Why does allison schmitt talk like that

She said people should do things that allow them to de-stress. For her, that includes working out and reading. She hopes having athletes such as herself talk about this will make it a safe space for everyone to talk about mental health, because everyone goes through struggles. Schmitt said the next step in the mental health conversation is the accessibility and availability of resources.

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Home Edge. The age of Olympians: Rio highlights younger, older athlete performances Even as she prepared for a comeback at the Olympic trials, she struggled to compete—and to get through the day. SI Recommends. By Avi Creditor.

By Matt Lombardi. By Justin Barrasso. By Wilton Jackson. By Michael Fabiano. Amy was relieved to see it. Then she heard her daughter's labored breathing. The Bocians would learn later that April had then called , that the dispatcher had tracked her cellphone signal, that two paramedics had worked on the damage done by a gunshot wound to her chest. Amy and Tim and one of their other daughters, Blake, rushed to a field that bordered their property line, but police wouldn't let them through.

A Life Flight helicopter landed nearby. They knelt and prayed. Perhaps a half hour later, they heard the chopper blades slow and stop. There would be no need for an airlift that evening. In the Bible that April took with her, the pages of Acts 16 were smeared with fresh mud.

Her parents pored over the passages they thought she might have been reading. Amy read April's journal and tried pass code after pass code to get into April's phone. After 10 attempts, the screen went black and the phone reverted to factory settings. Tim believes that April realized she wanted to live as soon as she pulled the trigger.

He read a story about people who survived suicide leaps from the Golden Gate Bridge. He also believes her love of basketball is the main reason she stuck it out as long as she did. But Amy wonders whether the athlete in April cut both ways, glorifying an outsized pain threshold, teaching her to play through an invisible injury and putting her at risk.

From the outside, she had everything. Ralph Schmitt, Allison's father, picked her up at the Pittsburgh airport the day before the funeral.

How did this happen? Why didn't I reach out? Why couldn't I have said something? I'm going through this too, so we could have talked about it. Why her? She's 17, everything in front of her.

It could have gotten better in college. When Ralph pulled into the driveway, Allison opened the back door, fumbling with her bag.

Her father stayed put. Neither of them unbuckled their seat belts, as if they knew emotion was about to T-bone the parked car. Saying that word was harder than the hours of downloading to Michael and Bob and Keenan, harder than the tortured shrink sessions. They sat, still buckled in, and talked for 15 or 20 minutes. I said something like, 'I'm fine now. She blurted out reflexively, "'Cause I say I am. She wanted to be done with denial. Allison was unprepared for the number of kids who showed up at the funeral and how profoundly they said her cousin had touched them.

She waited in line to pay her respects by the open casket. April looked peaceful, her porcelain skin and lustrous hair intact. When the crowd dwindled, Allison circled back a second time. She kissed April's cheek and thought, You're not gone. I'll help you. She asked to speak to Amy and Tim privately the next day. They listened as she sat between them and spilled out her thoughts. She felt her silence made her complicit in April's suffering.

She was going to break that silence publicly. She had already texted her agent: I want to do something for young people and depression. I've been battling something for a while,'" Amy said. I'm suffering from depression. But now I realize that I need to come out and talk about it and get help. I should have talked to her because I'm the older one. I'm her older cousin. I should have looked out for her. Amy and Tim had decided to be open about April's death, and to give scholarships through a community foundation to keep her name alive.

The stigma, that fear of being different and weak they were convinced had propelled April into the woods -- they wanted to start tearing it down brick by brick. Allison had been hiding behind that same game face. Amy Bocian reaches lovingly for Schmitt at the U. Olympic swim trials in Omaha, Neb. Bonnie D. Allison gave her initial interviews about depression to The Associated Press and The Baltimore Sun within a few weeks.

She spoke about it openly, confidently, when reporters brought it up at the Pan American Games that summer in Toronto, where she won gold.

She wore a bright red dress with lace cutouts to USA Swimming's Golden Goggles award dinner this past November in Los Angeles and was ready with a speech when her name was called for the Perseverance Award. She called for more structured post-Olympic mental health support for athletes. Suzy Merchant, the Michigan State coach, said April's death shook her to the core and prompted her to organize a retreat for middle-school girls this past spring. You see them struggling with performance anxiety.

Basketball used to be what they do. Now it's who they are, and if they're not living up to their expectations, they get overwhelmed. They go to a place where it's hard to help them. In early February , Allison appeared at a Michigan High School Athletic Association leadership conference in Lansing and sat next to a life-size cutout of herself -- a perfect, airbrushed version.

She autographed swim caps and photos for a steady stream of admirers. Smile and dream BIG , she wrote. She revealed her imperfect self later that day to a packed ballroom as she laid out the lessons of April's life and death. Check out our episode podcast.

She didn't tell any of her friends, she didn't tell her teammates she was in a dark place. She would walk out of the house, she would be bubbly, happy, loved helping out other kids, loved helping out other people. Was the star of the team, very funny, no one knew.