12 athletes who've spoken about their mental health struggles

As Insider reported, 23-year-old Osaka, the No. 2 female tennis player in the world, withdrew from the French Open on Monday after she was fined $15,000 for failing to attend a post-match press conference. She had been threatened with expulsion from the tournament if she continued to miss press obligations.

As she announced her withdrawal on social media, Osaka said she gets "huge waves of anxiety before [speaking] to the world's media."

"I get really nervous and find it stressful to always engage and give you the best answers I can," Osaka wrote in her announcement on Instagram. "So here in Paris I was already feeling vulnerable and anxious so I thought it was better to exercise self-care and skip the press conferences."

Osaka said she has "suffered long bouts of depression since the US Open in 2018," when she won a contentious match against tennis legend Serena Williams. Following Williams' loss, the crowd booed at the trophy ceremony, although Williams congratulated Osaka.

Osaka said she would be taking "time away from the court" and hopes to speak further about what can be done to "make things better for the players, press, and fans."

Williams offered support for Osaka's decision, saying, "I feel like I wish I could give her a hug because I know what it's like ... You just have to let her handle it the way she wants to, in the best way she thinks she can, and that's the only thing I can say. I think she's doing the best she can."

After the record-breaking Olympic swimmer pleaded guilty to a second DUI charge in 2014, he revealed on the HBO Sports documentary "The Weight of Gold" that he had suicidal thoughts, Insider reported. He later admitted himself to a rehabilitation center.

Since then, Phelps has become the spokesperson for the therapy app TalkSpace and has spoken about the vital role that exercise plays in managing his mental health. He also told Insider in January how the pandemic has negatively affected his mental wellness.

"I'll be the first to admit my mental health has been scarier than it's ever been throughout all of this, so I can't even imagine what other people are going through," he said.

"For those who are struggling with mental health, know you're not alone: There are days where I want to curl up into a ball and sit in the corner," he continued. "But it's just taking a little step forward, taking a deep breath from time to time. It really helps."

At the Mubadala Silicon Valley Classic tennis competition in 2018, Williams lost three straight sets in just 52 minutes. Williams, who had given birth to her daughter, Olympia, the year before, later spoke about her mental health and struggle with postpartum depression.

"Last week was not easy for me," she wrote in posts on Instagram and Twitter, according to Insider. "Not only was I accepting some tough personal stuff, but I just was in a funk. Mostly, I felt like I was not a good mom."

"I read several articles that said postpartum emotions can last up to 3 years if not dealt with," she continued. "I like communication best. Talking things through with my mom, my sisters, my friends let me know that my feelings are totally normal. It's totally normal to feel like I'm not doing enough for my baby."

Raisman, a six-time Olympic medalist who came forward as one of Nassar's victims, announced she was retiring from the sport in January 2020. Since then, she's been a vocal advocate of mental health and healing from past traumas.

"I really have a lot of anxiety and that's when you're not present," Raisman told Hoda Kotb on "Today" in late January 2020. "I've been doing a lot of work on myself and self-reflection. I think it's a normal thing. Some days you wake up in the morning and kind of feel 'blah,' and you don't feel that great, but there are other days where you feel really good."

"Every day I feel differently," she continued. "I've done so much therapy. I continue to do a lot of therapy, working on myself and finding things that make me feel good."

Larry Nassar was sentenced in January 2018 to up to 175 years in prison for sexual assault-related charges, after more than 100 women gave victim-impact statements about the abuse they suffered through his actions. Nassar was also sentenced to 60 years in prison for child pornography charges in December 2017.

While appearing on Ellen DeGeneres' show in 2016, Rousey shared her thought process after being transported to the hospital following her loss. Rousey, who lost both her father and grandfather to suicide, revealed she felt like she was "nothing" if she wasn't a champion.

"I looked up and saw my man, Travis, was standing there [in the medical room]," Rousey told DeGeneres. "I'm looking up at him and was just like, 'I need to have his babies. I need to stay alive.'"

Rousey later told TMZ reporters, "[We need to take] the stigma away from everything suicide and [make] it actually acceptable for people to talk about and look for help and not feel ashamed of themselves for it," according to the Huffington Post.

"I think that [dialogue] should be encouraged. It's not about damning people and I feel like there's been an overly negative light on that. It's something real people are going through," she continued.

While he was still playing for the Toronto Raptors, the NBA player tweeted, "This depression get the best of me..." in February 2018.

"It's one of them things that no matter how indestructible we look like we are, we're all human at the end of the day," DeRozan told the Toronto Star that month. "We all got feelings ... all of that. Sometimes ... it gets the best of you, where times everything in the whole world's on top of you."

He added: "That's why I look at every person I encounter the same way. I don't care who you are. You can be the smallest person off the street or you could be the biggest person in the world, I'm going to treat everybody the same, with respect."

Seven-time Olympic medalist Amanda Beard, who competed in her first Olympic Games at just 14 years old, has spoken openly about struggling with depression, poor self-image, and self-harm during her years in the spotlight.

In her autobiography, "In the Water They Can't See You Cry," Beard wrote about struggling with an eating disorder and self-esteem issues.

"Sportswriters called me fat, washed-up, and finished," she wrote. "I'd never do anything good in swimming again, they wrote. There it was in black and white, a complete validation of the negative voice playing on a loop in my head. It was true. I was a fat loser. The words I attacked myself with stared out at me from the page, causing a kind of sweet dread."

Beard became bulimic as a result of the pressure the world — and herself — placed on her to perform. In 2004, after six years competing as an Olympian, she retired from the sport.

In an essay for The Players' Tribune, Cleveland Cavaliers player Kevin Love wrote about his depression and mental health, particularly during his time playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves when he broke his hand twice in one season.

"My identity was gone. My emotional outlet was gone. All I was left with was me and my mind," he wrote. "I was living alone at the time, and my social anxiety was so bad that I never even left my apartment ... It felt like I was on a deserted island by myself, and it was always midnight. Just … dark. Dark and alone with my thoughts. Every. Single. Day."

Love explained how he was "paralyzed with depression" and that "the future started to feel meaningless."

"If it hadn't been for a couple of my closest friends, I don't know if I would be here today telling my story ... I needed medication. I needed therapy," he wrote. "I still need those things now, and I probably always will."

In the essay, Love also spoke about what helped him work through his depression and regain control over his mental health.

"For me, I guess what I needed was to talk to somebody. For me, what I needed was to know that I wasn't alone," he said. "If you're struggling right now, I can't tell you that this is going to be easy. But I can tell you that it does get better. And I can tell you that you are definitely not alone."

National Soccer Hall of Famer and two-time Olympic gold medalist Abby Wambach wrote in her memoir, "Forward," about her struggles with addiction and alcohol abuse prior to retiring from the sport. The athlete was arrested on a DUI charge in April 2016 and pleaded guilty.

"It started with me using my prescription pain pills for medical reasons, and then I started to abuse," she told The New York Times in 2016. "My alcohol abuse was during off-seasons or before days off, mostly, and I would binge drink. It was my habit. In the end, when things spun out of control, I was nearing the end of my career."

"I was having an existential crisis. I didn't know what I would be without soccer as my main identity," she continued.

Wambach is now five years sober and married to "Untamed" author Glennon Doyle.

"People are so uncomfortable talking about mental health because they can't fix it," she said in a video with Well Being Trust in 2017. "As soon as I started talking about it, I immediately felt like this is what I've been needing to do. The number one thing anyone should ever say to somebody is that they're not alone."

"I have been diagnosed with depression and here I am, I'm happy, you would never be able to tell from the outside that I have depression," she said in a 2018 interview with USA Swimming. "I believe it's something you live with forever."

"The misconception that people have is, 'If you're feeling this way, why don't you do this, this and this to not feel this way?' I understand, I don't want to feel like this, I don't like being around myself when I'm like this, but I don't know how to change this," she continued.

Schmitt spoke about how going to see a psychologist and asking for help was pivotal in living with her depression. She also recounted a time when Olympic champion Michael Phelps approached her to say she wasn't acting like herself and whether he could do anything to help.

"That was the first time I showed ... 'negative emotion,'" she said. "I cried for the next two hours and talked to Michael, my coach Bob, and my trainer Keenan."

"Since then, what my psychologist has done is helped me ways to cope, ways to recognize when I need to step back, take a deep breath, and let something go," she said. "Three years after I first sought help, I'm able to be myself ... Keep pushing through. I know it's painful, but keep pushing through."

"My problem is I'm a soft guy in a profession of hard guys," Duchscherer told Men's Journal in 2011, according to USA Today. "People think if you're rich, you must be happy. They can't understand why you're not."

After going through a difficult divorce and injuring his elbow in the same year, he described feeling "overwhelmed" and was diagnosed with depression.

"I felt my depression was not the cause of my inability to control my emotions, but the result of my inability to control my emotions," he told the magazine. "I had to learn how to deal with the things in my life that caused my depression."

Duchscherer was placed on the disabled list in 2009 after suffering a hip injury that required surgery. He officially retired in 2010.

"I was 23, a millionaire and had everything, yet I was never more unhappy in my life," Williams said in an article published by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America in 2009. "I felt extremely isolated from my friends and family because I couldn't explain to them what I was feeling and I had no idea what was wrong with me."

Williams was later diagnosed with social anxiety.

"I felt immense relief because it meant that there was a name for my suffering. I wasn't crazy or weird, like I thought for so many years," he said. "As part of my treatment program, my physician prescribed an antidepressant, in combination with therapy. Soon thereafter I was able to start acting like the real Ricky Williams."

Williams retired from football in 2011 after playing on-and-off since 1999. Throughout his career in the NFL, he was financially penalized for using marijuana. According to Sports Illustrated, Williams estimated he lost "between $5 million and $10 million in salary and endorsements" between 2002 and 2006. He later launched his own brand of cannabis-based products, called Real Wellness.