“Simone Biles–US Response”

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Unless you have been there yourself, you cannot identify with it.
Unless a family member, your child has had it, you don’t know about it.
Unless you have experienced counseling and medication help, you cannot understand it.

24-hours after Simone Biles walked away from the US Olympic gymnastic team because of mental health issues, the nationwide response has been astounding.

Social media is good.  Social media is evil.
Social media can be supportive.  Social media can be so cruel.

In one hours time, I sampled it all after Simona Biles pulled out of the Olympiad because she did not feel right.  It wasn’t an injured ankle.  It wasn’t a bad game plan.  it was deep within.

Might have been nerves, might have been injuries, might have been burnout.  But she was shaken.  She was not right, mentally.

The outpouring for her nationwide, and some globally, has been tremendously supportive.

The condemnation was equally overwhelming, quitter, self serving, gutless, shameful.

To ask if Tom Brady would quit in the middle of a Super Bowl, or LeBron James would walk out in the midst of the playoffs, was absurd.

it was mean, it was cruel, it was unreasonable, it was sad to read the adjectives, adverbs people used to describe the gymnastic star..

Social media gives you instant access to information.  it gives you instant access to opinions.  It can give you love.  it can spill out hate from the uniformed.

Mental health and physical health go hand in hand.  Yes there are pressures being the elite in your sport.  So much has gone so well in global competition there is so much expectation going forward.

Biles is a product of greatness in talent, greatness in work ethic, greatness in desire.  It’s being called driven.

But that is not a guarantee of success.  She is not the same athlete at 24 she was at 20 in the last Olympics.  She is not the same person, having come thru the horrors as a victim of the Dr-Larry Nassar sexual assault.

She may no longer be comfortable with dealing with the enormous popularity of her personality and her athletic abilities.  It’s a burden that is part of her life every hour, minute, seconds of her life.  There is no escaping for it is on your mind in your soul all the time.

People don’t understand depression.  Unless you’ve held your wife crying in depressions throes; unless you have gone to counseling with your child; unless you have witnessed the imbalances medications can trigger, you have no idea. Unless you have to ask why a suicide, you just don’t understand this.

This is not about the balance beam, the bars, the floor exercises, what has befallen Simone Biles.

She is one of the few who has gone public.

1-of your pitchers, your left tackle, a basketball player, a goaltender somewhere, someone on some team is going thru the same thing at this hour.

Salute Simone, pray for her strength, and hope all those critical comments on social media from the uninformed cease.

Listen to what she says.  Delete all the other noise.

Simone deserves better days ahead.  America can help her.

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