When athletes share their battles with mental illness [USAToday.com]

Samantha Sangenito 8/31/174:00 AM

Michael Phelps locked himself in his bedroom for four days three years ago. He’d been arrested a second time for DUI. He was despondent and adrift. He thought about suicide.

“I didn’t want to be alive,” he tells USA TODAY Sports. “I didn’t want to see anyone else. I didn’t want to see another day.”

Family and friends — “a life-saving support group,” Phelps calls them — urged him to seek professional help. He got it. And now he wants others who are suffering from mental health issues to find the help they need.

Some will scoff at this. Phelps is the golden boy of the Olympic Games. Fame and fortune are his. Really, what could be so bad in his life?

[For more of this story, written by Scott Gleeson and Erik Brady, go to https://www.usatoday.com/story...erry-west/596857001/]

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