General 10/3/2017 5:30:00 PM Kelly Lennon

Catamount Tribune: "Hills Are Your Friends" by Kelly Lennon

The Catamount Tribune is a monthly avenue for UVM student-athletes, coaches, staff, alumni, and fans to tell unique stories in their own words. This edition of the Catamount Tribune is written by swimming & diving senior and SAAC Chair Kelly Lennon about her work in creating the Catamount Sport Psychology and Counseling initiative. Interested in sharing your story for the Catamount Tribune? Please click here or visit go.uvm.edu/tribune.

Hey Catamount Country - it's me again. Talking about - you guessed it, mental health. I'm willing to bet a lot of you are kind of sick of hearing from me at this point about this. "You're beating a dead horse, Kelly, we get it". Bare with me.

Let me start by saying that well before the creation of Catamount Sport Psychology and Counseling (CSPC), and well before Rally Around Mental Health existed, we were extremely fortunate as Vermont student-athletes to have the kind of resources and support that we do. While Sheila Stawinski was our only "official" part-time sport psychologist, I don't think I'm alone in saying that I've had quite a few therapy sessions in the offices of Cathy Rahill and Krista Balogh. Everyone in this department, qualified or not, has shown that they care about our well-being and that they want us to be successful, happy and healthy.

That being said, it doesn't mean there wasn't room for improvement. September of our junior year, I received a text from Trae Bell-Haynes (someone who I wouldn't have even thought had my number at that point - though now I'm sure he wishes I would lose it). He asked when we were going to get things going on the mental health stuff. The topic had been brought up the previous spring, but it was far too late in the year to start anything, so we tabled it for the summer. Though I was skeptical at the time, I couldn't be more grateful now for that text and the conversation that followed.

From that day on, Trae and I worked for hours at a time together, trying to figure out how we were going to do this. We had a vision, but realized quickly that our vision didn't matter if it meant nothing to other student-athletes. So we took a survey. In 150 responses on that survey, we found that 73.8%, yes nearly three quarters of the respondents had personally struggled with, or knew of a teammate struggling with some sort of mental health issue. Only 42% of those people sought out some sort of help.

Before I continue, I think it's important to explain why this matters to Trae and I personally. I can't speak for Trae, but I can imagine if I was the America East Player of the Year and a statistics major, I'd probably have a lot of stress too. More importantly, he just cares a lot about other people and is firm in his belief that mental health should be the same as physical health - if you're hurting, you tell someone.

Then there's me. Freshman year, I spent a whole lot of time crying in the office of Sheila, our part time sports psychologist. What started out as performance anxiety and feeling the pressure of Division I athletics quickly spilled - or more accurately, flooded - over into every aspect of my life and labeled itself as "anxiety". The next few years turned into an uphill battle with this invisible sickness and at points, with its ugly flipside of depression. I really desperately wanted swimming to be an outlet for this anxiety, a way to destress and put these unwanted thoughts out of my head, but sometimes even swimming became too much to handle and before I knew it, I was having full blown panic attacks in practice, even when I was doing well.

I was worrying about problems that didn't exist, thinking that people were saying things about me that they weren't, feeling like a huge burden to my friends and an annoyance to those around me who were doing their best to constantly reassure me that it was all in my head. It took me a while to come to terms with this and understand that some of us are just wired a little bit differently, but I got there. While I still have uphill days, my dad (an Ironman triathlete, of course) says hills are your friends - so I embrace the struggle. #RelentlessForwardProgress, right family?

After we created the survey, we had to decide how to use it. We wrote a five-page proposal, outlining the results of the survey and how we felt they could best be put to use. We met with people from places around campus we didn't even know existed, trying to put it in the hands of anyone and everyone who would listen to our idea and who could help us in any small way. A couple of months later, our "brainchild", Rally Around Mental Health, was born.

We ended up in front of our athletic director Jeff Schulman at the end of January. When we got to that meeting, Jeff sat and listened to everything we had to say, looking over the results of our survey and asking questions about what we had done since then and what our plans were for the future. Then he asked the important question: "if money was no object and you had no obstacles, what would your goal be for this initiative?". We had the same answer. This was something we knew was a stretch, something that was unlikely to happen anytime soon, but with evidence through a successful initiative something that could be a reality down the road. We needed more resources for student athletes - we wanted a CAPS (Counseling and Psychiatry Services) professional in the gym AND a full-time sports psychologist, but we honestly would have been happy with one.

We got both. Over the summer, we were told that starting in the fall the department would be announcing Catamount Sport Psychology and Counseling - featuring Kelly Thorne as a CAPS professional and Ari Shapiro-Miller as a full time sports psychologist, while keeping Sheila on staff as well. There are no words to express the appreciation that Trae and I have - however, I've said before and I'll say again, it's not about us. It's about the nearly 75% of student-athletes that can have access to the kind of support they need to be successful. It's about decreasing the stigma surrounding mental health and not being met with an eye roll or an uncomfortable look when I start talking about it. It's about UVM Athletics caring about the health and wellness of its student-athletes and not just listening to what they have to say and nodding their heads, but taking action towards improvement.

So thank you, Catamount Country, for your support and willingness to help break the stigma. Thank you to Annie Valentine in LivingWell, who has done LITERALLY everything to help make Rally Against Mental Health a success. To Todd Weinman, for his efforts to help make this dream a reality and for combining CAPS and Athletics. To Cathy Rahill, for getting us started and always supporting us. To Nora King, for rush ordering shooting shirts so we could have a mental health awareness basketball game before the season ended. To everyone who volunteered their time to help us table and run our events. To Jeff Schulman, for being an athletic director that makes his athletes a priority. To Trae, for being the best partner in crime and always having patience with me, even on my worst days. And finally, to Sheila, Kelly and Ari, who are working every day to help Vermont Athletics be a happier and healthier place. Thank you all for making every day a great day to be a Catamount.

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