Let's talk about depression

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Rick Rypien celebrates a goal with Canucks teammates Tanner Glass (15) and Christian Ehrhoff (5) Nov. 3, 2009. (JENELLE SCHNEIDER / POSTMEDIA NEWS ARCHIVES)

Rick Rypien's death this week has shifted the spotlight onto an illness that still often remains unspoken in locker-rooms and clubhouses all across the planet: depression.

Athletes, particularly professionals, are often portrayed as the picture of perfect physical and mental health. But experts in the field, coaches and sport psychologists will insist athletes are also among the most vulnerable to suffering through bouts of depression that can not only affect their performance, but ultimately cost them their lives.

"It's debilitating on a number of fronts," explained Tara Brousseau, the executive director of the Mood Disorders Association of Manitoba. "Depression may mean that you sleep too much or you can't sleep at all or you have changes in eating patterns. And the profound and most important part is you have a great level of sadness.

"Your life can be pretty dark and pretty bleak."

Brousseau said 25 per cent of the population will suffer through some sort of disorder or depression in their lifetime. Often an athlete's discipline -- the training and diet, for example -- can help in coping with the lows that can come through competition and the pressures surrounding it. Settling into a good routine and finding the right medication can be critical, but just as important is having a solid support group to lean on in tough times.

Rypien, by all accounts, had all that as both the Vancouver Canucks/Manitoba Moose and the Winnipeg Jets worked to help him deal with his depression.

But in the macho world of hockey, talking about depression is hardly commonplace in the dressing room.

"As a friend you wish you could have been there for him in a time of need. It's tough news," Tanner Glass, now a member of the Jets but previously a teammate of Rypien's with the Canucks, told the Vancouver Sun.

"He was kind of a tough nut to crack, but once you got to know him he was just a great guy. If you sit down and have a beer, he's not going to be the loudest guy in a group of people but once you get two-three-four guys around a table, that's when you see his true colours come out. He's funny and he had a heart. It's sad now to talk about him."

Depression among professional athletes is hardly new, although the recognition of it is often still lagging. Among the more well-known athletes who have suffered through it are Miami Dolphins' running back Ricky Williams, Cincinnati Reds slugger Joey Votto, former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, Super Bowl QB Terry Bradshaw and Canadian Olympian and Winnipeg product Clara Hughes.

Hughes, the spokesperson for 'Let's Talk Day' -- an initiative she hoped would help lift the stigma around mental illness -- spoke this winter of a post-1996 Olympic meltdown that had her sleeping for hours on end and crying uncontrollably when she was awake.

"I couldn't get out of my own way," Hughes said. "I'd be in airports by myself, going to a training camp and just bawling my eyes out. I knew there was something wrong with me, but the mistake I made was thinking I could fix myself, that I just had to be stronger and I had to get over it."

The key now for every athlete, professional or amateur, is to find a support group and not be afraid to speak about their mood disorders.

"There's a ton of pressure for these athletes," said David Telles-Langdon, the director of the National Coaching Institute at the University of Winnipeg. "Everybody knows you. You can't even go into a shopping mall without everybody running up and asking for your autograph when you're doing well.

"But think about it: their careers are on the line every day and as soon as you start to under-perform everybody knows it. It's a short career, not like the rest of us who figure we are going until we are 65 and then retiring.

"It's a difficult balancing act for athletes and their coaches. Sometimes we increase the importance of sport to ridiculous proportions. This isn't firefighting, this isn't going to war, this is a hockey game. We make a very big deal of that in this country and we make these people into heroes. But, at the same time, there is a lot going on around us. There are people out there who can't find a place to sleep or a meal today and that has to pale in comparison to anything an athlete is going through. We just put so much pressure on them."

ed.tait@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 17, 2011 C2