Eight years ago, for an entire year, I was unable to work or even function due to a severe bipolar episode. I wanted to work so badly that my entire identity became wrapped up in it.
At one point I had an interview for a job that would have paid well and was a near guarantee due to personal connections. I drove to the office in downtown San Francisco with a tightness in my chest that felt something like terror. I circled the block until I missed the interview. The story I told other people was that I got lost.
My doctor eventually ordered me to stop looking for work. He said I was in no condition to hold a job. I needed to focus entirely on getting well. I watched with guilt as my wife left each day for work, trying to sustain us on her low-paying job in a medical office. Every morning, she tried to no avail to sooth my guilt. Every night, she wondered if she would come home and find me dead.
From what I’m seeing in the news, the people attacking US gymnast Simone Biles would probably direct the same things at me and anyone else struggling with mental health. I was a failure—as a father and a husband—a weak person, lazy and cowardly, no heart.
What they wouldn’t realize is that I had already said all these things to myself.
The reason I fell ill, was partly because of my own expectations of what it means to be a man. I ignored the warning signs and stoically toughed it out, until I broke and lost a year of my life.
Biles, I’m sure has tried to fight through what was happening to her, to overcome those voices in her head, to meet the high standards she holds for herself, and the expectations of coaches, teammates and a nation. She toughed it out until she risked serious injury, maybe even paralysis.
Her critics are the real cowards, as they sit behind a computer or TV camera spewing things they would never have the courage to say to her face. They are the weak ones, the lazy and the heartless. Through some warped idea of patriotism and a grotesque view of sports, they have lost their humanity.
If they believe Biles is weak for walking away, they don’t understand that no sporting event is as difficult as carrying the weight of the world.
When I stepped away from everything I had been conditioned to value—work ethic, strength, toughness, “boys don’t cry,” I felt emasculated. Looking back now, I now know that I have never worked harder than when I got out of bed each morning. I have never been stronger than when I ventured outside, frightened of the world. I have never been more courageous than when I resisted the temptation of suicide. If I have ever been heroic, it was during that year.
Dr. Colleen Hacker, US Olympic mental skills coach, said Biles stepping away was a “heroic feat.” “Physical excellence is inextricably linked to psychological resilience and to mental health,” she said. “We don’t come at performance as compartmentalize human beings. We don’t perform in the Olympic games with just our bodies. We are integrated. It is our entire selves.”
It breaks my heart that in 2021 there is still so little understanding of mental health. So little compassion or willingness to learn. As psychologist Carl Jung said, “Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge.”
I hear people comparing Biles to Kerri Strug, who at the 1996 Olympics continued competing on a broken ankle. They say she was heroic, which she was. They claim her as the sports ideal. What I see was an abused child, surrounded by people who didn’t look out for her best interest. I see criminally irresponsible coaches, who allowed her to continue competing for their own ends. Strug made the choice to go back on the mat, as any great athlete would (that’s why they are great), but anyone who cared for her would have taken that decision out of her hands. Clearly, Biles has a better class of people in her corner.
We have seen story after story about football players, revered in their day, for playing through injuries. After their careers simply getting out of bed became an ordeal. They no longer are able to take care of themselves, or worse, they up end killing themselves or someone else.
How did we return to the time of the gladiator, when the masses celebrated athletes destroying themselves for entertainment?
I have always been open and honest about my mental illness because I’ve reached a place where I can, and because I want to do my part to break the stigma around mental health. I can do this because I am healthy and I am far beyond caring what anyone says or thinks about me. I can do this because of that terrible year.
In a work meeting we were asked, “If you could choose any age to be for the rest of your life, what would it be?” I didn’t miss a beat; I chose my current age. Despite all I have lost to age, I am better than ever at being me.
I have found emotional balance. I’m quick to laugh and slow to anger. I rarely worry. I am a clear thinker and problem solver. I am calm in a crisis. I am an optimist and a morning person. All of this is possible because of that year. This defines me now, not society’s outdated ideas of what a man should be, or my illness.
That is what Biles is seeking. Her better self.
In a tweet the day after she pulled out of competition, Biles said, “The outpouring love and support I have received has made me realize that I am more than my accomplishments in gymnastics, which I never truly believed before.”
I am happy for her.
Handcuffs Hurt 