Trigger warning: This article discusses suicide. Help is always available – call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
Fourteen years ago, at the height of her career, Leisel Jones contemplated suicide.
Speaking at the Albury Wodonga Winter Solstice on Saturday night, the Olympic gold medallist said she was at a training camp in Spain in 2011 when she began experiencing suicidal thoughts.
Thankfully, an unnamed coach knocked on her door and saved her from that dark moment. But 14 years on, Leisel says she’s still working on her mental health.
“I’d really like to talk about the hope and the light at the end of the tunnel,’’ she said. “And I distinctly remember sitting down with my psychologist after 2011 when I had contemplated taking my own life. I remember Lisa saying to me, she said there is light at the end of the tunnel. I was like, ‘who bloody blew it out because I can’t see it, and I just feel like it’s never getting any closer, but extraordinarily it does’. And that light will always be there, but you just have to find it, and sometimes you do have to light it yourself.”
“It’s a lot of hard work. You do have to work through it, but the first thing is recognising that you may have a problem and that you may want to work through it. It is incredibly brave to go and seek help. I personally, I’ve got a mental health care plan. I’m about to start with a psychologist on Tuesday. It’s all about taking that first step, getting in there, really digging deep. It’s gritty, it’s awful, and it sometimes feel like it’s a waste of time. But trust me, it’s so worth it, because there is hope out there.”
The decorated swimmer said she did everything for her body for years but never paid attention to her mind. In fact, she said the culture in sports at the time actively discouraged it.
“I did not care for my mental health whatsoever, because it was completely neglected and was not important, and even as a youngster, when I was coming up, I was told that we were not allowed to use psychologists, because psychologists were for weak athletes,” she recalled.
“So I was denied access to a psychologist as a 14 year-old girl who was going to her first Olympic Games. And that was devastating to me, because I really could have benefited talking about mental health, because I did not believe I was a weak athlete. I believed I was very strong, but I just did not have that connection with strong mental health and a strong body. So that internal connection between mind and body is so important.”
Appearing on the A Life of Greatness podcast in 2022, Leisel said she really struggled to discover who she was outside of the pool when her career was coming to an end.
“(My mental health struggle) was very much wrapped in identity,” she said. “My whole identity, my self-worth everything that I believed in was wrapped in swimming, and once I achieved the gold medal that I so desperately wanted throughout my whole career, I really questioned ‘well, who am I without swimming?’
The now 39-year-old was ready to retire but she felt like she had no career options.
“I couldn’t work a job because I had no work experience. I didn’t know what to do with myself every day of getting up and not doing any training,” she said. “I thought well, there were no other options for me – there was no work or study or anything like that. That I just didn’t see a way out of it.”
On November 16, 2012, Leisel announced her retirement after competing in her fourth Olympics.
She has since released a memoir and co-hosts Triple M Gold’s breakfast radio show.
If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is always available. Call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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