A former Florida Gators football star opens up about battle with mental health
A few weeks ago, former Florida Gators star Chauncey Gardner-Johnson was named to the Pro Football Writers Association All-Rookie Team after his 2019 season with the New Orleans Saints, where he appeared in 16 games with seven starts.
Now the defensive back, who is a Cocoa native, is opening up about his battle with his mental health.
In a post to his official Twitter account, Gardner-Johnson detailed how difficult it’s been for him over the past two years.
“As a football player you take hits to the head, bruise your body bad, or even mentally you get out of wack! These past 2 years for me has been hard as (sic) athlete and a human,” Gardner-Johnson wrote in his post. “When you try to make everybody happy and do things others want you lose yourself. I tried to for days and months at a time to try to channel my energy and thoughts to a happy spot but it’s a challenge when you try to find a happiness for yourself.”
A fourth-round pick of the Saints in the 2019 NFL Draft, Gardner-Johnson wrote that “as a athlete you get held to a high level where they feel like you have no problems or life is just easy because of money and it’s not,” and he wrote he “knew something mentally was wrong” when his junior year started in 2018.
“Things seemed off because every thing I thought about seem to bother me and work me up to points I would lash out and be afraid of myself,” Gardner-Johnson continued in his post. “Since then I would try to find things to (sic) help out but it’s a struggle but I fight it everyday! I told myself I needed help cause I was scared of the world and what they would about me but I’m speaking up to let you guys know mental health is real and I’m a athlete who is suffering from it emotionally it hurts cause you lose your daily but I’m taking a stand to become a better Chauncey Gardner-Johnson and spread love around the world to help other going through the same.”
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 1:04 PM.
