DeRozan aims spotlight on depression
Raptors standout, other athletes suffer from condition.
‘I understand how many people go through it. Even if it’s just somebody can look at it like, ‘He goes through it and he’s still out there being successful and doing this,’ I’m OK with that.’ DeMar DeRozan Toronto Raptors star
When ORLANDO, FLA. — Toronto Raptors star DeMar DeRozan was introduced at Amway Center on Wednesday night, fans were free to give him the usual visiting-player boos.
Somewhere in the crowd, however, a few people might have had difficulty working up much animosity. Over the All-Star break, DeRozan related something they know all too well.
“This depression get the best of me,” he tweeted.
They are song lyrics that form the soundtrack of DeRozan’s life. Until that early-morning tweet, almost nobody had a clue.
NBA stars aren’t supposed to suffer from depression, much less talk about it. Now here is a superstar speaking out.
“I understand how many people go through it,” DeRozan told the Toronto Star. “Even if it’s just somebody can look at it like, ‘He goes through it and he’s still out there being successful and doing this,’ I’m OK with that.”
Depression is one of the most common and least understood diseases. It affects about 16.2 million Americans, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
Mental Health. That’s where the stigmatizing comes in. We can accept it when bones break and bodies lose their health.
It’s harder to grasp the mysteries that can bedevil a brain. Especially when that brain is attached to the body of an athlete.
Just look at DeRozan. He is 28 years old, has a great job that pays him $26.5 million a year and is admired throughout North America.
He’s the last guy you’d expect to feel helpless, anxious and hopeless. But DeRozan goes home some nights and descends into those dark places.
I’ve been there. Probably not as deep as DeRozan, but enough to need help.
That shows how depression is an equal-opportunity affliction. It doesn’t care if you’re a superstar or a random fan sitting in Section 232.
One difference is that sports are all about mental toughness, not mental weakness. It takes a special kind of courage to admit you’re not the Superhero millions thought you were.
Jerry West kept a gun under his bed in case his abusive father pushed him too far. The man who would become the logo of the NBA waged a quiet war with those childhood demons.
“Some people hide their pain. I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t feel good about myself a lot of the time, but it’s nothing I’m ashamed of,” West said when his autobiography came out in 2011.
Michael Phelps won four gold medals and two silvers at the 2012 Olympics. Then he returned home from London and didn’t come out of his room for days, barely eating or sleeping.
“I didn’t want to be alive,” he said.
Brandon Marshall had a reputation as one of the NFL’s most talented troublemakers. Then the former UCF star was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder in 2011.
People get help through therapy or medication or the support of family and friends. But the first thing they must do is admit they are depressed.
“It’s almost like when you’re an alcoholic,” Marshall said. “You have to admit you’re an alcoholic.”
DeRozan was raised in Compton, one of the most notorious neighborhoods in Los Angeles. He saw countless people succumb to drugs and booze and gangs.
“I grew up seeing so many people drinking their life away to suppress the (problems) they were going through,” he said.
Childhood trauma, genetics, substance abuse, tragedies — you never know what will trigger depression. The NIMH estimates that almost 40 percent of people who suffer from it don’t even seek treatment.
DeRozan said he isn’t out to lead a crusade. He just wants people to know that it’s OK to not be OK.
At least a few people at Amway Center found that worth cheering for.