Imagine, if you will, you are Simon Biles the day you dropped out of the Olympics. You spent the rest of the day cheering on your teammates and trying to remain positive. That evening while in your room, you open your laptop to see that the news has broken of you dropping out. You make the mistake of reading some comments on Facebook, Instagram, and news stories. You see a Facebook post that has several thousand shares and thousands of comments; it’s a picture of a gymnast you recognize, Kerri Strug, the gymnast that competed after sustaining an ankle injury that should have knocked her out of the competition. The headline reads something like, “this is what real heart looks like.” You are crestfallen.
Simone didn’t have an apparent physical injury; she had a mental block. This is not a satisfactory excuse for some Americans.
Why do Americans treat mental health issues separately from health issues? If Simon Biles had pulled a hamstring, do you think so many Americans would be expressing their disappointment in her lack of “grit”?
The truth is mental health is health; it has the word health in it. Simon Biles is the world’s best gymnast, and that is not an opinion that is a fact. Her routines are so complicated that other gymnasts do not even attempt them. It is truly impressive that a 24-year-old woman had the mental capacity to know that if she stepped out onto that mat and her mind was not in the right place, she could injure herself and ruin her entire career. By walking away from this competition, she very well might have done the hardest things she will ever have to do -- and this is a young woman who just recently spoke publicly about sexual abuse, another onerous thing to do.
The comments online really are disheartening, disgusting, and genuinely make me wonder what happened to the hearts of all these Americans. These Americans have no problem calling this girl a failure, a disgrace, and a disappointment. These Americans talk about how this younger generation has no heart when, in reality, the millennial generation is the first generation to recognize and understand that mental health is just as important as physical health. The brain is an organ just like a heart, and you must take care of it. The boomer generation does not understand this and has shunned those who have sought mental health help for decades, those who have tried to raise mental health awareness, and even those who take medications for their mental health. Because the generation before did not believe that mental health was a priority, we are left with an entire system that does not take mental health seriously and makes seeking mental health care a problematic task.
Capitalism taught the older generations that it is okay to break your body and mind for your dreams and goals. Capitalism poisoned multiple generations into believing the only way to be successful is to sacrifice things, sacrifice time with friends, sacrifice time with family, sacrifice your physical well-being, and sacrifice your mental well-being. However, the younger generation has realized it’s much more essential to have a work-life balance than bragging about your 80 or 90, or 100-hour workweek. And we can observe these ideals now in the reaction to Simon Biles dropping out. Why on earth are so many Americans so judgmental of this girl when it affects nothing in their lives? It is curious to think that perhaps not as many people would be supporting her success as much as they are criticizing what they view as her failures.
Sacrificing your physical or mental well-being for entertainment or representing an abstract concept, such as “America,” isn’t right, and it certainly isn’t fair. As Americans, we should support the idea that while we love to be the best in the world and win gold medals and celebrate our successes, we must recognize that sometimes, sacrificing too much for those successes makes it not worth it in the end. If Simon Biles had stepped onto that mat and broke her leg, people would have been critical of her decision to do so. Unfortunately, in today’s culture, she will always be criticized. But she is used to it, and she has survived it, and she will continue to survive it and be the best she can be. She understands how important her mental health is, more important than winning, and that must have been a challenging concept to handle.
Our athletes in this country are committing suicide by shooting themselves in the chest so that their brains are intact for autopsy because they knew something was wrong with them. And America seems to be okay with that. America was more upset several years ago about NFL players kneeling than about all the CTE controversy and the NFL’s cover-up. Or the fact that so many players leave the NFL with long-term brain damage, then it didn’t matter how successful they were and how much money they made; they can’t enjoy the rest of their lives because they have such severe brain damage. But that’s not what you saw on the Internet; what you saw instead were people burning jerseys because they were upset about a silent protest, a protest that harmed no one.
Many of us in this country are disappointed that Simon Biles had to drop out. We have watched her routines, and her docu-series, and her interviews, and we have become fans of this young woman. So, it is disappointing to see her not be able to compete. However, it is even more heartbreaking to think that so many Americans think what she did was weak when in reality, this is probably the strongest she’s ever been. And that is what makes Simon Biles the greatest gymnast of all time.
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