Kevin Love opens up about issues with anxiety in Players’ Tribune essay

In an essay at the Player’s Tribune, Cavaliers forward Kevin Love detailed his experiences dealing with anxiety. In the post, tilted “Everyone is going through something,” Love wrote about having a panic attack during a Nov. 5 game against the Hawks. During the game, Love went back to the locker room in the third quarter and ending up on the trainer’s table.

“It happened during a game,” Love wrote. “It was November 5th, two months and three days after I turned 29. We were at home against the Hawks — 10th game of the season. A perfect storm of things was about to collide. I was stressed about issues I’d been having with my family. I wasn’t sleeping well. On the court, I think the expectations for the season, combined with our 4–5 start, were weighing on me. I knew something was wrong almost right after tip-off. I was winded within the first few possessions. That was strange. And my game was just off. I played 15 minutes of the first half and made one basket and two free throws.”

He then writes that he was hospitalized for the panic attack. Since then, Love says he has been seeing a therapist a few times each month. He also cited Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan’s recent comments about his own battle with depression as a reason why he felt comfortable speaking out at this moment:

“One of the reasons I wanted to write this comes from reading DeMar’s comments last week about depression. I’ve played against DeMar for years, but I never could’ve guessed that he was struggling with anything,” Love wrote. “It really makes you think about how we are all walking around with experiences and struggles — all kinds of things — and we sometimes think we’re the only ones going through them. The reality is that we probably have a lot in common with what our friends and colleagues and neighbors are dealing with. So I’m not saying everyone should share all their deepest secrets — not everything should be public and it’s every person’s choice. But creating a better environment for talking about mental health … that’s where we need to get to.”

You can read the full essay here.