Olympic’s Great Speaks Up About Mental Health & Suicide

We are all enjoying the TOKYO Olympic games.  It’s exciting, competitive, and a nice break from everyday routines.  One silver lining we want to point out is this year’s emphasis on mental health.
We are always looking for ways to bring to light mental health issues.  Our goal is to assist hospitals in their physical built environments with the best products on the market for inpatient health units.  But another way we can help is create awareness and help shed light on the “big picture” of mental health stigmas.  It helps when someone we all admire speaks up for a particular stigmatized issue.  A few days ago,  Michael Phelps, revealed how he too has struggled with depression, suicidal thoughts and mental illness.
Olympians are known for pushing their bodies to the extreme but much less understood are the mental and emotional rigors paving their road to greatness. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, says he had suicidal thoughts even at the peak of his remarkable swimming career and calls depression and suicide among Olympic athletes an “epidemic.”
Associated Press (AP) reports: “For decades, they were told to shake it off or toughen up — to set aside the doubt, or the demons, and focus on the task at hand: winning. Dominating. Getting it done.”
Michael Phelps tells AP:
“For me to know there are a lot of people out there in the world who are struggling the same exact way I do still struggle and have struggled — I’m a human being. But I was so used to compartmentalizing everything.”

“Being an athlete you’re supposed to be this strong person who doesn’t have weaknesses, doesn’t have any problems. No, that’s wrong. I struggle through problems just like everybody else does. I wanted to open up and just talk about it. It is what makes me who I am.”

Other athletes have had the same problems and have been scared to speak up about their own mental health struggles.

Athletes Stephen Scherer, Jeret Peterson and Kelly Catlin have two things in common: They all reached their dream of becoming Olympians, and they all died by suicide.

In a statement to the Associated Press, the IOC (International Olympic Committee) said it “recognizes the seriousness of the topic” and assembled a team of international experts to review scientific literature on mental health issues among elite athletes in 2018, resulting in a mental health working group. The committee said the topic has been discussed more openly at forums and panels in recent years and that the IOC has launched a series of webinars to help athletes cope with COVID-19, and plans other initiatives, including a helpline.

“It does define you, and you lose your human identity,” said Jeremy Bloom, a three-time world champion skier and two-time Olympian. “That’s where it becomes dangerous. Because at some point, we all lose sports. We all move on. We all retire or the sport kind of shows us the door because we age out. And then we’re left to redefine ourselves.”

For more information on Michael Phelp’s and his story, click here.

The Door SwitchTM wants to continue the fight for more awareness and provide additional resources to dispel the myths about mental health issues and solutions for safety issues. We also continue to strive to provide a product that keeps the hospital environment safe. We continue to be committed to better practices and procedures in the mental health community. For information concerning our safety product, please click here.

Sincerely,

The Door SwitchTM

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