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Finding refuge from the black dog
February 2, 2012.
Check out Rathbones photos: http://www.watoday.com.au/rugby-unio...#ixzz1lCi1KBeV
It's not just the will to win that drives athletes, it can be the demons inside, writes Georgina Robinson.
As former Wallaby Clyde Rathbone painfully outlined in an open letter addressing his battle with depression, champion athletes can be driven by much more than just a hunger to win. Sometimes, they're driven by their demons. A long-suppressed belief they're not good enough or smart enough, chased away - but rarely left behind - in the pursuit of sporting brilliance.
In Rathbone's case, it was damage wrought in his childhood by an emotionally abusive carer.
But sometimes it is something as simple as not finishing school, sport psychologist Jeff Bond said
Bond, a consultant who spent two decades at the Australian Institute of Sport, recalled a series of cases in which world and Olympic champions complained of periods of ''quite serious depression'' in the aftermath of gold medal performances.
''When I looked back over case notes each and every one of them had either left school, were thrown out or stayed there but didn't do well,'' he says.
''It wasn't an intelligence issue but they came out of school thinking they were dumb so they had to prove themselves … these people were so driven that they became world and Olympic champions.
''It's the ultimate paradox.''
Rathbone's refuge from abuse was playing sport.
''I ended up a confused, conflicted and pretty angry child and I know what saved me was that I was always good at sports, I was good at just about any sport I tried and gradually over time I started to challenge some of these negative thoughts that I had by performing well in sport,'' the former Brumbies winger wrote on Monday on a blog.
''Ironically I used those negative thoughts as a driving force, as if every time I achieved success it was a reaffirmation to myself that those negative thoughts weren't true. Every time I trained hard or played well I felt I was winning the battle against those thoughts.''
But sporting success helped only as long as it stuck around.
When a prolonged battle with injury finally called time on his career in 2009, Rathbone's childhood scars caught up with him.
''That was a catalyst for a flood of all those negative thoughts I had pushed to the background, many I had not had for years slowly began coming back and over time I slipped further and further into depression until I was … severely depressed.''
In the years that followed, Rathbone's marriage buckled under the weight of his illness and his weight ballooned.
In the most poignant passage of Rathbone's letter, he asks people to forward on his post to friends and strangers so that his wife, Carrie Ann, may know how much he regrets.
''I need this story broadcast, I need everyone I know and everyone I don't to read this,'' he says.
''I need that for me but mostly I just need to tell my wife that I love her and that I'm sorry, and that anything she chooses to do for her happiness is the right decision. I need her to know that she should never settle for happier than she's been in 10 years when what she deserves is happier than she ever imagined you could be.''
A number of athletes, including cricketers Andrew Flintoff and Marcus Trescothick and swimmers Leisel Jones, have spoken publicly about their battles with depression and mental illness.
Geelong midfielder Simon Hogan spent a month in hospital early last year after an intense three-year battle with severe depression.
Hogan, 23, is now an ambassador for Headspace, a mental health group targeting youth, but said the decision to talk to his teammates about his situation was one of the toughest things he had confronted.
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