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What Simone Biles can Teach us about Mental Health

What Simone Biles can Teach us about Mental Health

Last updated on: August 9, 2024 at 8:45 pm by Rob Giannamore

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What Simone Biles can Teach us about Mental Health 2024-08-09T20:45:14-04:00 Rob Giannamore

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This is a post that focuses on the spiritual practice of you. You are a precious gift from the divine. You are potential seat of Christ, and you are loved. Each of us is a work in progress and there is always room for improvement. We are not just human beings, we are human becomings. No matter what you are going through right now, no matter how bad it will be tomorrow or the next day, you are loved, and you will get through it.

If you or a loved one is struggling with their mental health, there is hope and there is help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. If suicide has been an option for you or has a place on your table, then please reach out to the suicide hotline at 988

My news feed has been all abuzz about Simone Biles. My niece is a gymnast, so anytime I have questions, which is often, I go to her. I saw a meme the other day that said Biles jumped 12 feet in her floor routine during the Olympic trials. In the running world, when I tell people that I run 30 miles in a day and hear “I don’t like to drive that far”, I think of saying Simone Biles, “I don’t like to fall that far” (anymore, there may have been a time when I was 18). Simone Biles is also known for her withdraw from the women’s team gymnastics final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, citing mental health concerns.

For transparency’s sake, the following is not an armchair discussion on mental health. I am a licensed clinician in the state of Pennsylvania with over twenty years’ experience in the mental health fields. Trauma, anxiety, and loss are all areas of expertise for me.

There is some discussion in the world of faith that mental health issues are all in your head and that one simply must “get over it.” Let us discuss the three known areas highlighted in the many reports and stories about Miss Biles: sexual trauma, sports anxiety, and loss of family.

Mental Health and Sexual Trauma

As a clinician, one of the hardest traumas to help someone work through is sexual trauma. Nothing robs a person’s sense of self more. Biles was part of the very public sexual abuse case brought on by her team doctor, Larry Nasser

Sexual trauma is very prevalent in all societies. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) offers these statistics:

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) survey found that 27% of women and 4% of men reported being victims of rape or attempted rape.

That same CDC survey found that almost half of women and almost a quarter of men have received unwanted sexual contact — which means there was touching but not penetration.

In the U.S., it’s estimated that over 60,000 children are sexually abused each year.

As noted above, sexual violence can cause lingering effects. These effects include but are not limited to loss of sense of self, emotional dysregulation, depersonalization and derealization, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Mental Health and Sports/Performance Anxiety

I ran(or attempted to run) ultramarathons for 12 years. At my peak, I was doing on average three a year with my longest race at 100k. At my peak, 2014-2020, I consistently ran sub eight-hour 50k’s and one sub seven-hour 50k. For nine months out of the year, it was one eight-week training cycle after another, usually in the range of 12-14 hours/ week on top of my regularly scheduled 40 hour/week job and raising kids. I am an amateur at best.

In 2020, during COVID, my nine-month season was compressed into seven weeks. In those seven weeks, I did a 50k and then week later a marathon and two weeks later, another 50k followed by a 23-hour event the week after that. In 2021, I got the first two COVID shots and had COVID for the first time and something happened to my endurance capacity, ending my ultrarunning days.

It is not uncommon for pro athletes in my sport to commit to 30-40 hours a week of training as a full-time job. Add the pressure of performing on the world’s stage and you can begin to understand how stressful the challenges of being a pro athlete can be.

Simone Biles experienced a medical phenomenon well known to gymnasts, the twisties. “The twisties are a mental block that creates a dangerous disconnect between mind and body while gymnasts are airborne. There is a brain-body connection that allows the gymnast to rotate their bodies. It is the brain – body connection that allows gymnast to make these rotations. With the twisties, this brain body connection is disrupted. Anxiety in the form of stress, doubt, pressure, and perseverating on a mistake are all thought to be contributors to the twisties.

Mental Health and Grief/Loss

I once went to a grief conference when I was a pastor where the presenter said that it takes seven years for every year you knew the lost loved one to move past their loss. It was reported that Miss Biles lost a family member during her last Olympic performance. If sexual trauma is difficult, grief is right up there on the scale of difficulty.

Often in therapy, I have to do a good amount of reeducation on how grief works. Most folks link that Kubler Ross’s grief cycle is linear. In reality, it can be cyclical. When I first start working with someone dealing with grief and we have a good rapport, I begin to explain that there are a lot of firsts after the death of a loved one or the loss of an opportunity.

Let’s take the death of your grandmother. Say she really like Halloween, Christmas and a really nice July picnic with potato salad and sweet tea. Well, after death, after you move through the stages of grief and accept her passing, you have to do it to some degree all over again when those special moments noted happen the next year. Then you run into your college roommate you have not seen in years. She knows how close you were to her in college, and she asks about your grandma, not knowing she has died, again, you may go back to the depression stage, maybe even anger or bargaining, but eventually back to acceptance. It is not as easy as “just get over it, she is gone.” When I preached a couple of funerals, I used to say death is the end of new meaning. Grandma never existed until you made meaning with her. That meaning is lifelong for you and if you were very close, that meaning not being there to be renewed regularly is going to hurt for a while.

The Spiritual Practice of You

God knows us. Like a loving parent. As mentioned in my opening, you are a special gift from God and loved intently. “The spiritual practice of you challenges us to become all we are meant to be as God’s beloved sons and daughters. We are, after all, co-creators of the Great Work of the universe. By attuning ourselves to what in different traditions has been called the image of God, the everlasting soul, or the higher self, we are able to fulfill our mission in life.”

Simone Biles teaches us that we can be resilient and alive despite our mental health struggles. She teaches us to be courageous and kind despite the bitter sting of anxiety eroding away at our confidence. She teaches us it is okay to step back, set boundaries and take time for ourselves.

If you are struggling with your mental health, take time for yourself, and reach out and talk to someone.

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