Kevin Love writes follow-up to 2018 essay about mental health
Two years after opening up about an in-game panic attack he experienced, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love is continuing to raise awareness about mental health in a new essay for The Players' Tribune.
Love touches on his battle with depression and what he describes as "the darkest period of my life" during his time with the Minnesota Timberwolves in the piece, titled "To Anybody Going Through It."
"If it hadn't been for a couple of my closest friends, I don't know if I would be here today telling my story," he writes. "And 99.9% of the people in my life probably don't know how bad it got for me. But as hard as that might be for them to hear, I feel like I need to get that off my chest for the people out there who might be in a similar situation right now."
I wrote a story for @PlayersTribune in 2018. Today, I share with you my follow up. To those of you struggling out there — I hope this helps.https://t.co/Dds9mDZoD6
— Kevin Love (@kevinlove) September 17, 2020
Similarly to his first Players' Tribune piece, Love credits DeMar DeRozan for giving him the courage to open up about his mental health.
"I think that sometimes - because of all the incredible support I've been given, and because of my platform as an NBA player - people see me as some kind of Finished Product. Or some kind of Success Story for Mental Health or something," he says. "They see the curated version of me and not the real person.
"The fact is, the real person is still dealing with his deep-seated shit every single day. The real person is still trying to learn how to control his anger and anxiety. And the real person, by the way, never would have been able to tell his story in the first place without the courage of DeMar DeRozan, who blazed that path for everybody in the league today."
Love ends the essay with a message of hope to anyone else dealing with depression.
"If you're struggling right now, I can't tell you that this is going to be easy. But I can tell you that it does get better. And I can tell you that you are definitely not alone."