Why It Takes Extraordinary Courage to Say "I'm Not Okay"
We tend to think of athletes as people built for resilience — trained to push through pain, to compete under pressure, to perform when it matters most. And in many ways, that is true. But that same culture of toughness that produces extraordinary physical performance has also, historically, made it nearly impossible to acknowledge emotional or psychological struggle. The expectation has long been that you silence the inner work and show up for the game.
To speak about mental health in that context — to say publicly that you need to step back, to name anxiety or depression or burnout in a domain that prizes invulnerability — requires a kind of courage that is different from what we typically celebrate in sports, but arguably more meaningful. It is the courage of honesty over performance. Of integrity over image. Of self-care over the approval of others.
That is a lesson most of us need — not just athletes.
The Cultural Shift
A decade ago, an elite athlete publicly acknowledging mental health struggles was rare and often career-damaging. Today, it is increasingly common — and increasingly met with support rather than shame. That shift did not happen by accident. It happened because specific people were willing to be first and willing to absorb the discomfort of being misunderstood.
The Lessons That Extend Beyond the Scoreboard
Knowing your limit is not the same as quitting
One of the most persistent misconceptions about mental health — in sports and in life — is that stepping back is giving up. What Simone Biles demonstrated, with extraordinary clarity, is that sometimes the most courageous and skillful thing you can do is recognize your own limit and honor it. That is not weakness. It is sophisticated self-knowledge, and it is one of the hardest things to practice in a culture that consistently rewards pushing through.
Self-awareness — knowing when you have reached your capacity, when to push and when to rest, when external pressure is asking more of you than you can safely give — is a skill. It does not come automatically. It has to be cultivated, often against significant internal and external resistance.
Mental health struggles do not respect achievement
Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian in history. Simone Biles is arguably the greatest gymnast who has ever lived. These facts did not protect them from depression, anxiety, or the kind of suffering that comes with being human. And that matters — because one of the most insidious myths about mental health is the idea that if you work hard enough, achieve enough, succeed enough, you will be immune.
Mental health challenges do not care about your resume. They arise across every demographic, every achievement level, every circumstance. Recognizing this is not discouraging — it is clarifying. It removes the false premise that struggling means you have somehow failed, and replaces it with the more accurate understanding that this is simply part of the human experience.
Asking for help is a performance-enhancing decision
Kevin Love has spoken about the shift that happened when he finally sought therapy — not just emotionally, but in terms of his ability to perform and to function in his relationships and his life. DeMar DeRozan has described how naming his depression and getting support lifted a weight he had been carrying silently for years. Tyronn Lue has spoken about the anxiety and physical symptoms that led him to step away from coaching for a period — and about how addressing that ultimately made him more present and effective.
These accounts consistently tell the same story: seeking support does not diminish you. It opens something. It creates capacity that was being consumed by something unaddressed.
The Parallel for All of Us
You do not have to be a professional athlete for these lessons to apply. The same dynamic that keeps athletes from speaking about mental health — the fear of being seen as weak, the pressure to perform, the belief that struggling means failing — operates in workplaces, families, and communities everywhere. The athletes who speak up are holding a mirror to something universal.
What Happens When Visible People Speak Up
One of the most consistently documented findings in mental health research is that public disclosure by visible figures reduces stigma — not just in aggregate, but individually. When someone you admire speaks openly about their own mental health experience, something shifts in the way you hold your own. It becomes harder to maintain the belief that struggling is shameful when someone you have just watched achieve at the highest level is telling you they struggled too.
This is why visibility matters. Every athlete, every celebrity, every public figure who speaks honestly about their mental health experience is quietly giving permission to someone watching — permission to name what they are going through, to seek help, to take themselves seriously. The ripple effects of that kind of honesty are impossible to fully measure, but they are real.
We should not need athletes to tell us that mental health matters. But we live in a culture that has struggled to believe it, and sometimes it takes an extraordinary person doing an extraordinary thing to shift what is permissible in ordinary life.
What You Can Take Into Your Own Life
You may never compete at the Olympics or play in the NBA. But the underlying lessons from these athletes translate directly into how you navigate your own mental wellness:
Pay attention to your own signals. The body and mind send distress signals before they reach crisis — changes in sleep, mood, energy, motivation, irritability, physical symptoms of stress. Learning to read and respond to your early warning signs is one of the most valuable skills you can develop.
Separate achievement from wellbeing. Your productivity, your success, your ability to perform at work does not determine your mental health. The two can coexist, but they are not the same thing, and high performance does not protect you from psychological struggle.
Act before the breaking point. The athletes who stepped back often did so because they had reached a limit — and the recovery from a breaking point is harder than the care that could have prevented it. Treating your mental health proactively is not indulgence. It is wisdom.
