Does the stigma attached to mental health deter elite sportsmen from seeking help?
Is having a tough exterior really that beneficial to an elite male sportsman?
Mental health and professional male sport hadn’t been spoken about until relatively recently. There is a perception an elite sportsman is immune to mental difficulties. One sportsman that has helped challenge this misconception is Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Love has been a trailblazer in the NBA and for elite male sportsmen around the world for opening up about his experiences with mental illness. He suffered a panic attack during a regular-season game in 2017 but didn’t know what it was, or why it was happening to him.
Love would later go to a medical clinic where physical illness was ruled out and told ill mental health was the cause of these issues. Revealing you have anxiety and depression isn’t easy, especially when in the public eye and when the public, staff and other professionals may still hold dated perceptions of mental illness. As alluded to in the video, athletes are encouraged to suppress and hide their feelings and emotions to appear tough or brave. They must “never show weakness” or seek assistance when negative thoughts enter their mind.
Society still holds these views and in an interview with ‘USA Today’ Michael Phelps, 28x Olympic medallist who suffered from depression, reiterates this point by saying: “for the longest time, I thought asking for help was a sign of weakness because that’s kind of what society teaches us”. He continues, saying: “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”.
It's about time this perception changed.
Elite sport is a masculine and ‘macho’ culture where sportsmen often feel they must live up to ideologies such as toughness and aggression. Professional athletes didn’t necessarily ask for these ideological perceptions, but we as fans uphold and enforce them upon the athletes we admire, often so we don’t taint our perception of them, and feel more connected to the athlete and sport. This societal influence can be an additional pressure to athletes to perform a certain way, and if they don’t, this can have a negative impact psychologically due to the abuse they can face online thanks to social media or the “changing room banter” from teammates.
Upholding these masculine views and not appearing vulnerable can result in players not opening up about their mental health. A study about elite athletes and their mental health reported that they often suppressed and withheld their emotions and feelings to avoid appearing mentally weak. This begs the question, why can’t more male athletes speak out and why does it have to be seen as a weakness if they do?
Kevin Love earns upwards of $25 million per season and has an NBA championship title to his name. Surely being successful, making a lot of money and being in the public eye makes you less likely to suffer from mental illness? This is a common misconception about anyone successful, especially top-earning athletes who win national titles. As Love mentions in the video, “no one is immune to anxiety or depression”, it can happen to anybody of any race, sex, age or socio-economic background. In another interview, Love says he originally viewed mental health as “someone else’s problem” and didn’t believe it could ever affect him. He acknowledged that this view needed to change and that “everyone is going through something that we can’t see”. A survey by the charity ‘Mind’ found mental illness affects 1 in 4 people. This means a friend, or a family member could be suffering in silence and in need of some support.
Image from ‘The Players Tribune’
The World Health Organisation published a report explaining how two-thirds of sufferers of mental health illnesses don’t seek help in getting better. Stigma and fear of discrimination are some of the reasons given for why this is the case. Nobody should feel as though they can’t open up about their feelings - it isn’t wrong or unnatural to feel down or upset. Instances of self-harm and suicidal thoughts are increasing because sufferers feel they are abnormal or can’t speak out, and one of the only ways to deal with such feelings is to inflict pain on themselves. Letting somebody know you are there for them in their hardest times can go a long way, whether it’s a text asking if they are OK or catching up over a coffee. Small gestures can have a massive impact. Nobody should be left to tackle these feelings on their own, even the elite sportsmen you think are tough and resilient.
Other sportsmen in varying sports have also spoken out about their difficulties with mental health. Some of these men include Tyson Fury, Leigh Griffiths and Ian Thorpe. All these men identify different reasons for their mental health issues, showing there isn’t just one cause. Different people are affected by different things. All, however, identify the importance of speaking to somebody and discussing how they feel with someone, whether it is family, friends or a professional. If others can follow their lead, even if it’s behind closed doors, male sport will be a more positive, less abusive place to compete.
If you are interested in reading more about mental illness or want to find ways you can help someone who is suffering, the Mind Charity website is the place to go. It highlights how you can help mental health sufferers, the work they do as a charity and the campaigns they run to help raise awareness.
If you suffer from a mental illness yourself, there are also links to pages that will help you with coping and how to get on the road to recovery.
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