Inside Pitch: Softball Great Jessie Warren Reveals That “In My Battles with Anxiety & Depression… There Was a Point When I No Longer Wanted to Be Here”

Extra Inning Softball contributor Jessie Warren, the All-American infielder for the 2018 National Champion Florida State Seminoles, has been at the highest echelons in the sport.

Her famous spectacular diving catch in the clip below was voted as the ESPN SportsCenter #1 Play of the Day:

Jessie has also been a two-time Cowles Cup champion in the National Pro Fastpitch league (2018, ’19) and also will be playing for the Women’s Professional Fastpitch (WPF) league this year also.

She has checked the box on pretty much every level of play in the sport and, from the outside, the athlete seems to have lived the dream life—successful on every level, a champion and a star player.

But as we all struggle, Jessie opens up in today’s blog about the terrible struggles with anxiety and depression she’s battled with most of her live.

As she explained in her previous first-person Inside Pitch for Extra Inning Softball:

“I have dealt with depression and anxiety and wanting to take my life due to the pressure of life and athletics in the past. I still deal with anxiety to this day and I hope talking about this may help someone… it may make someone feel heard and seen.”

Click HERE to read Jessie’s article on Mental Health Awareness from March, 2022.

With the third collegiate suicide in the last month or two still leaving the sports world stunned and wondering how these issues can be addressed, Jessie goes into greater detail here on her inner struggles to, hopefully, help those in similar situations find the help that will turn their lives around.

Note: some of the experiences Jessie went through and describes below may be disturbing to some readers… discretion is advised.

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Panic Attacks

My journey with my mental health began my sophomore year of high school.

I was unaware of what was happening with me psychologically, but it was bad. All the years of feeling abandoned from my childhood surfaced and hit me like a train.

I remember beginning to have panic attacks that would keep me from school, for weeks at a time and all I wanted to do was sleep because, when I would sleep, there was no fear: the fear coming from the panic attacks, the fear of feeling like I was dying and the out-of-body experiences I was dealing with.

To put it into perspective, the panic attacks start with chest palpitations when my heart is feeling as if it’s beating super-fast and about to explode out of my chest.

Then, suddenly, I feel as if I can’t breathe… I get very dizzy, things start moving in slow motion and my heart feels as if it’s starting to not want to beat at all. My body goes completely numb and I lose hearing.

It’s by far the scariest thing I’ve experienced.

I’m a very honest person, so I want to share my complete story and with that comes my past use of drugs. I tried leaning onto them in high school to help with the anxiety, but my anxiety became worse when I would take them and almost made me feel as if I needed to run in front of a car to feel alive.

It was scary, feeling the way I felt and feeling so helpless with no one to go to.

I never talked to anyone about what I was experiencing and I would miss weeks of school at a time because I just didn’t want to deal with the anxiety of having to sit in class and pretend that everything was OK.

With time, things became better and the anxiety subsided. The panic attacks wouldn’t happen as often… until I got to college and things actually became worse.

Problems in College

I thought I could mask it with athletics, but as a very successful athlete, I had the pressure to perform and be successful and everything started spinning out of control.

At one point, I found out I had a labrum tear in my shoulder, which for the longest time hurt me so bad and I would always sublux when I hit (meaning my shoulder would come out of place).

The doctor told me I needed surgery, but from the things I experienced in high school—how I felt while taking certain things—I began to get anxiety about the surgery and how I would feel on the anesthesia.

I eventually opted out of surgery and decided to play through my injury. Ultimately, things kind of seemed to be going in the right direction.

The thing about anxiety, however, is it creeps up on you so quickly and unexpectedly, the immediate feeling of being overwhelmed times 100 eventually led to more panic attacks for me.

I cried almost every single day of my college career having to deal with this anxiety.

I began seeing a therapist twice a week, and, eventually, was asked if I wanted to be medicated. I was told I would be taking Xanax, but knew from past experiences that was something I didn’t want to be put on—it is addicting–and I wanted to cope with my anxiety in a natural way (although sometimes that doesn’t help, either).

I went to a doctor and it was suggested I be put on birth control to see if balancing out my hormones would help, so I started taking birth control medication.

I began to get counseling but seeing and talking to the therapist I was going to almost felt like it made things worse, only because she was making me relive my past which I didn’t want to do.

However, that was a key part of my healing process and talking about those things eventually would help me… but at the time I didn’t see that.

In a Black Cloud

Eventually, I stopped going to my counselor, thinking things were getting even worse by seeing her. I felt like I was living two completely different lives: my normal everyday anxiety/panic life and my softball life.

After a while, softball was my outlet for my anxiety and, when I would be on the field, I would never have any type of anxiety. I remember most games I would just beg internally for them to go into extra innings because, the second I would step off the field, the panic and anxiety would come back in and take over.

I often felt I was a walking in a black cloud.

I didn’t want to be around people because I felt I was just making everyone sad all the time with how I was feeling and what I was experiencing so I would either be home or playing softball.

I remember trying to explain myself to people and they just laughed and said that it wasn’t real. That made me feel so alone with what I was dealing with that I feel I never really got to experience college as much as I would have liked.

Occasionally, on my good days, I would go hang and have fun with the girls, but most days looked different, with me in my room and in bed trying to figure out what was wrong with me. I would ask myself: “Why am I different from everyone else?” and “Why am I the only one going through this?”

Now, looking back, the reality is that many other people were probably experiencing the same exact thing as me, but in a different way… and also trying to hide it.

I made it through college and hit the real world, and guess what? When I thought things couldn’t get any worse… they did!

Pros… & On My Own

Living on your own, managing finances by yourself, paying bills, finding a job, creating your own routine and schedule… all these things were taken care of in college and then, suddenly, thrown on me.

It was a lot to deal with.

I began harming myself and, in 2019, there was a point when I no longer wanted to be here because I was dealing with a lot internally.

There were multiple occasions where I would get in my car and start driving toward the Skyway Bridge in St. Petersburg, Florida, just wanting to feel free of fear and pain.

I felt as if a big black raining cloud was following me around 24/7 no matter where I went—it was so emotionally and mentally draining.

I remember quitting the job I was working mid-day. I just felt like it was too overwhelming to pretend to be this happy person around people and trying to maintain this image of a happy person that I wasn’t on social media, to hide all these secrets and pain for the public eye…

… because I’m Jessie Warren.

I was pretending to be this amazing happy super star athlete that’s got her life together and is such an amazing athlete that wins all these awards, and plays softball so well. For the longest time that’s who I THOUGHT I was, but I wasn’t living up to those expectations of my fans and audience anymore at the professional level.

I just felt so consumed and I couldn’t deal with the faking anymore. I remember texting one of the employees at USSSA and telling her I needed to go home and see someone, and I thank God for their understanding and helping hand in getting me the help I needed.

Not Alone

So here I am here today, now in 2022, feeling happier and continuing to figure out how to manage and deal with my anxiety. I was diagnosed with a panic disorder and general anxiety disorder, and I’m OK with telling the world! 

I struggle and have my days, but those “bad” days are no longer the days I use to experience alone; today, I have people in my corner.

Also, I no longer want to deal with this on my own and I don’t have to struggle in silence. Most importantly, if this is something you deal with, then neither do you!

It’s okay to not be okay, but what’s NOT okay, is being alone and feeling like you’re under water. I’m learning that I have people in my corner that want to help, but you just must reach out and talk too.

Don’t be silent anymore… reach out and get the help you so deserve.

Each of us should be able to live a beautiful and fulfilling life.

— Jessie