• vilimovskym (edited 6 years ago)
    +2

    It really is more common than we actually think. I think professional athletes are more at risk to develop a mental illness than normal population due to the "constant pressure". If you are "nobody", no one cares about your failures and achievements. But athletes do have supporters, they bet on them, etc. and when they fail, people can really be nasty. For instance, one famous tennis player once published some nasty SMS messages from her "fans". It must be very difficult to cope with threatening messages or to get woken up in the middle of the night by a phone call from "a mental fan". When you are a famous athlete you can no longer do what you want but you become a "public property". Some people get over it and others just get ill.