It seems the topic of the day at the water cooler… mostly the virtual one I guess, ok sorta both now, is mental health. Simone Biles dropped out of the Olympics to “focus on her mental health”. Naomi Osaka cited mental health issues in refusing interviews and withdrawing from the French Open. Actors Equity is now demanding a mental health stipend paid to every actor on contract…I’m throwing that in because I just heard that today. Michael Phelps took time out from his ad campaign with Silk Ultra..a plant based milk… to discuss his advocacy for mental health.
It’s a fascinating discussion, given the current blitz of humanizing athletes and celebrities of every stripe. They’re just like us. They’re people too.
Mental health is now the way in to the secret garden of really understanding how the pressure and stress and demands may get your favorite picture on a Wheaties Box..the breakfast of champions… to slip up. To fail. To lose.
But, hopefully, you may love them even more…knowing that they’re prioritizing their mental health. They are praised for just talking about it, and lauded for their courage.
I wish I knew what this iteration of mental health means. What does it mean? Is it coping skills? Is it being tired? Is it being uninspired? Worrying? Insecurity? Pressure? Being in your head? Distraction?
When does focusing on mental health kick in? Before a competition or job? During? Or after?
Here’s the truth. When you see someone in a mental health crisis, you know it. It’s unmistakable. It’s real. And it’s fucking heartbreaking.
When I was touring in a very famous Broadway show, I saw it up close. And so did every actor who witnessed it. On stage during a performance. An actress stopped the show in what I can only describe as a psychotic break. She lost all sense of where she was, who she was and what she was doing. The reactions of the cast…offstage… were split between shocked, crying and mind blown.
The show just ground to a halt for what seemed an eternity. Finally, the conductor skipped ahead and she was led offstage.
She was hospitalized…. and, through the magic of theater was replaced by her understudy in the next scene, who was half her size. Ah, the willful suspension of disbelief. Anyway….
I have a dear friend who is bipolar who had an almost identical experience in another gigunda Broadway show that I didn’t witness, but I know had the same devastating impact. She too was hospitalized. I have, however, held her hand while she endures her struggles with mental illness to this day from psych wards to the ups and downs of life on the other side.
The media, in general, is taking the rap for the struggles athletes and movie stars have that now seem to be under the mental health umbrella. If they didn’t put so much goddam pressure on them, so much expectation, then maybe they wouldn’t fail.
They’d make the jump. They’d do whatever perfect athletes are supposed to do… I suppose that’s to win and be perfect and shit.
I don’t think it’s Sports Illustrated’s fault.
I’m not sure how much any of that has to do with your mental health.
I don’t follow sports, but many of these athletes and stars, some very young, are multi-million dollar industries who made a pact with the Nikedevil. Or the UberEatsdevil. I see them everywhere, and I mostly haven’t a clue what kind of stuff they do. They are corporations, though.
That’s neither right or wrong… but it sure is a factor in the pressure they face. It’s also probably what they want to hold on to more than anything. Who wouldn’t?
We are a culture with every passing day that’s devoid of personal responsibility. From politics to getting a vaccine. From sports to the arts. We’d rather make it about someone else or something else. Anything else.
We’ve all just gotta win. Win. Win.
My hope is we embrace just sucking at times. And being ok with that. Sometimes whether it’s fate or not we just shit the bed.
It’s all good.
What I also hope is that we don’t trivialize, or weaponize mental health.
Because sometimes people don’t walk away to focus on their mental health.
They’re carried out on a stretcher.
Robert DuSold 
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