With all of the things going on in our world today, it can really take a toll on the average person’s mental health. When sports at a high level are added to this equation, it can almost become unbearable for some athletes to deal with anxiety or expectations. On top of the already tough outside things that include school, family, work, etc., these athletes have to try and perform at their best without letting anything get to them. Different athletes deal with these things in different ways so there will be a couple individuals that are going to give some insight to their lives and how they try to deal with everything going on around them. Many people deal with the same issues that will be brought up and they also may deal with things that are even worse. It is time to stop looking at these athletes like they are just performers, but to start looking at them like they are real people who have situations they are also trying to deal with.
One of the things that plays an effect in an athletes mental health is the environment in which they are playing in. I talked to my friend Dom and asked him questions about his time at the school he plays baseball for and he had many different things to say about it. The first question that I asked him was “how does the level you are playing at affect your mental health?” In highschool, he explained that it was a lot easier for him to play without a care about performance because he was doing what he loved and having fun with his friends. As he got to a university though, things started to change and he said it was because “we try to perform our best to keep our scholarships rather than playing just for fun like in highschool and the years before that”.
Athletes go through the mental struggle of thinking their every move is being examined when they are at the field so they get the idea that they need to be perfect. Whenever someone faces failure, they make it a big deal in their heads because they think it will affect how their coach and teammates view them. Another question that I had brought up was “how do the people around you affect your performance and view?” Dom explained how the team and the coaches had impacted his mental health during his time at the school he played at. He brought up the fact that the coaches did not really care about people on a personal level. They only saw each person as a player rather than an individual so when people were not performing well, they were ignored for the most part. If they did not bring some type of value to the team then they did not matter in their eyes. This affected the mental health of the players because they felt alone in the times of need.
Dom lived close to home so it was easy to reach out to his family and get their support in person but he said that “if I was not close to home then I may not have even kept playing on the team.” Many athletes face so much mental strain that they decide that quitting their sport is the best option. Instead of speaking out to their coaches or even their teammates about it, they decide that it is best to keep it to themselves which is the worst thing that they could do because it eats them up. In their minds, they think that speaking out about their mental health will make them seem weak in the eyes of their peers so they keep it all bottled up to try and save their reputation. This idea is seen even more in male athletes because the societal idea that a man is supposed to be fine through it all plays a part into it too.
The norm that men are supposed to keep things in added to the thought that speaking out about problems is a bad mix and it could even lead to an athlete’s death. People who do not get the help that they need could turn to this option when they are in a deep enough hole and we have seen things like this happen more recently. Environments where athletes feel safe speaking out about the things they are going through is so important nowadays. Instead of thinking about everyone as just a player, we need to see them for the individual that they truly are.
Another major effect on an athletes mental health is the location in which they are playing at. Some athletes travel across the country to pursue their passion of playing but this also comes with a sacrifice. They get to keep playing but they are leaving behind their family who play a huge role in their support. I know someone named Andrew and he moved from California to New Mexico to continue playing baseball. It is only two states over but that distance makes it so that he can not see his family whenever he wants to. I asked him how moving away from home affected him mentally and he explained that it is hard to deal with when he is going through rough patches.
Whenever he performs well it is easy for him because all of the people around him show a ton of support due to the fact that he is helping the team out. When he does not perform well, he said that “it is difficult because sometimes you feel like you have nobody to go to so it is like being stranded.” Everyone seems to love you when you do good but when you are not meeting the expectations, you are not being supported as much. You are away from the people that will support you no matter what and the distance makes it hard for them to show you that you are not alone.
He also explained that “when I am not doing well, I tend to skip the hangouts because I do not feel like I deserve to be out having a good time with them.” Seeing your performance affect your team’s ability to win could really take a toll on you because you feel as though it is your fault. Usually, your family are the ones around you to point out the things that were out of your control but without them, athletes tend to focus on all of the bad things that they did. This distance really plays a huge role because he told me that some of his teammates even left the college so that they could play somewhere closer to their families.
The emotional support is what really drives an athlete to stay at the top of their game so when some of them move, there tends to be a drop in performance whether it is only a little or a lot. They can’t deal with loneliness because it affects them in a bad way mentally and some can’t get out of that hole. Mental health may not seem like a big deal but there are so many different ways that it can affect an athlete and change who they are as a person.