Three time U.S. National Champion Tina George (left) faces emotional challenges both on and off the mat.

I am Tina George, and I am a wrestler. What keeps me going? I always say it’s the pursuit of the good. I pursue wrestling and my education because I believe that there’s a possibility of being a good person even if you fall short. When it comes to trying to do great things, even if you fall
short, it’s still a great thing. The pursuit of excellence makes me happy.

But somewhere along the way, I was overwhelmed with different feelings, not positive ones. I couldn’t explain it at first, but it was depression.

I noticed it was getting to be really serious when going to practice felt like it was a punishment. I was sitting in my house for days at a time and not wanting to see anyone. I’d turn off my phone. My mom would get really worried, she’d just keep calling, and she’d call my friends to see what was going on. I just wanted to be left alone.

I knew when I didn’t want to train anymore in the sport I loved that it had become serious. I needed help.

After I got help finding out what was really going on with me, a lot of people came to talk to me because they’d had experiences with it in their own lives. Staying active in wrestling definitely helped me with the depression, but the most helpful was the support that I had from my friends and family and from some of the coaching staff.

Don't miss Tina George's video interview on depression. Link below.

It helped just realizing that I wasn’t the only one. I didn’t understand how common it was, even in sports, for people to feel different levels of depression until I experienced it myself. I realized that there are other people trying to do important things, with big dreams and big goals, who have the same type of problem, and they were able to work through it with support and therapy.

Being an athlete has brought me into contact with a large variety of people and has also taken me to different countries around the world. Staying involved and having these experiences helps make me think about what’s really important. The issues that I have myself sometimes may not be important in the bigger context of life.

Throughout my battle with depression, I’ve clung to the most important thing my coach told me when I first started wrestling: “People are going to like you no matter who you are and what you do. Whether you’re really, really built or really, really skinny; if you’re fat or thin; if you’re really social or you’re kinda quiet—people are going to like you, you just have to be who you are.” This has carried me through all the difficult times and it’s made all the difference in my personality. It’s given me freedom to be the person who I want to be.

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