Steve Young on Faith, Football, and Facing Severe Anxiety

David

Welcome to the podcast. I'm David. This episode is based on an interview that Dr. Dan Judd and Dr. Scott Richards of the Bridges Institute did with Steve Young, the Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback and former San Francisco 49ers MVP. We're going to focus on Steve's lived experience with severe anxiety, and explore how faith, spirituality, and professional treatment each contributed to his coping and recovery. I'll ask questions, and then share what Steve said about this during the interview, staying close to his own words.

David

First question. What was it like for Steve growing up in Greenwich, Connecticut? Steve said he grew up the only Mormon in town. His church was half an hour away, his bishop lived in another state, and his church friends were far away. So, in his words, there was nothing in between him and God. He felt on his own, and he found God that way.

David

When did Steve's anxiety show up? By the time Steve was sixteen, he couldn't stay overnight at friends' houses. He came up with excuses, sometimes big ones, for why he had to go home. He says during the day he could do it all. At night, he couldn't. He didn't make a big deal of it, and he didn't think much about it until college.

David

What happened when it was time for Steve to go to college? About a week before he left for BYU in Provo, Steve felt an empty, sick feeling in his stomach, and he told himself he couldn't do it. Then he thought, well, that's stupid, I can't not do it. So he went. He says the next three months were death defying, but he kept telling himself he needed to do it. He says that was so useful. By the end of his freshman year, Provo had become home.

David

And what about serving as a full-time missionary for his church? Steve put in his papers, and then realized because of his anxiety there was no way he could go. He told his dad, and his dad said, you better go tell the bishop. Steve says the ask from the church is that you be prepared and worthy to go, and he was prepared and worthy. He just couldn't go. When he told the bishop, he felt like an utter failure, weak, a baby. Then the bishop told him that months earlier, during church, it had come to him that Steve would walk in and say this. He told Steve he was good, and to go back to school.

David

But Steve's also candid about the culture around it. He says there's some shaming when you don't go on a mission. Since his book came out, parents have come to him about kids with anxiety, and he sees the shaming that happens around mental illness. His plea is that we uncover the reasons people behave the way they do before we point a finger.

David

How did the separation anxiety turn into something that threatened Steve's football career? Steve says that looking back, it morphed into performance anxiety. During college, by Thursday of game week he was walking around campus just wanting out. Saturday morning was the worst. He told his parents he was dying before games, and his dad said of course you're nervous, it's a big thing. Steve says it took him a while to recognize that what he felt was different from what other people felt. He describes two sides of himself: one saying don't go, and an achieving side saying we're going. And he always went.

David

Who helped Steve cope with the anxiety along the way? One person was George Curtis, an LDS trainer with the Los Angeles Express of the USFL. Steve was twenty three, landing in Los Angeles, planning to tell the team the whole thing was a mistake. George picked him up at the airport, and when Steve started to explain, George told him that he was LDS, he'd be with him, and they'd just walk it together every day. Steve says he needed someone to literally hold his hand, and George did. He says the anxiety almost killed him, but it never beat him.

David

Then came 1991 with the San Francisco 49ers. Steve was replacing Joe Montana, and he says he wasn't playing well. He could hear fans in a grocery store line saying Steve Young's horrible. After a game in Los Angeles he sat in his driveway talking to friends until about 2 a.m., until they were worn out. Then he just sat there and wept. He says he had no idea how he was going to go forward.

David

What did the anxiety look like for Steve when he was playing in the NFL? Steve describes making it through each day literally step by step. The sliver of morning sun brought dread, because the day was already starting. The only time he felt decent was about seven to nine at night. Then he stopped sleeping. He went a Friday night without sleep, skipped practice, went another night, and was up for forty eight hours. He told himself that he had to play, and if the team won, he'd talk to the team doctor, because something was really not right. They won. He played pretty well, which he calls nuts.

David

What did the team doctor do that was so helpful to Steve? Steve was lying on a table with ice on his shoulder and knee, and he told the team doctor, Dr. Reggie Clint, that he couldn't live this way. He said he didn't think he was going to make it. This time he meant it. He says it's a world where you don't show weakness. And then he saw a tear roll down the doctor's cheek. Dr. Clint broke down and told him about his own lifelong struggle with anxiety, and said he felt terrible that he'd let it get this far. Steve says he felt something like hope come in. His reaction to the doctor was, I'm just so grateful that you could hear it.

David

The following day, Dr. Clint sent him to a child psychiatrist who asked ten questions. Five yeses would mean undiagnosed adult separation anxiety. Steve said yes to nine. The tenth was about nightmares, and he says he probably has them but blocks them out. The psychiatrist told him that when he sees people with undiagnosed severe childhood separation anxiety at thirty, they're in the gutter, hiding in their parents' homes. Steve was coming in as the MVP of the NFL. And the psychiatrist said it was genetic.

David

Why was finding out the anxiety was genetic helpful to Steve? Steve says that when he checked his mother's family, it was all over the place. An uncle, cousins who tried to go on missions, one who spent time in the MTC and finally came home. He says suddenly he had comrades. And naming it mattered enormously. It stopped being an amorphous blob that was burying him. He calls it a strange friend, something in his family, not something he'd done. His fear had been that he was weak, or that he was choosing this. It never got easy, he says, but it helped him attack it.

David

What are Steve's views about medication for anxiety or other forms of mental illness? Steve says that for him, taking medicine felt like having a blanket over his head, and he preferred living out the raw part of it. But he says that was just him. He knows medicine can be life changing, and is vital for many people.

David

So what did faith have to do with all this? Steve's word is tethering. He says he thinks his anxiety never beat him largely because of a tethering to heaven, the idea that there's somewhere to get to, and sitting huddled in a hole in his room isn't getting there. He says faith isn't a crutch to him. It's as physical as pinching his skin. It's in his bones. He says it feels thick, not fleeting.

David

Steve's equally clear about what the tether is not. It's not to people, and not to a culture. He loves parts of his church's culture, but he says religion gets in trouble when it's more about people than about what God can do. The tether has to run to heaven, and then church can be additive. And his closing plea is simple: open the windows and let air in. Some people suffer in silence, he says, like me. His friends read his book and couldn't believe they hadn't known. He wishes he'd told them, because most people are empathetic and just need practice.

David

Steve's also firm that faith can't be compelled. He points to The God Who Weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens, the idea that God puts himself at risk because the things God loves can't be compelled. He says that shapes how he parents. And he lists what he calls the power words of heaven from sacred religious writings: love unfeigned, long suffering, gentle persuasion, meekness. He jokes that he never scored a touchdown using any of them. Working on those words, he says, has become the goal of the second half of his life.

David

How does a Hall of Fame quarterback explain faith? Through throwing blind. Steve was shorter than most, so he couldn't always see the receiver. He had to anticipate where the man would be and throw to that spot. Throwing tentatively didn't work. He had to commit completely, like throwing your body downhill on skis to stay in control. He says faith works the same way. You act, and then the answer is revealed, or sometimes not, because the silence of heaven is its own challenge.

David

Did Steve's faith ever play out in any other ways during his football career? Steve tells of 1990, when he became an unrestricted free agent and finally had the chance to leave San Francisco, something he'd said he couldn't wait to do. And when given the choice, he felt he just couldn't leave. His dad called him a glutton for punishment. Steve says he couldn't fully explain it. He just felt that leaving wasn't right. He stayed and the rest is history. He led the 49ers to a Super Bowl victory and was named the game's MVP.

David

Given his experience suffering with severe anxiety, how does Steve make sense of suffering? Steve describes Christ as a counter force to entropy. Everything in the universe heads toward disorder and decay, he says, but there's an opposite, creative power: health, wellness, peace. And he says Christ invites, he doesn't compel. Steve says he believes good came from his experience with anxiety. Would he do it again if he could choose to avoid it? He says it would be great to go through life without anxiety, but with the richness and depth he feels now, he'd probably choose it again, even though he'd cringe.

David

Put together, you can see why the Bridges Institute cares about stories like this. Here's a man who struggled with severe anxiety, a trainer who held his hand, a doctor brave enough to cry, a psychiatrist who correctly diagnosed him, a family history that explained it, and a living faith that kept him tethered. Those weren't competing. They worked together. If you want to learn more about Steve's life and his struggle with anxiety, read his book, QB: My Life Behind the Spiral. You can also view the full video of Steve's interview on the Bridges Institute's website. Thanks for listening.