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'We all need more self-love:' Two WSU basketball players open up about mental health

Wichita Eagle - 3/18/2021

Mar. 18—Dexter Dennis was depressed, he just didn't know he was depressed.

The Wichita State men's basketball team was off to a 9-1 start to the 2019-20 season with back-to-back wins over Big 12 foes Oklahoma State and Oklahoma. On the surface, things were going great — the Shockers were rolling and Dennis was a starter. But behind the scenes, Dennis was struggling.

He was trying to play through a herniated disc in his back, an injury that was undisclosed to the public and prevented him from doing the things he was used to on the basketball court.

"Once my physical health started to decline, that's when my mental health started to decline," Dennis said.

Dennis had never really considered his mental health while growing up. As an athlete, only the mentally strong survive and admitting something is wrong is a sign of weakness — or at least that's what he was told.

But the weight of trying to pretend everything was normal finally crashed down on Dennis in a practice the day before a Dec. 21, 2019 home game against VCU. That's when he had an epiphany that basketball, the game he loved, was no longer fun. The things that used to bring him joy — like practice, studying film and getting extra shots up at the gym — now caused a sense of dread. He finally decided to seek help.

"The highlight of my day was going home and being in my room alone," Dennis said. "I was in a pretty dark place back then."

WSU announced the next day, less than an hour before tip-off against VCU, that Dennis was taking an indefinite leave of absence, which would last three weeks. It marked a significant occasion: the importance of mental health had entered the conversation around Wichita's beloved college basketball program.

Fast forward to a little more than a year later and the Shockers have an even larger platform being back in the NCAA Tournament. While WSU came to Indiana to win, the players also hope to use their platform to normalize having a conversation about mental health and maybe inspire someone else who is going through their own struggles.

After NBA players like DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Love inspired Dennis to open up about his vulnerability, the WSU junior hopes he can be that for someone else.

"Being an athlete, sometimes you kind of, in a not so good way, almost feel like you're invincible and nothing can ever be wrong with you," Dennis said. "Once I started reading what (the NBA players) wrote, I was like, 'These guys are getting paid millions of dollars and they're going through the same exact thing.' It made me feel like I wasn't alone. Maybe somebody will read my story and feel the same way."

'We all need more self-love'

For Alterique Gilbert, playing in this March Madness is a personal milestone.

Like Dennis, a moment came where life and basketball seemed overwhelming to Gilbert. A season ago, while playing for Connecticut, the point guard missed a Jan. 29, 2020 game for mental health reasons.

During his four years at UConn, Gilbert battled shoulder injuries that not only kept him off the basketball court but also wreaked havoc on his mind. When he was injured, it would not be uncommon for Gilbert to go days barely sleeping or eating. He would remain isolated in his room, his mind constantly racing.

After a move to Wichita and more than a year of therapy and medication, Gilbert has stabilized himself. His mental health is thriving and his physical health has followed, as Gilbert has played in every game this season for the Shockers, becoming the starting point guard for an NCAA Tournament team.

"For me, it took a long process to even feel like myself again," Gilbert said. "I've got to commend myself for just being able to get up and play basketball again. I thank God for that because I've been in positions where I could have quit and gave up a long time ago. Now I finally feel comfortable again."

Before Gilbert could begin his trek to eventual Shocker stardom, he first had to admit he had issues. And that's not an easy conversation to have for the first time.

Upon self-reflection, Gilbert believes his mental health struggles stem from the absence of his father, who was incarcerated for much of his childhood when he was growing up in Atlanta.

"I think a lot of people need to understand and realize that everybody don't grow up with the same life experiences or the same trauma that people may experience at a younger age," Gilbert said. "I just think it should be brought to the light more because some people experience different things and don't learn how to cope with it until later on in their life. And a lot of times it's because of their environment and the situation people are put in. It all boils down a lot of it being systematic and how the world is set up."

Another big step was when Gilbert started talking about it openly with his family. Tamonica Alexander, Gilbert's mother, remembers feeling like a weight had been lifted off her son when he started talking publicly about his mental health problems.

Now that Gilbert has found a state of happiness in Wichita, she sees a night-and-day difference in her son.

"It just seemed like he fit with this team," Alexander said. "He went through a depression mode at his previous school and he had to overcome all of that, and it seems like Wichita and the team and his coaches are a big part in that. When he went through all of that, he would just shut down. But this season he's driven. I can hear the excitement in his voice when I talk to him."

A big step in finding that happiness was coming to terms with his evolution as a basketball player.

In high school, Gilbert was a can't-miss, five-star prospect tagged as a McDonald's All-American. But a shoulder injury going into his freshman season at UConn was an omen: Gilbert would end up having three surgeries on the same shoulder.

He was never the same player after the surgeries and he's found peace with that. Thanks to positive forces in his life, including his WSU teammates, Gilbert has delivered his most impactful season yet, averaging 10.3 points, 4.1 assists and 1.5 steals, earning third team all-conference honors.

"I remember before the Houston game, right before tip-off," WSU sophomore star Tyson Etienne said, "I just told him, 'You're still that guy. You're still the McDonald's All-American. You're still a five-star recruit. Just because you had injuries and they tried to tarnish you doesn't mean anything. That Alterique is still within you. Don't think about it, just be you.'

"Obviously he's done amazing with his own internal work, but sometimes everybody needs to hear it from your teammates so you know that they're rocking with you."

Gilbert is of course motivated to help WSU win, but his happiness is no longer determined by wins and losses, points and assists. He knows what it's like to be miserable around basketball. Those were some of the toughest days in his life, but he wouldn't trade them now for anything.

His worst moments have become part of his story, just like the adversity overcome has shaped him into the person he is proud to be today. Once he learned to put his own personal happiness first, the rest of his life began to fall in line.

"We all need more self-care, more self-love," Gilbert said. "Just taking care of yourself first. That's something me and Dex talk about often. We're just trying to get better in life. The one thing I try to do is just stay within myself and continue to love myself. I'm happy with the person I am today. As long as I have that, the basketball part will take care of itself."

'The truth is everybody has baggage'

The stories of Dennis and Gilbert are both examples of people who have "invisible tattoos," a phrase coined by William Parham in a 2,500-word essay he wrote about the connection between childhood trauma and mental health issues.

"Emotions emerging from trauma are akin to the inks used by tattoo artists who skillfully etch indelible images onto human skin," Parham wrote. "Collectively, the complex infusion of emotions resulting from trauma are recorded, encoded and stored in the body. The emotional ink from life's wells of early and adverse circumstances leaves invisible tattoos of the painful and impossible-to-forget experiences from which a person has just emerged."

Parham, who holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, has been working with NBA players since May 2018 when he was hired as the players association's first mental health and wellness director.

In an interview with The Eagle, Parham said there are basketball players like Dennis and Gilbert all over the country whose athletic success had covered up the emotional stress they were experiencing.

According to a study conducted by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention that surveyed more than 17,000 individuals, 64% of participants said they had encountered at least one adverse childhood experience.

"In society, both men and women are reared to not talk about personal baggage," Parham said. "People are more incentivized to keep things quiet than to share what's really on their minds and on their hearts. And then all of a sudden you're in college and you're hooping and you're doing pretty well and the evidence around you suggests you can enjoy a modicum amount of success by all objective markers without having disclosed all of this stuff you're carrying around. Then the question is, 'Do I really need to talk about it now?'

"The truth is everybody has baggage. There's really only two questions on the table: how many pieces of luggage do you have and what are you carrying inside each bag?"

More than half of people with mental illness don't seek help for their disorders, usually because of concerns about being treated differently because of the stigma associated with mental illness.

WSU's players say a good starting point in the discussion of mental health is for fans to remember that players are humans first.

"It's like some fans think we're robots or something with no feelings or sense of being human or anything like that," Dennis said. "It's kind of weird to me, honestly."

"I think it starts with people not realizing that student-athletes are just normal humans like anybody else," Gilbert said. "We wake up everyday and deal with the same real-life problems as anybody else. Everybody deals with mental health in some part of their life, it's just that student-athletes are seen in a different light."

"I feel like athletes are supposed to be these tough, hard-nosed, rugged, gritty people," Etienne said. "But at the end of the day, we're human too. We go through the same life stuff as everybody else in the world. The way the world is moving, I think speaking about mental health is something that is definitely growing."

That growing acceptance among college-aged athletes is a trend seen by Justin Anderson, the founder of Premier Sports Psychology based in Minneapolis who works with three professional sports teams and the University of Minnesota.

Anderson said the NCAA has done a good job of committing resources to mental health and major universities have followed suit. Just last summer, WSU hired an athlete mental health coordinator, Brianna Ward, who is available on campus daily.

"Student-athletes are so busy that if you don't make it accessible and close to them and convenient, oftentimes they won't do it," Anderson said. "But if you embed it, then the more they will try it. And once they try it, we've seen it work with freshmen who see their performance grow and oftentimes they become the leaders of the teams a few years down the road and then they are the ones who are telling the younger players, 'Oh, you've got to try this. Go see a therapist, they helped me tremendously.' From there, it becomes a pattern. The new captains who started going, then share it with the younger players and the cycle continues."

While the player-to-coach dynamic is not always conducive to sharing, WSU men's basketball coach Isaac Brown has played his own role in helping normalize the discussion of mental health on his team. He has earned the players' trust this season by empowering them. It's not some empty promise from Brown; he delivers.

"You have to talk to these kids on a daily basis about mental health," Brown said. "You just want to make sure they're doing good because you never know. A lot of kids have stuff going on back home, stuff with their girlfriend, sometimes it's about playing time. You just want to know what's going on and if there's any possible way to help them because I would love to do that. But first, you have to have a relationship with them. If it's something they need counseling for, then we help them find something and if they need to talk to someone else, then we' try to get them that help as well."

Players like Dennis and Gilbert can be role models for younger WSU players and future Shockers. Dennis says the stigma of talking about mental health is beginning to fade.

"I think it takes courage to talk about it," Dennis said. "I think a lot of the people who say bad things about it, I don't think they could last a day or two in my shoes. Deal with what I deal with and do what I do and still come out here and play."

Most importantly, by talking publicly about their mental health journeys, Dennis and Gilbert can inspire countless other basketball players across the country and youth from Wichita.

"I think when you have a platform like Wichita State does with the great basketball they've had for so many years, it's really awesome that a team like that could help so many people in that community," Anderson said. "There are kids who look up to those players and think they are superheroes because of what they can do on a basketball court and now they can be like, 'Oh wow, they're dealing with the same stuff as me too?'"

"Anytime marquee athletes at the top of their game can market their vulnerability and not only that, but showing that in doing so does not compromise their talent, if anything they will feel freer to execute the talent they've developed," Parham said. "I think it goes a long way and stories like these need to continue because these stories are more common than not. They're just not talked about."

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