Simone Biles
speaker
209 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard May 2025
last heard May 2025
Simone Biles’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, at that point, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, and I kind of knew I was depressed, but I hit it so well because I train 34 hours a week. So what do I always do whenever I'm at home? I'm in my room laying down, resting, resting, resting. But I knew this resting was very different. Like it was hard to get out of bed. It was hard to do anything.
It felt like everything felt heavy in the end of the world. And again, a lot of sleepless, crying nights. Like why me? Because I... It's just like, and then you kind of play victim, and then it seems like, again, nobody can relate to you, nobody's listening, nobody is, I trusted this person, this, that, the other.
So it just felt very, I wouldn't even say dehumanizing, but it felt like I held a lot of the guilt that wasn't mine to hold.
Yes, and I think that was the hardest for me to process and I learned through therapy like yes This is not my guilt to hold but to convince myself that because it's easier said than done But to convince myself that I was really really hard and I think I'm still working on that in therapy like it's gotten a lot better and I feel comfortable and now I can have conversations and and stuff like that.
But yeah, I have good days. I have bad days. But I also know that that doesn't define me.
Yes, and that's, I think... As an athlete, that was the hardest thing for me to process too because, you know, if you get injured, you go to the doctor and they're like, okay, three to six months or three weeks or whatever. And this is like years. And I'm like, why do I not feel better? Like if a doctor could sit down and tell me, I'd be great.
Because I thought like, oh, three to six months, three to six weeks. It's like... we're always on timeline with injuries. So whenever it's a mental injury or a physical injury that you're going through like that with depression and anxiety, and nobody can give you a timeline, it feels like it's never ending. And I was like, I just don't understand. I should be fine by now.
Because it's like, I'm not going to want to be in 10 years talking about this and somebody's going to be like, God, here she goes again.
We're so good at as athletes at doing that too and my My therapist is like just take it out of the box Roll it out on the floor like it's fine because we're so good at at like depress, depressing everything. So it's like, God. So for so long it's worked until it didn't anymore. And that's what you saw at the Olympics, a big old spill.
And I was like, to me, I couldn't understand why that happened either. Cause I'm like gymnastics, like what the heck is going on? Why is this happening? And then my therapist is like, well, we know why it happened. And I still have conversations with her to this day. And I'm like, hey, look, it's Olympic year. Did we figure out why that happened?
And she's like, Simone, we figured out why this has happened. I was like, are we sure? Are we sure? Really? Because it can't happen again. Yes. But it's like, it wasn't just a mental injury that happened called the twisties. It's like, compressing all of this shit for so many years, it just unfolded. Like you can't, you can't compress trauma that much longer.
And I hate to be the person that blames it on something else because I'd rather blame it on like, I have a hangnail. Sorry, can't vault. Like, or whatever it is. You're like, I wish I could say like money. Yes, and at that point after I came out about it, they're like, she doesn't want to lose. And I was like, First of all, I almost broke my leg, but thankfully I didn't break my leg.
And I called my agent and I was like, this is a mental injury that they can't see. Do they want me to wear a helmet? I'm like, because they couldn't see it. So they couldn't relate to it. They couldn't grasp it. It's not something that I could tell them so that they could feel like if I broke my ankle, they'd be like, should I broke my ankle before too? Like, I know how that feels.
Of course you can't vault. But for a mental injury, nobody could understand it. So there were so many narratives thrown around, so many different excuses that were pushed onto me. And I think the shittiest part of all at the Olympics I have very good, like, senses, and I knew something was going to go wrong.
I couldn't pinpoint what it was or when it was going to happen, but I just had this feeling deep down, this is not going to go the way I want it to, and I don't know why, but I have this deep, deep feeling like something's going to happen.
I don't know, but I could feel something. And I felt myself, besides all the pressure, because we deal with that as elite athletes. We have different tactics about how we're going to carry ourselves and how we're going to do whatever so that we can still compete to the best of our ability, you know. But there was something that I could feel that was going to be out of my control.
and I didn't know when it was gonna happen or what was gonna happen. But I was like, I just, I felt strange, but I'm not gonna tell anybody on the team that I'm a veteran. It's everyone's first times at the Olympics. Like they're looking up to me and I'm guiding them, taking them through the route. But you know, nothing about that Olympics was normal anyways.
We're having a pandemic, the whole world is shut down. Like nothing about the Olympic games was normal. And I feel for those athletes, that might not ever be able to go to another Olympic Games because that is not what the Olympics is about. In 2016, it was so much fun. The camaraderie, the team spirit, everybody's rooting for everybody. I feel like that's world peace. Time stops.
Doesn't matter what color you are, what religion you are, what you support, what you don't support. Everybody comes together to support their athletes and their country. So it was just very strange, but I could feel something like, the wires weren't connected, like the red, the yellow, off.
Um, a little bit, but we had been training so hard and we were, we were prepared. Like we were so prepared. I've never been so prepared for an event in my life. I mean, obviously besides 2016, but this felt like a different kind of prepared. Um, and it felt a little bit more calm.
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