Interview: Imani McGee-Stafford, WNBA player on Athletes and Mental Health
Lindsay Gibbs interviews Imani McGee-Stafford, WNBA athlete and law-student, on mental health in sports and society. They discuss Simone Biles' recent leadership in prioritizing her mental health in the Olympics, their own journeys to actively maintaining mental health and how American sports culture still has a long way to go in ending the stigma around mental health.
This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Lindsay: Hi, flame throwers. Lindsay Gibbs here. For this week's interview, I am so thrilled to be joined by one of my favorite people, Imani McGee-Stafford, WNBA player, who is taking a break from WNBA playing to be in law school. Imani, thank you so much for being here.
Imani: Thank you for having me, as always.
Lindsay: So, I want to get a quick update just on how you're doing, how law school is going right now. Are you done? What’s your status?
Imani: Not even close. [Lindsay laughs] Jesus. This is like a never ending hall of torture. laughter]
Lindsay: I didn't mean to start off that way. Oops! [laughter]
Imani: I’ve finished my first year. I was in an accelerated program; I've sent transferred to the regular program. So, instead of finishing in two years, I'm gonna finish in three. And I'm starting my second year in about a week and a half.
Lindsay: Oh, wow. So you're getting ready to get back to the grind fully.
Imani: I'm actually excited though because we're in person, and law school online is just something that should never have been done. [laughs] So, I'm excited to go be on campus. I have a lunch pail.
Lindsay: A lunch pail! I'm obsessed. [laughs] Well, one of the reasons I went have you on, beyond just getting caught up, was obviously with the Olympics and with Simone Biles withdrawing from most of the competitions and citing mental health as a reason. It's kind of reignited a conversation that never really stops about athletes and mental health and setting boundaries. And so, this is our episode 213. I went back and looked and you were on episode 23 of Burn It All Down. [laughs]
Imani: Wow. That is crazy.
Lindsay: Isn't that wild? So, this conversation is nothing new to you. It's nothing new to us. But what was your first reaction when you saw that Simone, the face of these Olympics, had pulled out of the team competition and was citing mental health?
Imani: I was very proud of her. But also scared, right? Because, you know, America takes some things serious, and sports are one of them. Especially the Olympics, and just the entire, I guess, wait we had with not being able to do it last year. And so I was definitely nervous for her, but I was very proud of her and excited for her to understand that, like, that was more important regardless of this being like the biggest stage or anything like that. She was more important. And she tweeted something kind of at the end of the saga, just like, you know, throughout this, I always thought that my medals were the most important part about myself, and I've learned that I'm still important, even without being a gymnast, and that I matter too. And it just like...My heart, my heart was just so full. So, I'm super proud of her.
Lindsay: Yeah. She said in an interview that she was nervous to go into the athlete's village after it happened, you know, after she withdrew from the team competition, but the athletes were coming up to her and thanking her for what she had done. And in that moment, she kind of realized, like, this was bigger maybe than even she had understood in the moment when she did it. You know, we are all taught the mentality of “toughing through it,” you know, being tough through pressure and pushing through nerves or nervousness or our bad days is such a…I mean, it's drilled into the brains, and I can only imagine how much more so that is for an athlete. And so how, as an athlete, do you even go about drawing that line?
Imani: Oh my god. That's the question, right? Because as athletes you know – and she mentioned that as well – we're taught mental toughness, right? Like, “injury is a mindset.” Like, how do you navigate that mindset of injury being a mindset when it really is something your mind is going through, right? And I think like the hardest part, I've always said, with dealing with mental health, is that it's something you can't see. You can't see you when…If I break an ankle, cut my arm, you get it, because you see it, and you can be like, okay, I empathize with you, I see your pain, whatever. But when you're having a mental health situation, you can't see that, especially if I don't have like the hallmarks of what dealing with mental illness looks like, right? And in Simone's case, she's high functioning. She's the best in the world, even when she's not at her best.
And so I think that you have to be very honest with yourself and have a very much a support system that allows you to do that, because I think that's hard to do. Like, even with Liz a couple of seasons ago doing her Players’ Tribune article about how she had a DNP for mental health and she wants to make sure people knew that. I read that and I was like, that's so dope. But I also was like, I could never. Because I'm not that good [laughs] and no one would care if I said it, right? I think understanding just the realities of the situation, right? And so hopefully this conversation continues, as I always hope when we do these things, but it's definitely hard. Like there is no formula to it.
Lindsay: Yeah. So, Imani is referring to Liz Cambage, Las Vegas Aces player, an Australian player, who…Yeah, I think it was two years ago, wrote a piece about having anxiety attacks and not being able to play for a little bit. But again, I think that's where a lot of this conversation, you know…And it started with Naomi Osaka at the French Open, and then with Simone Biles here at the Olympics They obviously are under an unfathomable amount of pressure, but they also have, because of their success, they have more power than most athletes. And I've been seeing these memes kind of circle around with Simone holding all of her medals, you know, and being like, “She doesn't owe you shit!” and all that stuff.
And like, of course I agree with that, but I get nervous that the message that sends is that you have to have earned all of these medals to be able to stand up for yourself, to be able to have the right to stand up for yourself. Where like, if you're the player who just barely made the team, or you're fighting for minutes on your WNBA squad, you might not feel like you can step up and say I need to take time off for mental health. You know, when you were actively playing, was there any sort of open conversation around mental health and around what to do if you needed time off, or if you needed to take care of yourself, or resources?
Imani: Under this new CBA we've made a huge effort to have spaces and just have a kind of borderline standard across all of the teams so that there is something to do, but when I was playing, there was no standard. So like in Atlanta, my therapist to this day I met when I was playing for Atlanta, and was the team therapist for Atlanta. And when I got traded to Dallas, there was no one I felt comfortable talking to. And after we kind of had, really spearheaded by Skylar in her dealing with postpartum, like, we needed the resources. They kind of brought some people out to kind of avail themselves to us, but there was no team by team kind of every team has it. Because when I was in Chicago, I didn't have any resources either. So this year…Well, starting last year under the new CBA, we put in kind of making sure that there are resources for every team, there is someone to call, there is someone you can reach out to to find resources, and just having a better system protecting mental health, among others. So for sure, we're moving in the right direction.
Lindsay: That's so important. So Atlanta was the first team you had been on that had a therapist. Was it mandatory to meet with her? I'm just worried about how that works.
Imani: We had a mandatory kind of team sports psychology situation to start the season, and we would do maybe two or three meetings with her in that regard. And then the rest was like, if you want to meet with me separately, these are the situations. I think the team would cover like the first four sessions or something like that. And so it was very much an easy access because we didn't have to worry about the financials of it, and it was somebody that kind of had been introduced to us as a group, right?
Lindsay: That’s pretty amazing. Yeah. That's really cool. I didn't know that. So in Dallas, you said it was behind the scenes, it was Skylar being open about postpartum that kind of made the team step up. What were those conversations like?
Imani: The year Skylar came back from pregnancy, you know, it was a lot of issues surrounding that, of course. And she was just very vocal about her needing to understand this and move through this and her being new to dealing with mental health and just not feeling like she had the resources there to be able to perform at her highest. And we were kind of as a family just like, hey, we get it. Take your time, do what you need to do for you. And the team kind of tried to help us get some therapists. But the difference was, like, I personally don't feel comfortable not talking to a Black therapist, even though my current therapist is the first therapist I've had of color my entire life, and the therapist we were provided in Dallas just didn't feel…I didn't feel like I could talk to them openly and understand them.
And that's also just a bigger conversation about approaching mental health, is cultural biases and, you know, cultural understanding and sensitivity. Because if I feel like I have to code switch or dress up in the conversation with my therapist, then it defeats the purpose, right? If I don't feel safe there, then where can I feel safe? And so I think that is also a thing that we have to be aware of, especially because most teams in the league are predominantly women of color, right? So yeah, I think it was an attempt. Was it a great attempt? No, but it definitely was an attempt, and you know, I just appreciate all the work we've done in terms of our players union and Nneka and Layshia and Chiney and Elizabeth, just really making sure that that was something we had in this new CBA.
Lindsay: Yeah, that's absolutely key, because it shouldn't take Skylar having to be open about postpartum, right? It shouldn't take having to be public about these types of things to…I mean, we obviously appreciate it whenever people are willing to come forward and talk openly, but that shouldn't be the requirement for change or for support.
Imani: Exactly. But I think that's a bigger conversation about how we view mental health in general, right? And how we view it as an additive, as opposed to a necessary thing. Like, if we all viewed mental health the same way it's required for jobs to provide health insurance to full-time employees, right? If we view mental health in that vein, then this wouldn't be a conversation at all. It wouldn't be the exception. It would be like, oh, my company provides mental health services because that is something that I need to maintain my life and to maintain my productivity here. But we haven't gotten to that point as a nation where we feel comfortable in understanding that there is no stigma surrounding it. It literally is just something we do to survive, as we would with eating food, drinking water, going to the doctor.
Lindsay: Yeah, I always try and remind myself, you know, when it comes to taking meds…So, I've had depression, anxiety and ADHD, my whole life. I've had a lot of really, really dark spells. But there are times when I'm doing better where I will not…You know, where I’ll think, oh, I don't need to see the therapist anymore. I'll start ghosting my therapist, you know? [laughs] I'll start ignoring it all. I don't want to spend that money on myself, you know? “Oh, I probably don't need these meds, they're probably doing more harm than good,” or whatever, you know, and you kind of talk yourself out of needing that maintenance. I always try and remind myself after having gone through that phase that, like, you wouldn't stop going to the gym for like two years and then expect to still be able to run like you were doing before, you know, expect to still be in shape. There's kind of no other part of your life that you expect to remain fine, even though you put no resources into it, right? But it's a tough line because it's still coded as weakness in so many ways. How do you go about maintaining mental health and continuing to work? How do you find the motivation to continue to work?
Imani: Everything you just said was so real, right? So, I'm bipolar, so my mental health journey will look different than most, because it is something I have to actively manage. And while someday I do hope to holistically manage my mental health, I am nowhere near that point. And I have to be honest with myself and understand that this is an ongoing thing in the same way I get up and I take a shower and I brush my teeth. I will have to have some sort of managing of my mental health, right? And so I just…Exactly what you said, right? I remember getting into a good place and being like, oh, I don't need this. I don't want to live on a pill. I don't want a pill to tell me that I can exist or to be okay. And I would start taking my meds, or stop going to see my therapist. And a lot of this was before I was diagnosed with bipolar…Bipolar II. I always get them confused. This is terrible. [laughs]
But that was before I was diagnosed. And I just thought that I was depressed, and so I would go and have a good spell and do good, and then I would just literally stopped taking my meds. It literally came to a head maybe three or four years ago, I was playing in Turkey, and I quit. I literally went home and didn't come back. And my agent was like, yo, you can't do that. And like, I probably forfeited almost $20,000. And I was like, I'm going home, I don't want to be here. And I literally was just in my house for like a week, just disappeared off the face of the earth. And it was probably at that moment. Some other things happened, and I kind of was like, ooh, maybe we should stop avoiding the therapist. And I got diagnosed as bipolar, went cycling through meds to see what worked, and I kinda just realized, like, I probably would be a much higher functioning individual if I maintained my mental health.
And so from there I had to realize, like, one, I had to let go of the internalized shame of having to actively maintain my mental health and kind of give myself that space. Also, you know, like the imposter syndrome of me being a mental health advocate, but still very much privately struggling with managing my own mental health and feeling comfortable having to manage my mental health. And so it's an ever going saga, I guess. I've come to a place now where I'm content to say like, yes, I'm bipolar. I am also crazy – not because those things are related. [laughs] That is just a character trait of me.
And I manage my mental health and I actively do that, and I like myself better when I manage my mental health. That is my truth, and I have to be comfortable in that. And I have to understand that the same way someone can go outside and say they're diabetic and go get their test strips and no one thinks anything of it, that is the same way I can say I'm bipolar and I manage my mental health and understand that anybody they wants to use my mental health as a detriment to me or as a negative, it is not, it is simply a part of who I am. And as long as I am actively and safely taking the steps to manage it, I'm doing okay.
Lindsay: I think for me, part of what was so powerful about what Simone did over this Olympics was that this was a peak moment of her career, right? And she was taking active steps to help her manage her mental health in the middle of all this. Often with athletes’ mental health, we hear about their struggles post-retirement, right? Or when they're at the pinnacle, then they let us in and let us know about a time when they were struggling behind the scenes. Do you know what I mean? When things were harder than it looked. But they're only kind of comfortable talking about it when they're past it, when they're through it, and when they're back on top, you know? Whereas this to me was a very real thing of being at the moment you've prepared your whole life for, at the pinnacle, and reality hits, you know?
It's not at all similar, but you know, I launched this newsletter and it went really well and everything in my career was going well. That's when my mental health got the worst that it had been in years. All of a sudden I was just struggling, struggling, struggling. And I felt like I didn't have the right to admit that because on the outside, you know, it was a pandemic and I had launched this successful newsletter and I had money coming in. Everyone in my family was safe. So like, what right did I have to take time away to manage my mental health? I needed to work harder because this is what I had worked so hard to do. And ultimately those decisions that I made on a much smaller scale – with no stakes, basically, outside of just me – you know, that decision to power through is one I'm still paying for today, whereas if I had realized and been able to communicate my needs and what boundaries I needed to work for myself, you know, I might be in a better place today, might’ve been in a better place.
So just as an athlete, can you imagine coming up to your biggest game or, you know, reaching these big points in your career, and then having to step back. Do you have any…Like, I can't process it. I can't process this strength that took.
Imani: I would love to tell you that I would have been like, nah, man, [laughs] I’m not okay. I'm not doing this. But no way, I would not. I can't say that I'd have been as strong, and especially because it's not like something that'll happen every year, right? This is the Olympics – and probably most likely Simone’s last Olympics, right? So those moments of choosing your health and choosing yourself over what seems like the world and everything you worked for…I can't say I would be strong enough to do that, or even in a place enough to know that I needed to do that, right? And so I think it's amazing. I also think it's a commentary of Black woman and, you know, the trope of strong Black women. And I think the response is a lot built into that, right? Because as a woman, especially a woman of color, we are stronger. We are built to endure more. And her understanding like, no, I'm not okay. And just because I've done great, just because I am great and probably can win, even though I'm not at my best, does not mean that I should push myself to do something that I don't feel okay doing.
Lindsay: Yeah. And to expand on that, I think of her and Naomi and the weight they carry in these predominantly white sports, you know? And how much that just exacerbates the strength that they've had to have just to succeed, period, in these spaces that very much weren't designed for their bodies or their Blackness. And you know, there's just so much intersectionality to all of these conversations. One thing though, I think that did make what Simone did a little bit different is that there was an actual physical danger because, you know, the mental health problems she was having was the twisties, right? Which we've all learned over this past week is when you lose yourself in midair. And she posted these videos onto her Instagram of herself trying to do these tumbles and just over and over again losing herself in the air, like, just overnight forgetting the muscle memory that it took to become the greatest.
And so that's an extreme example, and I think it almost made…Not that it makes her decision any less brave, but I think it made it a little bit clearer of a decision for her, because she could literally die if she didn’t. At the same time, I would think that most people who have suffered through mental illness, severe cases, know what it's like to feel your brain and body being at a complete disconnect, you know? Can you think of any kind of basketball equivalent to that, or anything that you've experienced in that vein?
Imani: For me, I have really bad anxiety, and for a time I had terrible performance anxiety. And I like to say that my brain is like SpongeBob where like there's a million little mes with different personalities and haircuts and colors and outfits. And like, they would be in my head screaming at the top of their lungs, arguing about…Not about like, oh, should I do this or this play? But like, arguing, “Remember that one time we showed up late to school and our shoes weren't tied?” [laughter] Like, something completely just irrelevant to the moment I'm in. And I literally would be saying, like, shut up, shut up. I couldn't focus on the game because it was just so much going on in my head. And like, it would just continually spiral. It would be like, okay, I'm doing warmups and I'm stretching… “Oh, look, my shoe’s untied. Okay. Let me tie my shoe. Man…Do you know like how long it takes you to shoes to…Do you remember when we learned how to tie our shoes? Oh my god. You remember that one time we fell because our shoes were untied?” and now I'm literally talking about something completely just unrelated, as opposed to being focused and in this moment.
Lindsay: It's gotta be hard to play basketball through like all of those noises, like, hard to catch and shoot or do the basics. I know I surprised myself earlier this year, I had a bout where I literally…And once again, I'm a writer. I'm not trying to compare any of this to, like, performing on an Olympic stage. But I know for me, I went through this really bad month earlier this year where I was kind of recovering from the trauma of a lot of things that had happened and all of a sudden…When I say I couldn't write, I don't mean like a normal kind of writer's block. I mean I look back at sentences I wrote during that time, and the words are like out of order. It’s just like ideas stopped filtering through me in the way that they always had, and kind of the only way through that was just rest and like, you know, improving my overall health. And that was kind of the only way through that. But when I was thinking about getting lost in the air, I was thinking back to looking at those drafts – that never got published, thank god, because they would not have been coherent – but, you know, looking back at those drafts when I was feeling better and being like, this is not a sentence. This is not a sentence. But you know, how many people would have told me...And how I was telling myself during that time, you know, you're weak for not being able to power through this, like, you should be able to do this. Why can you not do your job? So, part of what I've been doing is working on giving myself more structure and building up the scaffolding around myself of support, you know? So that when I reach those moments, that I know what they look like, and I know how to reach out. What do you hope athletes can learn from what Simone did, and what do you hope organizations will do to make sure that you don't have to be a Simone Biles level of champion and you don't have to be literally afraid of landing on your head and being paralyzed in order to make those hard decisions to prioritize your mental health?
Imani: I think it's important that we understand that mental health is a part of holistic health. As much as you can't compete on a broken ankle or a sprained ankle or after a bad night of sleep or any of those things, you can't compete when your brain isn't ready to compete, right? I think it's just always so funny, because we often say how sports are 90% mental, but then don't honor mental health as an excuse to not be at your best. Like, that's literally…If we're saying that sports are 90% mental, that means that my mental health has to be at the forefront of this. So I hope that people who feel as though they don't have the leverage or the academic pedigree to not be okay to not compete understand that the sport is not that important. Like, if Simone can sacrifice a gold medal and withstand the barrage of hatred and disappointment thrown her way, then we can sacrifice whatever we're going through to understand that our mental health is the most important and definitely should be at the forefront.
Lindsay: And it’s better for everyone if you're healthy and take care of yourself, you know? Like in the long run. And that's one of the things from the team event, is part of her realized, performing like this, I'm going to hurt my team, right? Powering through this for ego reasons is going to ultimately probably take my team out of medal contention. I think that's something to think about too, when we think about letting people down, and we think about missing a deadline or, you know, sitting out one game or whatever it is, is just taking steps sooner rather than later to help ourselves be the best is going to ultimately be the best for those around you, those who work with you, and those who depend on you. And you know, I hope that's a lesson. Imani, do you have any kind of parting thoughts on this subject before I start quizzing you on your family possibly bringing home another Olympic medal [Imani laughs] and everyone asking JaVale if he is Imani’s brother, which is the best text I've seen, when you posted that screenshot. [laughs]
Imani: Listen, definitely just be courageous. Protect Naomi and Simone at all costs. That's it. That's all I got.
Lindsay: That's it. That's it. You think you got another gold medal coming home in the family?
Imani: For SURE.
Lindsay: By the time you all are listening to this, the USA will play, but JaVale McGee, Imani’s brother, is on Team USA. And of course her mother, Pamela McGee, played for Team USA and well and has a gold medal.
Imani: I'm very excited, and if anyone would like to naturalize me so I too could have a gold medal [laughter] I am available.
Lindsay: I think…Let’s start the campaign.
Imani: Right? Let me be Sri Lankan…
Lindsay: Puerto Rican…Like, what can we work here?
Imani: I’ve told people I was a quarter Puerto Rican when I was a child. So, you know…
Lindsay: Just out of nowhere? [laughs]
Imani: Yeah, it was just something I said. Also, I do have like a great great-grandmother grandmother that’s Jewish, so Israel, holler at me.
Lindsay: Oh! That could work. That could work.
Imani: It’s deep in the deep in the trenches, but it's on my mother's side as well.
Lindsay: I'm all for getting you on that team. Maybe…I don't know, there's so many options. This has to be the next project.
Imani: Yeah. I get to be in a family of Olympians. It's pretty cool. And like, yeah, no, my brother being asked if he was Imani’s brothers is life changing, because I've been his baby sister literally in every part of the world – not just around him. Like I remember one time I was playing in Israel and I just had a really good game. I'm in the mall and these kids are like trying to run me down and catch up to me. And I'm like, yeah, that was me, that was me. I just played that game, like, for sure, right? That's what I'm thinking in my head. And they’re like, hey, you're JaVale McGee’s sister, right!? And I'm just like, I'm over it! [laughter] I'm like, I'm done.
Lindsay: Done, done. Who was it asking about you?
Imani: I guess all of the other Olympians, maybe?
Lindsay: All the other Olympians. I love it.
Imani: And I'm like, this is great. I'm like, I'm completely content now. Thank you so much for this moment.
Lindsay: That's basically an Olympic gold.
Imani: Thank you. Thank you.
Lindsay: And humbling for him. And I think that's probably good, you know? We got to humble all these guys a little bit, so… [laughter] Well, Im ani, thank you again for your time. Good luck in year two of law school. We’ll be cheering you on in that endeavor as well. And thanks again for your time.
Imani: Thank you.