Let Simone Biles Inspire Us to Normalize Taking Mental Health Breaks
It's actually not normal to just push and push and go and go and never rest enough to allow your body and mind and feelings and relationships and creativity and wellness to thrive.
We all need mental health breaks sometimes, breaks for grief, breaks to simply rest and allow ideas to marinate. Breaks are not only okay, they are necessary. Let’s normalize them.
One of the clients I work with has a ton of things going on right now and recently had to cancel a free online event. Reschedule actually, not fully cancel. But I could tell that she agonized about it. And I could relate. Because I agonize when I can't complete what I've said I'm going to do - even if I'm the only one holding myself accountable. I assume that someone somewhere is expecting something from me because I said I'd do it and I feel terrible flaking out. Although over the past few years I've had to learn to be increasingly gentle with myself.
As you may or may not know, a few years ago I had a terrible dental surgery experience. The $20000 that I'm still paying off was painful enough. But it was two months of literally constant pain - pain like I've never experienced in my life. Mouth ulcers, brain fog, antibiotics, and root canals after root canals. It was awful. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. In any case, I've never been quite the same since. Honestly, the six hours under sedation did something to my brain that was freaky and for awhile there I was truly worried that I'd never come back from it. I would start a sentence and lose the words. Not exactly a great trait for a writer. Eventually, the big side effects went away.
But what stayed is a shift in my ability to write for extended periods of time. Honestly, it had already been fading for years. Throughout my late twenties and most of my thirties, I wrote a ridiculous lot of content. I'm talking tens of thousands of words per day every day for years. I've got ten books under my belt. I've written for about a dozen magazines. And I can't count the number of blogs I've written for over the years. At some point, churning out that much content was bound to burn me out. I just simply slowed down. I began to be late on deadlines which was something this always-early girl had never done. And since the dental surgery, it's been even slower. I've had to admit that I'm never going to return to the "before" level of productivity. Nor do I want to.
I want to write meaningful words, not just churn out repetitive content. Don't get me wrong - I am endlessly grateful for the work I've been paid to do. I still love some of the jobs I'm doing. It's good work. But part of why I'm doing this subscription-only newsletter is really to get back to finding what matters to me in writing. So I set a goal, and I write a lot, but I realize it’s also okay when I don’t write so much. It's okay to realize that I personally, and we as a society, are in a weird, trying, exhausting, challenging, interesting, difficult time. And we don't know how we're going to feel each day. And it's more than okay to be gentle with ourselves. We can have big goals and not necessarily let ourselves off the hook but acknowledge when they exceed what reality allows.
So the client who was doing too much needed a break. And so did I. And probably so do you or you have recently or you will soon. And with that in mind, I've been watching the Simone Biles story carefully. If you've managed to miss that, she's an amazing gymnast, still in the game long after most female gymnasts have moved on. She's done amazing things throughout her career, both in terms of physical stunts (there are some named after her) and in terms of leadership (being a main face fighting back against the sexual abuse in the gymnastics industry.) She recently was on the Olympics floor when something happened and she more or less withdrew from competition. I first discovered this when a number of the Instagram accounts that I follow started showing their support for her and her willingness to take care of her own mental health.
Now, I know that there are a lot of people out there booing her. Personally, I haven't seen a lot of that content. The types of sites I follow don't get on the train. So while I see the gist of the messages ("you let down your team" and "you should be stronger than that" etc), that's not the main message I've personally seen. I've seen people throughout both athletics and mental health fields support her decision.
Articles have explained that during her event, Simone got what gymnasts call "the twisties." Basically, there was a disconnect between her mind and body while she was in there. She had no idea how to orient herself in space and whether she would land okay. Now, I'm no gymnast. I'm probably the least athletic person that you know. However, I get the concept physically and more than that I can understand it mentally. We disconnect from ourselves, we get lost in our space, and we truly aren't sure whether we're going to land on our feet or break our necks, metaphorically speaking.
Simone has gone on to speak a bit about her mental health. She also more recently shared that her aunt suddenly just passed away. As an audience, we appreciate this extra information. It's helpful to understand why she's having trouble "doing her job." However, she shouldn't have to explain these things to us really. She doesn't owe anyone an explanation. She has a physical and/or mental illness that's very serious and she needs to stop and take care of herself.
She sat there with her teammates. She cheered them on. They supported her. And they went on to get a silver medal. Those who are putting her down for "letting down her team" are missing the point. First of all, silver isn't a bad thing. Second, it's only gymnastics. Yes, it's The Olympics. Yes, it's an amazing world sport. Yes, obviously everyone there wanted to win. But it's still a sport and that doesn't take precedence over a human life. The point isn't that she "let down" her team. The point is that her team was there for her to hold her up and support her as a human and a friend. Community matters. Her community appears to be there for her. The wider mental health community appears to be there for her. And that matters. I hope she wholeheartedly feels that support.
I think she is astoundingly brave. She literally had the entire world watching her. If you or I feel like we can't take a day off or a break because "things won't get done" or "people are counting on us" or whatever, imagine how astoundingly difficult it must be to say, "I need this break" in the face of the entire world watching. There is literally no one who could do her job and yet she was able to say, "I'm sorry, but I can't do this right now." AND THAT IS OKAY. And let's mention the fact that she's also a person of color and has that pressure on her to show "we can do it." Which is not a pressure that she should have but she does.
I can't imagine the pressure that Olympic athletes are under. I do know that when Michael Phelps retired from Olympics he became the face of an online therapy platform, encouraging people to seek help for problems big or small. In his commercials he admitted that he struggled with depression. How do you go from being the best to leading a "normal" life? The kind of pressure you put on yourself and others put on you to reach that level ... how does that impact the rest of your brain for the rest of your life? He said, "I need help."
When we put ourselves out there creatively (athletically, however, really), we want to do our best. And when we have fans of any number (Instagram followers, people who buy our products or patterns or books), we want to make them happy. We want to set high goals for ourselves and then achieve or exceed those goals. And that's great. We are doing what we love doing and we are so excited when it resonates with someone else. But that doesn't mean that we have to be perfect or even that we have to be available all of the time. We can take a rest. In the face of the biggest seemingly most important moment of our lives we can say, "I have the twisties and I need a break." And hopefully our community will come through for us.
So I encourage you ... do your best and most amazing work. Dream big. Put yourself out there. But on the days when it's too much, acknowledge that. And don't apologize for it. Let the world know that we need mental health days sometimes and you're going to take yours when you need them and that is totally okay. The more people who do this, the more publicly we do this, the more okay it becomes for everyone.
Mental health matters.
BTW: Simone Biles went back to The Olympics in 2024 and won 4 medals. Prioritizing your mental health doesn’t mean that you never get to succeed at what you want to do.
If you read this far, perhaps you liked the work. The work does take work. It only continues with support, so please consider subscribing. My annual rate starts at $10 per year.
