Cambage reveals toll of life in the spotlight
AUSTRALIAN basketball star Liz Cambage has penned a powerful article about her dayto-day battle with anxiety and depression, comparing her struggles to being caught in a rip at the beach.
Cambage explained she wanted to tell the “truth of what’s been going on with me” after sitting out some recent games with the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces in the US.
The 27-year-old has battled mental health problems, on and off, for half of her life.
“I wanted to let everyone know that my mental health ... it got caught up in the rip last week,” Cambage wrote in The Players Tribune.
“And it wasn’t pretty. It was actually pretty ugly.”
The Olympian described how she had been sober for months but at the recent WNBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas it “spiralled into partying ... which spiralled into drinking ... which spiralled into exhaustion”.
After an August 1 game against the LA Sparks she “completely lost it”.
“I found an empty hallway outside the locker room, still in my uniform and started to panic,” Cambage wrote. “I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop crying.
“I was having the most uncontrollable anxiety attack – a full-on breakdown. I had to call for help.”
Cambage was listed as “Did Not Play – Rest” for two WNBA games but she said the accurate description was “DNP – Mental Health”.
After the Sparks game she had “some difficult conversations with some people who care about me and some conversations with myself that were long overdue”.
She decided to go back on her medication.
Cambage detailed how some days start off like “a normal sunny day at the beach” relaxing with friends, but suddenly she is dragged into deeper water “and you drown”.