Clint Malarchuk Opens Up to Students About Mental Illness
After suffering from it throughout his hockey career, Clint is now a motivational speaker who works to end the stigma of mental illness. His book about his experiences, The Crazy Game, was published in 2014. His visit was a perfect extension to our Wellness Week, which took place from January 18-22.
For many hockey fans, the first thing that comes to mind at the mention of Clint’s name is a horrific accident from 1989. While goaltending for the Buffalo Sabres, a collision with another player led to a skate blade slicing Clint’s neck, severing his carotid artery. Quick action from the team’s trainer saved Clint’s life.
While such an incident would be traumatic for anyone, what most people didn’t realize is that Clint had suffered from mental illness long before the accident. As a child, he struggled with undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
“Hockey was everything to me as a kid,” Clint said. “Right after breakfast every day, I headed to the rink. I actually do think my OCD helped me get to the pros - it’s what compelled me to work as hard as I did. But later, it caused major problems.”
Clint’s father and older brother were also goalies, and Clint aspired to be like them. However, his father was also an alcoholic, and he became abusive. “My anxiety disappeared on the rink, but returned when I walked home,” he said. “Even now, it’s hard to know: was I so anxious because of my dad? Or was it mental illness?”
Clint’s brother was the “good” goalie - the one with the natural talent, the one everyone expected to get to the pros. But he didn’t put in as much work as Clint did, and Clint, not his brother, made it to the NHL.
“You can do anything you want,” Clint told students. “BUT, you have to be willing to do the work. That’s the difference between a dream and a goal.”
Ten days after Clint’s accident in 1989, he was back on the ice. He was proud of being the tough guy, the one who bounced back quickly. He didn’t realize that the experience would have a long-term psychological impact.
“Two years later, I was having panic attacks and nightmares,” Clint said. “My OCD made it very difficult for me to leave the house. But I kept it all inside, because I didn’t want to be viewed as ‘crazy’ or ‘weird’.”
He was sent down to the minors. There, he met Dr. Stephen Stahl, who finally made sense of Clint’s struggles. He diagnosed Clint with depression, which was exacerbating his OCD. “He said, ‘Clint, you have a chemical imbalance. It’s no different than being a diabetic,’” Clint said. Dr. Stahl put Clint on medication for the first time, and within 9 weeks, the symptoms of both his depression and OCD were gone.
Clint felt great, but he made the mistake of neglecting to check in with a doctor while on the medication. His body slowly became immune to its effects, and the depression and OCD came roaring back.
“I started drinking to numb the pain,” Clint said. It was around this time that Clint tried to kill himself. He showed students an X-ray of his skull from the incident, the bullet he put there miraculously sparing his life.
“I’m so lucky to be alive,” he said. “That’s why I’m here today. To tell you that mental health is an illness, and people from every walk of life suffer from it. You don’t have to live in silence or in shame.”
After his suicide attempt, Clint was finally diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder - a result of his accident many years earlier. It explained the panic attacks and the nightmares, but Clint fought the diagnosis. “It hurt my pride - I had been proud of coming back so fast after the injury,” Clint said. “It wasn’t until I read a book about it that I realized it was exactly what I was experiencing.”
Today, Clint has found a number of different ways to take action when it comes to his mental health. These include medication, meditation, working out, Alcoholics Anonymous, counseling and being of service.
“I’ve started living by the A.C.E. formula,” he said. “If something negative happens, I accept it, I change it, or I eliminate it.”
Making a difference for others has been one of Clint’s main focuses over the past several years. “After I published my book, I got a lot of emails from people in ‘tough’ professions - cops, firefighters, military personnel,” Clint said. “They thanked me for sharing my story, because they never felt they could talk about the toll their jobs take on them.”
He emphasized that students have the power to make a difference, too. “Try to make the people around you better every day,” he advised. “Don’t beat yourself up for mistakes; try to just do the next right thing.”
Ultimately, Clint wanted to ensure that students didn’t feel they had to struggle with mental illness in silence. “When I started talking about my experiences, I had so many teammates and childhood friends tell me, ‘Clint, I had no idea’,” he says. “They would have loved to help, but they didn’t know I was suffering.
“Your teachers want to support you on a personal level, not just an educational level,” he said. “If you need help, make sure you ask for it.”
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Tel: 416 482 9811
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