Depression and the case of survivors’ bias in football media

It left me with tears in my eyes, flashes of anxiety through my body, and a sense of sadness when I saw Josip Iličić greeting the Atalanta fans. The player has been battling mental health issues connected to depression which triggered some sadness in me again, but also prompted me to write this piece.

TW: DEPRESSION, SUICIDE

Everyone has mental health. Just like you have physical health, mental health is part of that what makes you healthy or not. I think we have come a long way in these last 5–10 years in the acceptance and deconstruction of the stigma surrounding mental health. But, there is still a lot to be done before we can openly discuss without appearing to be weak. 1 in 4 people suffer from bad mental health at some point in their loves and that’s a signifcant amount of people.

In this piece, I want to focus on the most known, yet not understood of mental illnesses: depression.

What is depression?

Depression is a mental illness that can manifest itself in different ways. It can be situational, meaning that a certain event has triggered a depressive episode. This type of depression can be overcome when the situation changes for the positive. There is also the case of chronic or clinical depression. This depression is always there and often doesn’t have a clear reason to be there. And, it’s clinical depression I want to talk about.

What does depression feel like and what is it? I think the video above, captures it the best I can think of. Depression is a feeling of constant sadness. An all-consuming sorrow that can go deeper than grief. It’s a big black cloud hovering over you. It prevents you from feeling happing and takes away the things that give meaning to your life. Colors are less bright, food tastes differently — the quality of life is significantly lower. There is a fascination with death and dying. You don’t see a way of life getting better so you keep focusing on being alone, solitude, isolated, and sometimes thoughts of suicide too.

Depression is living in a body that fights to survive with a mind that tries to die

Suicide

I think it’s important that most people with depression don’t want to die, but feel like that’s the only option to get rid of the pain they are feeling in their minds. They want the pain to stop rather than actively wanting to die, but they see this as their only option. If you want to read more about what it feels like to live with depression and an anxiety disorder, check out my article on it here.

The suicide rate (reports vary) lies between 13% and 15% per 100.000 people in Europe. This number is likely to go up through the years due to COVID-19 and the increasing cost of living as additional stress factors. More than not, the reason for these types of deaths is mental illness. While women attempt suicide more often than men, the fatality rate is higher among men. In Europe, the ratio between men-women is 4:1 — meaning that men are more likely to die by suicide than women.

Depression in football

Okay, so you might be wondering — how do we go from suicide rates to players in football? It’s about another stigma that leads to more deaths in men. We always had — although it’s slightly changing — that men aren’t allowed to talk about their emotions and feelings. Doing that would be seen as feminine, as a sign of weakness and lack of strength. That’s utter codswallop of course, but these toxic masculine ideas are still very present and prevent many men from getting help.

I speak out of my own experience as I often wanted to suffer in silence and people told me this was something to be ashamed about. In all honesty, it only added to my suffering and my suicidal thoughts. It’s incredibly hard speaking it to existence and getting help. You are admitting you are not well and you have to admit that if you don’t do anything about it — you might end up dying.

So, in general, the world is not exactly open to mental health discussion or seeing it as anything else than “abnormality”. Change is needed more than it has been done until now, and that’s the key word here: change.

The football world doesn’t like change. I’d go one step further and say the football world/industry is one of the most conservative aspects of society in terms of change and ideologies. Showing emotions or more specifically, vulnerability — could lead to worse transfers, not being selected, and being terrorised by teammates. This is the perception and that can hurt footballers a lot when they open up. There’s no understanding for that type of health and it’s often seen as so weak, that the specific player is considered to be undesirable to play or recruit.

Examples in elite football

There are many footballers who suffer from mental health issues, but can’t speak about it. Sometimes, it’s just gets too much and they can function as they once could.

Adriano, Aaron Lennon and Josip Iličić are the players that resonate with me the most. I won’t go into the details of their mental health issues, but they also struggled/struggle with depression. I think these players were/are elite players who have done great things in professional football — as we celebrated them.

As soon as their mental health issues raised to the surface, they were the object of hate, ridicule and banter. Personally that hurt me to see, as they were battling against something that’s so consuming to the mind and body. It affects your whole being.

Survivor bias

One of the most difficult things to see is how the football media deals with people opening up about mental health. They are quick to praise efforts to improve LBGTQ+ acceptance in football (and rightly so!), but lack that energy when it comes to the mental health of elite athletes. There’s a big pressure to perform on this level (situational) but there is always the chase of clinical depression which can be found in anyone. Mental illness doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter how wealthy, successful, beautiful etc you are — everyone can be the ‘victim’ of a mental health issue or illness.

Reporting needs to be done, but media wants to find sources and reasons for mental illnesses. Sometimes there are no reasons, but that doesn’t mean that what they publish in incredibly harmful for both the person and the image of mental health in sport.

One of the main things that is difficult, is that this sport is based on success. Everything in elite sport is success and anything deviates from that can be seen as a failure. Some people go through a rough patch and call it depression — and sometimes it really isn’t — and they recover from it. They can go on with their activities and form an inspiration for people who also feel down. This is where the narrative wants to go. Success stories of people who have beaten an illness, physical or mental. But, in the case of clinical depression; there is no fix. There’s no getting rid of it. It’s about learning to live with it and accepting that this is now a part of your life.

Survivors’ bias is a big thing in the football landscape. The successful determine the narrative of how we write and talk about it. By framing success as someone who has beaten mental health issues or has no issues — we belittle those who suffer from it and are fighting to stay alive every day.

Final thoughts

I’m no athlete, but I do work in this elite football environment. Sometimes it makes me sick that we (including me) have to hide our mental illnesses to remain successful in the business. That my success depends on a certain idea of masculinity and therefore only can succeed when I adhere to it.

Knowing the whole context of mental health in elite football and still sharing your story — has given me great admiration and inspiration. So thank Josip Iličić, Aaron Lennon and Adriano. You will always be heroes to me.

It’s okay to not be okay, as it’s equally to be okay. It’s not about winning or losing battles, it’s about winning the war. You are enough, you deserve to be here. You got this.

Love you.