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Lindsey Vonn Opens Up About Normalizing Mental Health Struggles: ‘There’s Nothing Wrong with Me’

Of all the people to become a champion for mental health advocacy, Lindsey Vonn is probably not someone you’d have picked.

Or maybe you could.

In a new limited series, Deadline: Special Report, the former Olympic skier is opening up about her struggles with mental health.

Vonn first opened up about her decades-long battle with depression in 2012, and since then, she’s been working hard to continue to speak up about the mental health crisis in the US. She wants to destigmatize getting help.

In the new series, Vonn explained what pushed her to get help. “I really only went to the doctor because a friend of mine had been diagnosed with depression and had really similar symptoms. I went in like, ‘I’m just gonna get this done with so I can confirm that I’m fine. Everything’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with me'”

She continued, “And I was diagnosed with depression and given medication and I still resisted therapy because I still thought there was nothing wrong with me. And there is nothing wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me!” She added, “There’s such a huge stigma around it, especially in sports. It’s viewed as you can’t be a strong athlete if you’re depressed. You can’t be strong and have weakness.”

Vonn famously dated golf star Tiger Woods from about 2012 to 2015, and it has since been revealed that Woods ghosted her.

It’s a dirty move to pull on someone you care about, but especially so, given the well-understood negative psychological impacts of ghosting. Perhaps now that Vonn is revisiting her battle with mental health, Woods will pick up the phone and actually apologize. Probably not, though.



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