had no idea how to recognize it, let alone treat it. |
In her lifetime as an elite athlete — from youth sports through high school and college to professional teams — Alexi was taught exactly what to do when it came to managing her physical health. Now she’s arguing that we should treat depression as another injury — not a problem we can just “snap out of,” but one we need to recognize and heal. And especially, one that we need to prevent. |
This isn’t just an issue for pro athletes, of course; many others grapple with the stigma around mental health. I’ve been a competitive athlete for more than two decades, and it’s still common to hear people discuss these issues in hushed tones, often long after they’ve figured out how to overcome them — assuming they manage to. What really struck me about Alexi’s story was that her mother was also severely depressed and died by suicide when Alexi was only 4. And yet Alexi was still blindsided by her own experience. |
 | | The New York Times |
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I’ve known Alexi as a top American athlete for a while now — but I didn’t know about her struggle. It’s so rare to have a champion reveal weakness of any kind. So my colleague Alex Stockton and I worked with Alexi to help her tell her story in her own words. |
Alexi joins a chorus of women who have spoken up in The Times to bring their sports into the 21st century — from Mary Cain, who shared her account of being the fastest girl in America until an abusive coach threatened her own physical and mental health, to Gwen Berry, who called out the I.O.C. for punishing her for protesting racial injustice on the medal podium, and nine-time Olympic medalist Allyson Felix, whose revelations prompted Nike to enact protections for pregnant athletes. |
Mental health is particularly difficult to talk about, and I’m glad Alexi is creating a vocabulary for these feelings — for athletes and anyone else who has what she describes as “a scratch on your brain.” |
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