I read an excellently written article yesterday about some former Gamecocks. However, the focus wasn’t about football. The article brought the issues of mental illness and suicide to the forefront. I recommend that you read it- find the link to it below:
Where did it all go wrong?
Expectations. That’s all I could think about after reading the article. Having just graduated from my masters program, I’m expected to get a great job and start a career. I can only imagine the expectations of these young men playing in college programs where the only end goal is to make it to the NFL. We can talk about the need for increased financial literacy and education in general, but what stood out to me the most is the stigma that persists in our culture. Although this can happen to anyone, men tend to bottle up their emotions and internalize everything. It’s so easy to root for our favorite players on Saturdays and Sundays and forget that they are normal people. These guys get stressed and worry and deal with pressure every day. In the case of two of the men highlighted in the article, they decided the only option was to take their own lives.
We need to make it a point that everyone knows that asking for help is okay. I can’t say that I’m an expert on mental illness, but I do think that hearing this story and others like it, can only move people to action when it comes to educating themselves about these issues. Not just for the athlete in your life, but for all of your loved ones.
http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?section=Find_Support –> The National Alliance on Mental Illness has a great collection of resources on mental illness.
*The title of my post comes from a Nickleback song called Lullaby.