Wondrium Insights: Finding Strength in Mental Health Struggles

The issue of mental health has become a big part of the national conversation. More and more, we see the struggles of mental health played out in the news and on social media, where we watch tragedies unfold and hear athletes, performers, and other celebrities speak out about the stressors of fame and the difficulty of dealing with their mental well-being while in the public eye. Mental health is not just a topic for headlines and tabloid chatter, however; we all have our times of trouble and can find it difficult to cope with everyday life. How do we deal with things like depression, grief, anger, and unexpected tragedy?

In this series, you'll meet four highly successful individuals who have faced overwhelming mental health challenges, and who have managed not only to survive, but also to find strength in their struggles. You will hear the deeply personal experiences of:

• Sports analyst Jay Williams,
• New York Jets defensive tackle Solomon Thomas,
• Singer, songwriter, and poet Mary Lambert, and
• Boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard.

Your guide through the five illuminating episodes of Finding Strength in Mental Health Struggles is sports journalist Kate Fagan. Throughout her career, Kate has seen the mental health struggles of top-tier athletes up close and will help you connect the difficulties of high-level performers to the similar, if less publicly visible, issues of everyday life. You will also gain valuable insights from Dr. Lisa Damour, a clinical psychologist and expert on mental health challenges, who will help frame these discussions using her renowned expertise and personal experience.

We may not all be world-class athletes, television presenters, or Grammy-nominated musicians, but we all have struggles with our daily circumstances. By listening to these conversations, you will see examples of overcoming hardship and how lives that look enviable from the outside can contain the same difficulties that many of us face every day. This glimpse into the struggles of others may help you find a way to tackle your own.

The Earliest Struggles

Mental health issues can often begin early in childhood, with traumatic experiences like abuse and neglect forming the shaky foundation for a troubled future. No two people have the same beginning, yet many of us have had difficult circumstances or tragic events in our childhoods that have echoed throughout our adult lives. As you listen to the conversations with Mary Lambert and Sugar Ray Leonard, you will see how the early experiences of youth are deeply connected to our overall mental health.

Mary turned to art to deal with her pain, creating works that speak not only to her own trauma, but that deeply touch others as well. Although Sugar Ray turned to alcohol to deal with his past and dealt with addiction for much of his life, you will see how he was able to overcome both alcoholism and trauma to build a richer, more fulfilling life for himself. From hearing their stories, you will see how people choose different ways to deal with the past, sometimes in a positive manner and sometimes in a negative manner. You gain a greater understanding of why it is so crucial to reach out and seek help when you are struggling.

Both of their experiences illustrate how finding support can transform your life and help you take your worst ordeals and transform their outcomes toward good. You can’t undo the past, but you can find the way toward a brighter future.

From Despair to Hope

Often, we can perceive exceptionally successful public figures as leading lives that are far greater than the average person’s life—as if their life experiences are much easier than ours. In some ways this may be true, yet we all can struggle with negative experiences and overwhelming emotions.

As a promising basketball player in his youth, Jay Williams seemed to have a bright future of fame and fortune ahead of him, until a motorcycle accident derailed his dreams. What do we do when the unpredictability of life upsets our greatest plans and ambitions? How do we move forward when our lives have been rerouted against our wishes? As Jay discusses his experiences with Kate and Dr. Lisa, you will hear how he started over again after the tragic accident.

Grief and loss are a part of life that is never easy. Losing a loved one can be especially hard when it is the result of suicide. When Solomon Thomas’s sister took her own life, he and his family reeled from the loss and were left wondering what they could have done to prevent it. As you will see, even after suffering such a tragedy, Solomon and his family found a way to transform their grief into a chance to help others who are dealing with mental health struggles and loss.

Finding a Way Forward

While there is no single formula for success in dealing with trauma, grief, and other difficulties that affect our mental health, there are some key factors highlighted throughout these discussions that seem to aid in dealing with tragedy and moving forward:

• Seek Help. Reaching out to mental health professionals and trusted loved ones can help you feel less alone and can get you the resources you need to cope with your mental health struggles.
• Don’t Stay Silent. Unless you are able to acknowledge and process what you are going through, you will likely feel shame and find destructive coping mechanisms instead.
• Look for the Positive. Whether it is creating a space to help others in similar situations or using your talents and experience in positive ways for the world at large, it is important to find healthy outlets for yourself.

These, and other key steps, are highlighted throughout the stories of Jay, Solomon, Mary, and Sugar Ray. None of their stories are the same, yet much of their experience overlaps to show the universal nature of mental health struggles and the difficulty of living with the ever-present possibility of tragedy. As you listen to their stories, you may find their experiences connect deeply with your own, and this connection shows how common it is to wrestle with sadness, despair, grief, and other difficult emotions. You will also see how their stories are wonderful guides to resilience, survival, and success in the face of terrible odds—guides that can be used by anyone, no matter where you are in life.