Sports Illustrated e-article re: Pro Ball Players' Increasingly Getting/Using Behavioral/Mental Health Tools

As you likely know, the focus of Lumigrate is about chronic illness and pain, including fibromyalgia.  As part of that, 'depression' and 'anxiety' are HUGE topics/components (and often misdiagnosed, as with FMS it's often fatigue not 'depression').  Men are under diagnosed even more so than women with many disorders, including those with chronic pain conditions.  So I wanted to bring this WONDERFUL article in Sports Illustrated to Lumigrate for people to 'catch' (yes, baseball pun intended).  

I very much appreciate seeing someone post this on facebook.  This is a rather lengthy article, but I found myself saying 'I want to be sure this, that and the other person sees this'... not only professional psychologists such as Paula King and Chris Young who you see in the videos section here at Lumigrate, (Dr. King has a specific focus on sports psychology and Dr. Young's practice has many young males with parents who might benefit from reading this article).  A couple of people I know came to mind who were 'star athletes' in their communities growing up who as adults have issues such as are described in this article.  SO, if YOU think of someone when you read this article, please think about spending a little time getting this information to someone who might benefit as well.  (Which is a core concept of Lumigrate overall). 

I'm copying a few of the parts that 'sold me' about this article below, to at least import some of the 'pearls' of this article and hope to encourage others to follow the link to the article for MORE information: (link to the article follows), because I think it's extremely important to encourage education for both sexes on depression in MEN. 

Emotions tend to spill over into every area of a player's life. "It's one tank," says David R. McDuff, professor of psychiatry at Maryland's medical school and team psychiatrist for the Orioles and the Ravens. "We can artificially break it down, but there's no actual partitioning in the mind." A player's skills are at the mercy of his emotional condition, but as Bradley discovered, the reverse can also be true. "An athlete's self concept is so anchored to his ability to do these wonderful things on a field," says Smith. "I've seen problems develop in well-functioning people with no prior issues. Then they have to deal with constant questions, booing. It's a pressure cooker."

Asking for help has never been easy, either. In the mid-'90s Bill Pulsipher, then a top pitching prospect for the Mets, tried to convince team management that his loss of control—a recurring baseball mystery known by names such as the Creature and White Line Fever and, yes, Steve Blass Disease—had metastasized into a larger, all-encompassing illness, only to have the conversation keep returning to his mechanics. "They showed me my delivery in a 30-picture sequence," says Pulsipher, who would eventually be diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and clinical depression. "I'm going, 'You guys aren't listening to what I'm saying.'"

Blass, now 68, believes he suffered from undiagnosed performance anxiety. "I can say anxiety now," he says. "Back in the day there was a stigma. There were a lot of issues that guys never revealed." He relates his own stories of emotional torture: nights like the one following a terrible relief appearance on the road against Atlanta when he walked the streets for hours, as aimless as one of his sliders. "I was devastated," says Blass. "I had begun feeling very, very alone."

AND A FEW OTHER WONDERFUL PARAGRAPHS

The introverted Greinke, who credits therapy sessions and antidepressants for his recovery, proved that emotional disorders are treatable injuries. And in confirming that therapy patients can increase in market value, Greinke helped push players' attitudes about mental health closer to the increasingly open-minded views of the rest of the country. Before his treatment Greinke was so consumed by nervousness and anger that he punished himself by overtraining; he would work out, by his estimation, 90% of his waking hours. "The medicine is unbelievable," Greinke said this spring. "I'm still the same person, but my attitude about everything is different."

"Zack Greinke is the perfect example for players today," Pulsipher says. "I mean, if you can talk to someone about your issue, and that fixes you? Or take a pill once a day for 10 years? Why wouldn't you do that?"

Old-timers like Blass consider that rhetorical question even today. "If I was playing now," Blass says, "I'd haul my butt up to Harvard Medical School and just say, 'Here I am. Fix me.'"

But if Blass were to go to a research university for extensive brain imaging, he'd find that emotional disorders are not entirely biological or chemical: Everything from genetics to social pressures can act as triggers, and in unclear ways. "We don't have reliable diagnostic, objective tests for any emotional disorder at this point," says Franklin Schneier, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia and a leading researcher into anxiety. "There's no doubt that there's something different going on in the brain—the fMRIs of those with social anxiety disorder can reveal differences in the activation of fear circuitry—but even if you cut a head open, you couldn't definitively tell. There's not one smoking gun."

Indeed, the 886-page fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is premised on the reporting of symptoms and observation of the distress they cause. Many illnesses date back to childhood (such as Khalil Greene's), but others come to the fore only in adulthood (such as Scott Schoeneweis's depression, which was set off by the sudden death of his wife, Gabrielle, in May 2009). "We would love to have hard and fast rules," says professor Stefan G. Hofmann, director of the Psychotherapy and Emotion Research Laboratory at BU, "but such disorders really can happen at any time." Making matters still more complicated, there is no blood test or X-ray that a player can produce to verify his suffering.

sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1170866/1/index.htm [1]

Comments

Fri, 07/23/2010 - 5:00pm

#1 [3]

Aimee Shannon

Title: LumiGRATE Poster - Major

Joined: Jul 12 2010

Posts: 30

Re: Sports Illustrated e-article re: Pro Ball Players' ...

I find the parallels to fibro so interesting.   The statement that "making matters still more complicated, there is no blood test of X-ray that a player can produce to verify his suffering", this is such a daily issue for those of us with fibro.   I look just fine, why would anyone think I'm not.    These ball players are the elite best, being able to just get into the professional tier of players.   And yet, many still have concerns and self-confidence issues.

Very interesting Mardy, thanks for posting this!

 

 

__________________

~~Aimee

 

 

Aimee Shannon is a licensed social worker who has fibromyalgia along with a collection of other illnesses.   Aimee is passionate that those dealing with chronic illnesses need education and support to best manage their illnesses. Along with contributions of writing for Lumigrate in 2009-11, Aimee can be found leading a support group on Facebook, as well as in-person support groups in the Dayton, Ohio region. Please connect if you wish, at

 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fibromyalgia-Support-Groups-by-Aimee/94975642116 [4]

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