Over the past few years, mental health struggles in athletes have started to become normalized. Northeastern student athletes have pushed the university for more support and resources.
Written by Bridget Bost.
Being a D1 athlete at a competitive school comes with many challenges- both physical and mental. Universities prepare their athletes for the physical side of sports but often neglect to start conversations around the mental battles. At Northeastern, athletes have taken a stance to spread their struggles and make others feel less alone.
Mary Margaret Banick, Northeastern Class of 2023, has become an advocate and leader on campus by sharing her mental health journey. Her collegiate swimming career started at the University of Tennessee after falling in love with the sport at the age of five. As the season continued, Banick found herself really struggling with her mental health.
“My journey in this sport actually kind of intertwines with my … mental health journey, and kind of how I ended up at Northeastern,” Banick said. “So while at Tennessee, I was really struggling. Like, you know, I was dealing with depression.”
At the end of her freshman year at Tennessee, Banick was sexually assaulted at a party which caused her to struggle even further with her mental health.
“At this point, I was suicidal and everything so I ended up … just actually missing a pratice because I was just not in a place to leave my apartment,” she said.
The start of her sophomore year, she was seeing a therapist and started taking medication, which helped a little, but she still found it very difficult to cope with everything she had been through and was feeling. Banick started an outpatient program which caused her to have to stop swimming.
“I think it’s really hard because swimming has always been a part of my identity,” Banick said. “But like at this time, … I really use my success and performance in so many different [ways], … almost my own sense of value and self worth.”
After completing the two month outpatient program, she hoped to return back and continue swimming for the team.
“When I was released, I didn’t really receive any support from my team and my coaches and, you know, [it was] really isolating but I just kept working with the intention of returning to the team in the following fall,” she said.
Her mental health started to quickly decline again but after trying to receive care at a treatment facility she had previously gone to and being turned down, she found herself moving to Boston to be treated at McLean Hospital.
“I ended up being there for I think four months in total,” Banick said. “…The cool thing about the unit is you’re allowed to leave the hospital and … go around Boston.”
Banick quickly fell in love with Boston and decided to transfer to Northeastern in 2020 after talking with the assistant coach of the swim team. The summer before 2021, she heard about a program called the Hidden Opponent, a non-profit and advocacy group that raises awareness for student-athlete mental health and addresses the stigma within sports culture.
“I was really interested because, you know, I felt isolated as an athlete … struggling with mental health issues. … But then I’d experienced being supported as an athlete with mental health issues by their peers and my coaches,” she said. “And so, I really wanted to kind of be an advocate for … the de-stigmatization of mental health and mental illness because ultimately, … not talking about it doesn’t make it go away.”
Banick started her journey as an mental health advocate working with the Hidden Opponent and encouraged her team to get involved.
“I ended up talking a lot with my teammates and the coaches about the work I was doing and kind of like the importance of mental health advocacy and things like that. It ended up that two of my teammates became campus captains in the next year, which was pretty cool,” Banick said.
Similarly to Banick, other athletes on Northeastern athletic teams have started their role as mental health advocates. Ahriá Simons, a graduate student and player on the men’s soccer team, shared his experiences with mental health to his team.
“I opened up about my struggles with mental health and I guess just being as open as that, hopefully people feel empowered and feel like they can be vulnerable as well,” Simons said. “I also try to participate in all the initiatives that the team does.”
Simons helped organize a mental health awareness game for his team during the season after players on the women’s soccer team were looking to expand awareness.
“She asked if the men’s team would join in the having of this game, and we obviously said, ‘yeah, for sure.’ It was a big social media campaign and at the game we had T-shirts,” he said. “So we’re definitely hoping to continue that and do bigger.”
Northeastern encourages these mental health awareness games and also supports their athletes by having sports psychologists available for appointments. This resource is fairly new but has been a great way for athletes to get help on campus.
“When an athlete is struggling with their mental game, they may seek out someone like me to help them develop coping tools,” said Dr. Hayley Perelman, a licensed clinical and sports psychologist.
She explained how, “a sport psychologist helps an athlete identify where they may be suffering or struggling in sport and help them build skills to tackle that.”
Northeastern also has general counseling services available to students and athletes and can help people get in contact with those who are looking for therapists in the Boston area.
“[Student athletes should] know their resources and be willing to ask for help. It is important to have someone trustworthy that they can be honest with,” Perelman said.
The university also has implemented SAAC, a Student Athlete Advisory Committee, which has two representatives from each sports team, both men and women. Meetings are held with the representatives and the administration leader to determine things that should be changed and brought up to the administration.
“I think it brings awareness to the athletes, reps will then communicate with their respective teams about what we talk about in our meetings and we then share that with administration to see real change,” said Mia Brown, the previous President of SAAC and a player on the women’s hockey team.
Brown has also used her voice as a college athlete to spread more awareness to the younger generations who play sports.
“I actually did a podcast with one of my old therapists. I’ve been helping him and talking with some of his younger athletes who come to my games and stuff and he said ‘it’s been meaning the world to them,’” she said. “My take on it is that it should be taught growing up along with skills.”
The student athletes at Northeastern are examples of how to help break the stigma around mental health. Continuing to talk about the struggles student athletes face and how to cope with challenges is important to increase overall conversations and spread more awareness.
“At the end of the day we all have to … take a step back and recognize that we are humans and have emotions and we are allowed to struggle.” Banick said. “I think talking about these struggles and … how it is for athletes to have mental health struggles but also … asking for support and realizing like a wide variety of issues and circumstances that many athletes experience [is crucial].”
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