My name is Lauren O’Donohue and I was a Division I rower at UCLA. I currently lead a mental health non-profit called Resilience Rally and coordinate the annual Resilience Run for Suicide Prevention. My four years at UCLA were shaped by my experience as a student-athlete while simultaneously recovering from a mental illness and becoming a mental health advocate.
I have had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder since early childhood but for most of my life I thought everyone obsessively counted, repeated actions, and did what I now know are called “compulsions'' to fight intrusive and obsessive thoughts. I lived my life ruminating on terrible thoughts of danger coming to time and performed rituals to prevent it from happening. When I found out that this was not normal behavior I felt completely ashamed and hid it for years. By my sophomore year of college, my OCD broke me. No one saw it coming because I never shared what I was going through. I thought I was completely alone. I didn’t know anyone, especially in athletics, who went to therapy or who took psychiatric medication.
My doctors deemed me non-functional and enrolled me in an outpatient hospitalization program where I re-learned how to live my life over the next 3 months. During that time I had to withdraw from school and subsequently, was not allowed to practice per NCAA rules. I came clean to my teammates about what I was going through and where I was and I was met with an outpour of support, love and encouragement.
I came back to school and rowing in time for the PAC-12 championships and finished out the school year strong. I had so much hope. I spent that summer in an intensive OCD program and it was the hardest but best thing I’ve ever done. It truly changed my life and I am now equipped with the tools to keep my mental health in check. After sharing my story with my teammates and other athletes, I became an advocate for taking care of your mental health and spoke with teammates and friends when their mental health started to decline. We were finally having conversations about therapy and seeking psychiatric help and talking about mental health seemed a little less scary.
In December of 2018, our team was rocked by the loss of one of our teammates, Natalie. A fellow senior lost her life to suicide and it profoundly devastated me. It seemed like we had lost our ability to talk about mental health because this loss hurt too badly. It felt like we all lost the fight against mental illness.
A teammate and I wanted to honor our fellow senior teammate and close friend by creating the Resilience Run for Suicide Prevention. We called it the “Resilience Run” because we wanted to change the narrative around mental health being a weakness. We wanted to celebrate the immense resilience in everyone who battles mental illness daily, the resilience in our team coping with this loss, and the resilience Natalie demonstrated throughout her life. The Resilience Run in 2019 was a huge success and turned into the online community Resilience Rally. The Run has become an annual event and our organization aims to help other athletes and individuals feel like they aren’t alone in their fight.
My aim is to normalize talking about mental health and show people how resilient they are for competing in athletics, pursuing a degree, starting a career, and just navigating life while battling a mental illness. Please consider following Resilience Rally on Instagram, bringing the 2022 Resilience Run to your team or school, and participating in the Resilience Rise this November. Let’s end the stigma!
Resilience Run 2019 with my Senior Rowing Class
RESILIENCE RUN 2022 FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION
Walk or Run 5km on May 7, 2022
We will be holding in-person events in Los Angeles (Marina Del Rey) and Toronto on May 7th but you can run/walk 5k anywhere in the world and share your experience with us on Instagram @resiliencerally.
Register here: https://www.resiliencerally.com/resilience-run-2022
Los Angeles Resilience Run:
UCLA Marina Aquatic Center
14001 Fiji Way, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292
Meet time: 10:30am PST
Toronto Lakeshore Resilience Run:
Toronto Harbourfront Centre
235 Queens Quay W, Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
Meet time: 10:30am EST
The purpose of the Resilience Run is to raise funds and awareness for suicide prevention. The Resilience Run was started in honour of Natalie Puente, a UCLA rower who lost her life to suicide. Our goal is to shift the narrative surrounding suicide and mental illness. We want to end the stigma that having a mental illness makes you weak and show that instead, it takes immense resilience to live with a mental illness. Despite this resilience, suicide is the second leading cause of death for people ages 10-34.
Our goal at Resilience Rally is to end the stigma surrounding mental illness and suicide and give those suffering the professional support they need. Proceeds from T-shirt sales and donations will go directly to The Resilience Rally Foundation. With your help, our non-profit will offer professional individual and group counseling for each illness and disorder for any demographic. We will also offer mental health workshops and compensated subscriptions to mental health resources.
A portion of proceeds will go to Natalie Puente's memorial page for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
We invite you to run or walk 5k with us in-person or virtually on May 7th to end the stigma.
Buy a t-shirt or tank for the run here: https://www.bonfire.com/store/resilience-rally/
Donate to The Resilience Rally Foundation here: https://www.resiliencerally.com/donate
What does it mean to end the stigma?
There is a harsh stigma that exists surrounding suicide. Suicide has a long tradition of being thought of as a criminal act. People who attempt suicide or die by suicide might be wrongly labelled as "attention seeking", "cowards", or "selfish". Those who perpetrate these stigmas avoid, shun, distrust, and stereotype those affected by suicide.
We want to end this hurtful stigma and educate people about suicide. Someone might want to end their life to escape what they feel is an impossible situation, to relieve unbearable thoughts or feelings from mental illness, or to relieve physical pain or incapacity. These individuals are often the most magnetic, bright, selfless, compassionate people you know. It is the pain you do not see that takes their life. Suicide is not selfish, it is devastating.
Together, we can help those who are struggling by creating a world that is more accepting. Allowing people to be vulnerable with their thoughts and emotions will lead to more conversations about mental health, more mental health care professionals and programs, and a society that is compassionate to pain that they cannot see on the outside.
Show your community that no one is alone and we will face mental illness and suicide together, head on.
You are not alone. You are resilient. Let's end the stigma.