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This past week, Andrew Luck—a young football player in his prime who was celebrated for his toughness and talent on the field—retired from the game. He walked away from the spotlight, fan adoration, and millions of dollars.
His reason? Pain—physical and emotional. An endless cycle of injury and rehabilitation drained him of his love of the game, and perhaps life in general.
After his announcement, he made a final appearance in the stadium and walked off the field to a mixture of cheers and boos. But it was the latter that went viral—and that is perhaps the canary in the coal mine for American’s perception and relationship to both mental health and self-care.
A microcosm of the society it serves, the military likewise struggles to balance its need to remain the world’s premier fighting force, capable of winning our nation’s wars, with the treatment and care of the individual warrior.
While mildly reductionist, there remain some apt parallels between the gridiron and military life. Douglas MacArthur famously said, “On the fields of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days, on other fields will bear the fruits of victory.” In both professions, there is a need for strength, leadership, and determination. There is also a requirement to play through pain.
There is a popular phrase in the military, "Pain is weakness leaving the body." It is uttered as motivation when someone is on the verge of quitting, yelled in recrimination when someone does, and underscores one of the core philosophies of modern-day military service: to admit you feel pain is to admit you are weak—and to be weak is to fail.
It begs the question: Is there a point where resilience and foolishness collide?
Too often, we let the breaking point be the breaking point. We are failing to get "left of bang" and interdict prior to things passing the point of no return.
The conceptualization of mental heath care as reactive versus proactive is outdated and problematic. Waiting until the pain—whether physical or psychological—becomes so overbearing that it requires intensive intervention is like continuing to drive a car with the check engine light flashing.
We are taught that if the check engine light is on, you should not keep driving the car. It is an emergency and requires support because it might indicate an engine misfire. To keep driving could cause irreversible and expensive damage. Likewise, our bodies and brains give us these signals, early and often, when things aren’t going so well. We, too, ignore them at our peril.
In the military, the desire to push through it and turn a blind eye to those "flashing lights" is a more poignant version of "for love of the game." Borne out of intense devotion to their brothers and sisters in arms and the fear of failure and loss on many levels, too many stay silent too long.
They never become Luck walking off the field, his fate in his hand. They bear the burden until the burden bears them to treatment, to divorce, to jail, to substance abuse, or to an early grave.
The military must shift their narrative regarding self-care and mental health treatment. It has come a long way, but it has a ways to go. Too many still believe that to take a step back is to be like Luck, walking off the field forever—to some support, yes, but with the echoes of condemnation and hate.
The idea that seeking treatment will derail a military career or impact a security clearance remains a grave and pervasive misunderstanding, farther compounded by years of bad practice, misinformation, stigma, and a failed understanding of psychological injury at many levels in the military.
Earlier this week, the Department of Defense (DoD) released its 3-pronged approach to suicide prevention. The first prong is data surveillance and reporting. Beginning this year, DoD will publish an annual suicide report. The second prong is program evaluation, and the third is private and public collaboration.
To me, this is a bit like doing a full curb appeal renovation while ignoring the structural weaknesses of a home. Destigmatization of self-care and mental health treatment cannot come from the big brass and top ranks alone. It must be cultivated and sowed from within because, for now, there are still too many people booing from the stands as those brave enough to seek treatment walk off their field.
