ALLISON SCHMITT
Schmitt executed a flip turn, as the swimmer had done thousands of times before, as she competed in an event in Austin in 2015. And then, out of nowhere, midway through the
400-meter freestyle, she quit. “That last 200 meters I was like, (expletive) this,” she says. “I knew I gave up, but I didn’t know why.”
The answer, as it turned out, was what she calls “the invisible illness” — depression. Michael Phelps, her friend and frequent training partner — was at the meet. Months earlier, Phelps and Schmitt sat in a burrito restaurant and discussed the suicide that week of actor Robin Williams. Schmitt had said she could understand why he did it. At that point, Schmitt says, “Michael knew something was up.”
She had contemplated suicide. She had considered driving off the road on a snowy night to make it appear as an accident. Phelps approached her on the pool deck after she quit on that
400 free. Bob Bowman, who coached them both, also arrived. And Schmitt’s pain soon came pouring out — the tears, the sadness, the emptiness. Schmitt says she began seeing a psychologist soon after. Therapy, she says, “makes training for the Olympics seem easy.” She found it difficult to be vulnerable. She had been taught to rush through, persevere and come out stronger. She felt embarrassed and ashamed. “But now, therapy is the best tool I’ve encountered in this life,” Schmitt says. “It gives you a safe place where you won’t feel judged and can be your true self.”
Not long after her tearful epiphany, Schmitt found out her 17-year-old cousin in Pennsylvania had committed suicide. Schmitt says this promising basketball player “was the life of the party, always making people laugh.” Schmitt pauses. “But no one knew how dark of a place she was in.”
This galvanized Schmitt. “In sports, you get second chances,” she says. “In life, you don’t always get a second chance.”
This, Schmitt says, is why she is pursuing a master’s degree to become a licensed clinical social worker and counselor. “Depression is something that’s in you,” she says. “It’s not wanting to get out of bed, continuously feeling sad and down on yourself. It’s not wanting to exist, sometimes. There’s no on-and-off light switch. When I hear coaches, athletes telling people to ‘snap out of it,’ it makes me mad. Because you could be pushing them down that dark hole further.”