For Lauren Betts, her story isn’t just limited to the bright lights of a National Championship-winning or a prominent WNBA Draft night. Instead, the former UCLA superstar’s story is also about a consistent battle with anxiety and depression. 

A few months ago, in March, Betts made a bold move to outline her struggles in an essay for The Players’ Tribune. It quickly turned heads because it candidly shows that even top collegiate talents can have tough chapters. In a recent conversation on Sue Bird’s podcast on her YouTube channel, the WNBA legend asked Lauren Betts what gave her the confidence to be that “vulnerable” in front of so many people.

“I feel like, I have healed so much since my sophomore year of college,” Betts said. “Like, I seriously remember being in the car with my mom after a long day, and we were talking for hours, and she’s like, ‘Len, like, your story is so important, and I’m telling you it’s going to help so many people, and I feel like, you should honestly think about speaking up about it.”

“I remember just being like, I held so much shame about it for so long because I was just embarrassed that I could like get to that point, and like that, I put the people in my circle through so much trauma because of it. I think I got to the point where depression and those feelings are an illness. It’s not like something that you just choose,” she added further.

Betts’ battle with depression traces back to her childhood days. According to reports, she faced constant bullying over her appearance growing up, something that only added to the mental pressure she was already dealing with. And as Betts herself admitted during the conversation, the journey since then has been anything but easy.

It all began toward the end of her freshman year at Stanford, around the time she made the decision to transfer to UCLA. For about six months, Lauren felt depressed and “kind of numb,” describing it as trying to tread water but actually slipping away and fading into the darkest part of the ocean. She experienced terrifying, recurring thoughts of no longer wanting to live, with her mind constantly repeating: “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Betts was so disturbed mentally through those challenges that she had to get admitted to a hospital and take professional help. The Bruins head coach, who was with Betts in the hospital, even revealed that the first night was a “scary thing,” per NPR. She even missed a few games to focus on her recovery and later opened up about how much support she received from her teammates during that stretch.

“I felt like I was letting my teammates down. I was so embarrassed and mad at myself. They lost a couple of games during my absence, and I was like, My team really needs me right now. What am I doing? The whole time I was in the hospital, I was thinking about our group,” she wrote in her Players’ Tribune essay. “What are they thinking about me? How are they going to react? I was just so ashamed… They were all like, ‘We’re so happy that you took care of yourself. You’re coming back even better. We love you.’”

But even after she emerged from it, Betts was hesitant to speak publicly about her fears. Head coach Close and her mother helped her in this regard.

Her teammates encouraged her to open up about her mental health struggles in the team’s film room. The response she received from the group helped her immensely, and from that point onward, she slowly started growing from strength to strength. Then, with a little more encouragement from her mother, Betts eventually went on to pen her essay for The Players’ Tribune.

“I feel like, finally getting to, like, separate myself from that and being able to learn from it and know that, like other people, are experiencing the same thing. It helped me so much to realize, like, okay, this is a story I want to put out,” Betts said of it further in the podcast.

Lauren even noted that depression never truly goes away completely, but she has learned how to recognize it, manage it, and understand what she needs in difficult moments. Therapy also helped her let go of the embarrassment and shame she once carried around her mental health, and now, she wants to help others going through similar struggles.

During a recent media interaction, the 6-foot-7 star revealed that she is also working with ESPN on a mental health-related project.

“I don’t know if I’m allowed to say, but I am working on an ESPN thing for mental health, so that’ll be really cool,” she said. “Any opportunity I have to speak up about it, I’m always going to take advantage. Even in little interviews like this — anyway I can continue to speak on what’s important to me and my morals, I think that’s going to help a lot of people.”

Lauren Betts’ move carries real significance. Her essay encouraged many others to open up and speak about their own struggles, and while the details of this upcoming project are still unclear, it marks yet another step in the growth of her voice and impact off the court.

From those challenging nights in her collegiate years, Betts has navigated the tough road, becoming a pro player with the Washington Mystics. It’s a great testament to her zeal and hard work. But for all money, her days after making the pro transition haven’t been easy either.

Lauren Betts Addresses the Challenges She Faced During Her Initial Stretch With the Mystics

The challenges of making the jump from the college circuit to the pro aren’t unknown at the moment. We’ve seen charismatic players like Caitlin Clark struggle with the league’s physicality at times during her rookie season. But Lauren Betts’ struggle wasn’t about development; it was about unlearning.

“I feel like really having to drop everything I learned at UCLA and then picking up all this stuff,” Betts said via Sue Bird’s podcast on the latter’s YouTube channel. “Like, it’s actually really funny that Angela Dugalic is here with me. So, at UCLA, everything we did was like around the post, playing high-low, getting it inside. So, Ang and I were playing high-low during the scrimmage, and Sydney was like, “What are you guys doing?”

This phase of unlearning also took a toll on Lauren Betts’ performance. For instance, in the first three games of the season, Betts couldn’t record a single double-digit score in points. It also included a 0-point night against the Toronto Tempo in her first regular-season game. But despite the slow start, the Washington Mystics Head Coach doesn’t seem too worried.

“We’ve thrown a lot at her. It’s not a situation where we’ve said, ‘Sit over there and wait for it to come,’” Mystics Coach Sydney Johnson said. “She’s faced really good matchups, good defensive players. She’s faced the pace of play. She has been asked to be engaged in ball-screen defense against world-class players …Considering all of that, I’m really thrilled.”

And she is already proving the coach right. In her team’s latest loss against the Dallas Wings, Lauren Betts finally reached double figures, scoring 11 points on 5-of-7 shooting from the field. It was her most productive offensive game so far, and she committed just one foul in the 15 minutes she played.

When you’re playing behind a frontcourt duo like Kiki Iriafen and Shakira Austin, who are both averaging over 16 points per game, limited minutes are naturally going to come your way. But with the kind of talent Lauren Betts possesses, it’s hard not to feel like this is only the beginning for her.

And when that happens, we’ll likely begin to see why Betts won both the Big Ten Player of the Year and Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year awards during her senior year at UCLA.