Female athletes are overlooked
Mental health issues can impact anyone no matter what their gender, race, sexuality, and religious beliefs are. Then why does society view female athletes differently when compared to male athletes? Both genders are still human and can experience the same effects of mental health. “According to a 2016 study, about 30 percent of surveyed female student-athletes showed signs of depression, compared to just 18 percent of their male counterparts” (Barcella 2017). Female athletes are not put on the same pedestal as male athletes and that is very damaging. For the little coverage of mental health for male athletes, female athletes receive substantially less coverage. This needs to be changed in order to help improve and save the lives of female athletes all over the world. We are going to talk about some female athletes who deal with mental health issues.
Serena Williams is often considered to be the greatest female athlete of all time. She is a household name who is the best female tennis player of all time. In 2015, Serena Williams suffered an unexpected loss against Roberta Vinci in the US Open semi-finals. The upset took a toll on her as her coach said, “She was depressed … she does everything with 100% of her heart so you are more disappointed when you don’t reach your goal. Plus, she has a level of expectation that is much higher than anyone” (Guardian Sport 2015). Serena took the loss hard as she did not speak with her tennis coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, for two weeks after the tennis match. Her coach represented tennis and it was clear she needed a break from the sport as she didn’t want to deal with or talk about tennis during those two weeks because breaks are very vital when it comes to sports. Serena’s identity is tied to being an athlete, and this loss has put her in a downward spiral of depression. There is more to life than just sports, and this is the same with someone’s identity as having high expectations and not achieving the things that you aspire to accomplish can cause mental health issues as. Having a results focused mindset will only hold someone back in their athletic career. Even though a loss may appear to be negative an athlete can use that as a teaching moment and improve on the aspects which contributed to the loss. This will benefit them throughout the duration of their career as the negatives will turn into positives and their weaknesses will turn into strengths. Even the greatest female athlete of all time is vulnerable to mental health problems.
Another female athlete that has dealt with mental health issues for a good part of her life is WNBA superstar Liz Cambage. She wrote an exclusive article for The Players’ Tribune on August 11th of this year which received wide acclaim from the sports world as she talked about her history in dealing with mental health in extreme detail. During her rookie season she spent almost every night alone, locking herself inside her house and crying her eyes out for hours. She then talked about how she was on suicide watch in 2016 and had the hardest conversation in her life with her mother in which she told her that she did not want to live anymore. During this most recent season she was off her medication for a brief time for anxiety and depression. After a game in which she had a terrible performance she then had an uncontrollable anxiety attack after the game. She decided to get back on her medication and needed to take some time off to recover. She ended up missing the next two games in order to get rest (Cambage 19). She was essentially rehabbing herself just like any other typical injury. Her main point of the article was to be transparent with the public in order to help remove the stigma of mental health. The impact of this article from her is very huge as she is one of the main stars of the WNBA and her story will impact tons of people to look at mental health issues as a legitimate problem in the world of sports.
Mental health issues impact both genders despite the lack of coverage for women athletes. This needs to change as female student-athletes are more likely to undergo mental health issues when compared to male student-athletes. Serena Williams and Liz Cambage have made positive impacts in the mental health community due to both speaking out about their own experiences with the issue. I challenge everyone out there to check on one of your friends or family members as mental health can impact everybody. Also, send in any questions that you may have about mental health in sports.
Barcella, L, ( August,2017).A Third of Women Student-Athletes Have Mental Health Problems. Vice. Retrieved November , 2019
from https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/d37nby/a-third-of-women-student-athletes-have-mental-health-problems
Cambage, L, ( August,2019).DNP - Mental Health. The Players' Tribune. Retrieved November , 2019
from https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/liz-cambage-mental-health
Sport, G, ( November,2015).Serena Williams took break to recover from depression and knee injuries. The Guardian . Retrieved November , 2019
from https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/nov/04/serena-williams-depression-knee-coach-patrick-mouratoglou
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