UCLA star Lauren Betts has laid bare her battle with clinical depression that forced her to briefly step away from basketball.
The 6-foot-7 center, who entered college as the nation’s No. 1 recruit, opened up about her ‘darkest’ moments in an emotional essay with The Players’ Tribune.
Betts, 22, detailed a terrifying downward spiral that began at the end of her freshman year at Stanford, despite the immense hype surrounding her athletic potential.
The star athlete described a state of emotional ‘numbness’ that eventually gave way to a wave of overwhelming anxiety that made her want to give up on life entirely.
‘The whole time I thought I was treading water, I was actually slipping away,’ the All-American wrote, comparing her mental state to ‘fading’ into the darkest part of the ocean.
She revealed that the crisis reached a breaking point one morning when the headspace she was in became ‘too dangerous to ignore,’ leading her to check into a UCLA hospital.
UCLA star Lauren Betts has laid bare her battle with clinical depression in an emotional essay
Betts, who entered college as the nation’s No. 1 recruit, opened up about ‘darkest’ moments
Bruins fans will recall Betts missing four games in January 2024 for ‘personal reasons,’ but the nature of that absence was far more traumatic than first realized.
Due to a lack of available beds in the psychiatric ward, the college superstar was forced to spend the night in a hallway surrounded by ‘people screaming and shouting.’
‘I didn’t get any sleep,’ she recalled of the harrowing experience. ‘I just laid on that gurney wondering how my teammates were doing… I was just so ashamed.’
Despite the ordeal, Betts used her platform to urge others in a ‘bad headspace’ to seek help, calling it the ‘best option’ for those who feel they are drowning.
‘I want to be HERE, experiencing life, in all its beauty and all its messiness, for a really really long time,’ she wrote in the powerful essay.
The 22-year-old noted how ‘thin that line is’ between having a bright future ahead and feeling as though there is ‘no other way out’ from the mental pain.
Her return to the court has been nothing short of miraculous, with Betts transforming into the centerpiece of a UCLA team currently ranked as a top seed in the tournament.
UCLA star Betts used her platform to urge others in a ‘bad headspace’ to seek help
Now a First-Team All-American and the Big Ten Player of the Year, she is the leading scorer for a Bruins squad favored to challenge UConn for the national title.
The Bruins’ quest for glory begins tonight, Saturday, March 21, as they face off against 16-seed Cal Baptist at Pauley Pavilion in front of a home crowd.
UCLA enters the matchup as heavy favorites, but the real victory for Betts is simply being present and healthy as she leads her team into the madness of March.
With a perfect 18-0 conference record behind them, the Bruins are on a mission to avenge last year’s Final Four exit and secure the program’s first-ever championship.
