Kerri Walsh Jennings on the Olympic Blues - 'My identity was wrapped up in winning'

Yahoo Sports' Kerri Walsh Jennings and Shawn Johnson discuss the "Olympic Blues" — an emotional and psychological slump that many athletes experience after the excitement and intensity of the Olympic Games.

Video Transcript

One interesting thing about being an Olympian that most people wouldn't know.

A vast majority of Olympians post games have the Olympic blues and sometimes it turns into full depression.

I have certainly gone through the Olympic blues where you're so focused for your whole life.

But for four years of qualifying typically, and then you go and you live out your Olympic dream, whether you win or lose, that dream has finished.

And the thing that has structured your life and given you life and passion and focus for the past four years is done like this.

And when that happens, oftentimes sea by blues shows up and it's time for a new dream to foster itself.

I spent every waking second of my life for so many years making decisions about my life for the Olympics.

What I ate, how I dressed, who I hung out with when I woke up when I went to bed, what extracurricular activities I did.

And then as soon as the Olympics were over, I truly and I'm not meaning this dramatically.

I didn't know how to function as a human being.

I remember waking up the morning after my last competition and truly not knowing what to eat for breakfast.

Because in that, you know, moment I was no longer a competing Olympic athlete.

So I was like, I don't know what to do.

I didn't know how to work out.

I didn't know how to schedule my day.

I didn't have a coach telling me what I could and couldn't do.

And it does, it sends you kind of into the spiral of an identity crisis because you no longer have that thing that your whole world has centered.

I didn't really understand what was going on because you're like, life is amazing.

I just want a gold medal.

Like I'm, I'm living my dream.

But I'm sad.

The hardest part of dealing with the Blues is acknowledging that I was in it.

However awareness to me is magic.

And so once I had the acknowledgment awareness that I was going through a tough time, it's like, oh, now that I know I can, I can work on it.

Definitely, a lot of self reflection is my identity.

Only an Olympian is my identity only wrapped up in winning.

And after my, one of the Olympics where I had the biggest case of Olympic Blues, I realized that absolutely, my identity was wrapped up in winning.

For me, it's kind of going through the processes of being angry, being shameful grieving and being just really, really honest with the emotions.

And certainly for me having my husband, having my performance psychologist and my support system around me that I can speak freely without judgment.

That was definitely part of my process.

It all starts with awareness and then you go from there.