I've been watching the news unfold this past week regarding Simone Biles and her needing to bow out of a handful of olympic events.
The withdrawal was stated as being due to mental health issues and that she needed to mentally get healthy prior to continuing.
By large, the social/media gave high praise for putting her mental health first. Conversations focused around removing the stigma of mental health issues, not being afraid to ask for help, etc., with reports of the source of her mental health issues stemming from the immense pressure that she has on her shoulders not only as an athlete, the face of the USA olympics, & her team, but also as a sexual assault survivor.
A couple days ago, Simone offered additional details, stating that it was the "Twisties" that prevented her from continuing. The Twisties is the inability to decipher up from down, which is critical for gymnasts when performing and twisting/turning multiple times in the air. Not having this awareness could result in serious injury (back/spine/etc.) if not knowing how/where to land.
My (likely controversial) question: did Simone incorrectly label the Twisties as a "mental health" issue?
The majority of people correlate mental health to depression, personality disorders, PTSD, schizophrenia, etc.. Whereas the Twisties is a phenomenon that many gymnasts experience on multiple occasions. Pressure/anxiety/etc. can be a root/partial cause to them, but Simon said that it, "Could be triggered by stress I hear but I'm also not sure how true that is."
Reported by Women's Health, Nicole Detling, PhD, CMPC, owner of a sport psychology company focusing on performance enhancement through mental skills training, states that, "In general, the twisties is a mental performance situation, NOT a mental health issue."
She's certainly not a coward for stepping down, and I think the move was inspiring to athletes of all ages as a whole by displaying bravery to put desire for greatness aside rather than putting her physical body/future self at risk, but I question if people are clapping for the wrong reasons and painting her as a hero & spokesperson for mental health awareness. Social media as a whole is quick to react/praise without knowing the full details of situations and that the statements initially released incorrectly didn't properly reflect the cause for the withdrawal.
I don't know much about this so I may be wrong, but taken at face value it sounds related to mental health to me. As someone who's suffered from panic/anxiety attacks, I know firsthand that that stuff can give you tunnel vision/blurred vision, derealization, f--- with your depth perception, etc. It can make it hard to walk let alone do olympic gymnastics.
And this seems like splitting hairs to me. I don't know if she has any sort of mental health diagnoses but you can suffer from poor mental health without any specific diagnoses. It can also be circumstantial just like physical health. Like you could sprain your ankle and have poor physical health for a few days, or you could have a bone disorder that makes your ankle weak every day—no one would question you for not performing under those conditions. You could suffer from circumstantial depression or chronic depression. They can both affect your performance on a given day just the same.
