LINCOLN, Neb. (KOLN) – Chamique Holdsclaw, one of the most decorated athletes in women’s basketball history, visited Lincoln on Thursday to share the story of her mental health journey.
Bryan Health organized the event at St Mark’s Methodist Church in advance of Mental Illness Awareness Week, a national campaign to support those with a mental health condition.
Holdsclaw spoke about her struggles with mental health throughout her childhood and basketball career, saying she suffered from serious bouts of depression and manic episodes, even attempting to take her life in 2006.
A few years later, she was also arrested in Atlanta on charges of aggravated assault. After that, Holdsclaw said she finally got help and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Now, after years of learning to manage her illness, she’s dedicating her time to helping others on their own mental health journey.
“It was too long that I suffered in silence and I just didn’t want anybody else to go through that,” Holdsclaw said. “I was empowered, I wanted to be a change agent … sometimes I have setbacks, I’m still in recovery. But with community, with support, everything has gotten better.”
Holdsclaw grew up in New York City and attended the University of Tennessee where she led the Lady Vols to three national championships.
She also played for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics, earning six WNBA All-Star selections. Holdsclaw then went on to win an Olympic gold medal in Sydney, Australia as part of the U.S. Women’s Basketball National Team.
She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2018, about a decade after she retired. Since then she’s travelled the country doing these talks, and even wrote a memoir called Breaking Through.
“People look at athletes and people who have success sort of like superheroes,” Holdsclaw said. “What they don’t know is that words hurt. People struggle in their private lives.”
Despite the stigma surrounding mental health, Holdsclaw is glad she’s spoken out about what she went through to help others going through the same thing.
“I’ve broken a lot of records, done a lot of amazing things on the basketball court, but honestly this is the most rewarding thing,” she said. “I get people who may have saw me on television and saw my journey with mental health saying ‘wow keep doing what you’re doing, you’re inspiring’ and that means so much more to me.”
Fans and attendees at Thursday’s event also got to meet Holdsclaw afterward for a book signing and pictures.
Bryan Health also put on a mental health fair before and after the program, featuring a number of local nonprofits and mental health related resources.
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