Entry 01: Schuyler

Hello friends, family, acquaintances, strangers;

I am an open book, so you are all (pretty much) equals to me, in terms of what I am willing to share.

The following video sums up my recent history pretty nicely. Warning, it is hard to listen at points to if you or a loved one have experienced mental health challenges and/ or suicide. However, I do think my story, especially pertaining to my mental health, is an important one to share.

It is about my experience as a soccer player at Duke, then as a professional player at AC Sparta and the Reign FC. It is about the depression, anxiety, and OCD that cumulated into suicidal ideation, which ended my soccer career, and left me largely incapable of functioning for about 8 months.

But it is also about my amazing support system, and how I am now the happiest I have ever been, after a long and on-going healing process.

I hope you will take the time to listen to my conversation with Duke’s Chapter of Morgan’s Message, an organization focused on improving mental health in the student-athlete community, and read through my writing that elaborates on who I was before my mental health crisis, my experience during it, and what I hope this next chapter in my life will hold.

1. Sunset Schuy; who I was before a long night

I was born in Charlotte, NC, but raised in Fair Haven, NJ. I went to Rumson-Fair Haven High school, a public school with private school tendencies. Meaning, my graduating class was homogenous in race (white) and socio-economic class (upper, and upper-middle).

I inherently had a sense that I would be a soccer player, and play collegiately, as long as I can remember. I played at Duke University for 4 years, and absolutely loved my experience. Almost my entire class came in and started and played 90 minutes during Freshman year. Sophomore year, I tore my ACL, but proudly watched from the stands as my team battled to a National Championship. Junior year, I came back to start every game and helped lead our team to an elite 8 appearance. My senior year, we broke most Duke Women’s Soccer program records, and I was ACC Defensive Player of the Year, an All-American and an Academic All-American.

I graduated with distinction from the Nicholas School of the Environment, after writing an Honors Thesis on the Sustainable Certifications used in the Kenyan Tea Industry, and was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. I spoke about my athletic and academic experience at the Iron Duke’s Scholarship Dinner, an annual dinner where scholarship recipients thank the donors that make their scholarships, and their attendance at Duke, possible.

I’m sure it will not come as a surprise that I have some issues with perfectionism. But we will get back to that later.

I was drafted 11th overall in the 2018 NWSL draft to the Washington Spirit, and spent a month there before deciding to take an opportunity to play in the Czech Republic with AC Sparta.

After 10 months in Prague, I went to the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup to be a content presenter for Soccer.com. I spent the whole month traveling around France giving Soccer.com’s Instagram audience an idea of what it was like to be at the World Cup. Yes, it was a dream job, and yes it was and always will be one of the coolest things I have ever done.

Before heading to France, I had signed a year and a half contract with the Reign FC based in Tacoma, WA. I was supposed to play for the final 3 months in the 2019 season, and return for the 2020 season. But my 2020 started in 2019.

I got to the Reign, and it was perfect. I wanted it too badly, in fact. I felt as though I had finally made it - finally was about to fulfill my dream of being a professional soccer player - the thing I had devoted a lifetime to. Yes, I had played professionally at Sparta. We had played in the Champions League, and I had started and played 90 minutes in almost every game. However, the training environment and team culture at Sparta was less professional than Duke in a lot of ways. The NWSL on the other hand, is largely considered to be the best league in the world, top-to-bottom.

I was so excited to be there, to be back in an environment where I was being challenged and getting better, and I was ready to work hard with little to no reward of play-time. And for about 2 months, I was able to maintain that mentality. But, it turns out I did not have the coping mechanisms I needed to maintain it until the end of the season.

2. Night Schuy/ The Schuy is Falling

Thank you, Jake Kite, for the “Schuy is Falling” subtitle suggestion. Connor pointed out that Night Schuy would be far more coherent with the other subtitles, but hey, it was too good not to include.

So, this part of the story is hard to articulate. Words are hard am I right? I will do my best and leave space for you to ask questions if you have any – remember, I am truly an open book – but I air on the side of mystery with this stuff to spare you the boredom and unnecessary darkness.

The beginning of the end was the Nordic Cup in England, which was in late August 2019. I had just made my first game roster for the Reign during our East Coast trip, in our game vs. the NC Courage. My self-belief had deteriorated so much that in the brief moment that Steph Catley went down with an injury, and the coaches told me to get warm, I could not comprehend how they could possibly trust me to be on the field. Luckily, Steph popped back up and was able to keep playing, because I would not have put myself past a mid-game mental breakdown.

I still went into the U23 Nordic Cup with some hope. The year before, the Nordic Cup had been in Norway, and I had gone in with low expectations. I remember wondering aloud to one of my old club teammates, current Reign teammate, and future USWNT keeper, Casey Murphy, why I was even there. I don’t remember her response exactly, but I remember it being loving and validating. I went on to start and play 90 minutes in all 3 games, and we won the tournament. I was anxious – light-headed, with narrowed peripheral vision, and finding it hard to breathe – the whole time. But somehow, I performed better than I could have ever hoped or expected.

I was hoping that 2019 would be similar – yes, I felt like shit, but I had felt like shit and played well before – maybe I could pull it off again. But this year, I didn’t start any of the 3 games, and didn’t play at all in one of them. I played around 60 minutes cumulatively, and when I was in, I played fine, but not well. The coaches were supportive. They went out of their way to tell me that the reason I didn’t play as much is because they knew what I could do already. They knew how good I was, at this level, on this stage, and they needed to evaluate other girls who they had not seen on this stage yet.

 But my brain had already become too good at twisting things. I told myself that my coaches were telling me what I wanted to hear, not the truth. I told myself that I had been a terrible player this whole time – that I had gotten lucky – and my luck had finally run out.

I got back to Tacoma, WA in early September, and the next month was a slow spiral downwards. My self-doubt about soccer intensified and became increasingly irrational. Then, my self-doubt expanded to every other facet of my life – my relationships, my character, my intelligence, my purpose, my capacity to function as a human being, etc. Every insecurity I had ever had, plus a few new ones, came out. And then, some form of OCD kicked in, and all I could focus on were those insecurities and negative thoughts.

It became so intense, that I struggled to hold conversations. During practice, I couldn’t focus on what cone to move to next in a passing pattern. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails, just trying to not completely derail the entire training session. I started to struggle to make myself food. Towards the end, I couldn’t even bring myself to make a bowl of pasta. I wasn’t sleeping. I came to the conclusion that I was going to commit suicide eventually, because there was nothing wrong with my life, and yet I was losing the ability to function, solely because of my own mind.

Nothing was wrong, right? Because I had worked a lifetime to be a professional soccer player, and I had finally made it. I was competing in the best league in the world, with some of the best players in the world, who were also some of the kindest and coolest people, and a part of an amazing organization with great resources. My family and friends were heathy, happy, and supportive. I was (physically) healthy, right? I had nothing to point to. No acute reason to be depressed, anxious, and having suicidal ideation, which in turn, made my suicidal ideation worse. If you are falling apart now, when nothing is wrong, what is going to happen if you lose a loved one? What is going to happen if you tear your ACL again?

 I became convinced that I was weak, incapable, and going to die. It was all I could think about, every minute of every day, because if you are convinced that you are going to die, it is hard to focus on anything else. I was trying to think my way out of the corner that I had gotten myself into. I tried to “figure it out” – this puzzle that was a catch 22. A hellish circle that always led to the conclusion that I was going to commit suicide. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t think my way out, and I continued to get deeper and deeper, and my ability to function got worse and worse.

My parents, and a few close friends, knew that I was not okay, but I could not articulate what was happening in or to my brain. I could not articulate it because 1) I did not know that this kind of experience was even possible and 2) I was so embarrassed by the weakness that I was convinced encompassed everything I thought and was.

I eventually just word vomited to my parents, “I think I am going to kill myself,” or something along those lines. My dad booked a flight to Seattle the next day. I met with my head coach, Vlatko, now the head coach of the USWNT, and told him that I couldn’t stop thinking about hurting myself and needed to go home. I had an exit physical, where they gave me a prescription for Lexapro. Within the next few hours, without really saying goodbye to any teammates, my dad and I were driving East to New Jersey.

Unfortunately, being home made things worse. Leaving Tacoma validated all of the things I had been telling myself – that I was weak, incapable, and generally a terrible person. I was dysfunctional and suicidal for the next 3 months at home in New Jersey. I took years off my parents’ life. Bless their hearts for keeping me alive, and for keeping themselves together.

Around Christmas of 2019, my Uncle was like, Hey Schuyler, you’re not getting any better, I think you could use a change of scenery. You should come down to North Carolina and live with me. And I was like, sure.

I was a human vegetable. I packed a small bag of athletic clothes and spent the next week washing my hair with a bar of soap because I had forgotten to pack shampoo/ conditioner and wasn’t capable of going to the store and didn’t really care enough to communicate that I needed to. My suicidal ideation continued for the next 5 months. But, I at least started to function better after a month of two, as my uncle was able to distance himself emotionally from my darkness. He taught me how to code in the ionic stack. I learned html, css, and javascript, and my ability to pick up computer science relatively fast without any prior background created some gaps in the “I am incapable of everything” narrative that had been etched deep into my brain and identity. 

Rationally, I knew I wasn’t going to kill myself at this point, but I still felt like I should, which was an especially weird and terrible purgatory.

 I knew I should either apply to graduate school, or apply for entry level jobs, despite feeling incapable of both. Then, COVID happened. 

And I was like, okay, grad school it is.

The application window for UNC’s Gilling’s School of Public Health Environmental Science & Engineering Master’s Program was still open – for another 2 weeks. At first, I was like naaaaah f*ck that I am not going to UNC anyways. Then, my uncle made some good points, being 1) I had no other options and 2) I could apply, get in, and still not go. So, in 2 weeks, I studied for and took the GRE, got my paperwork together, wrote my personal statement, and reluctantly sent it all in.

A month later, I had a call with Dr. Dale Whittington, and environmental economist within the ESE department. Once I told him I was willing to self-fund, he was like suuuure I’ll be your advisor – you’re in.

So then, I was like, oh okay, I guess I am going to grad school? I guess I should try to get my sh*t together?

Aaaaand long story short, having a purpose again – one that I was proud of, that validated a part of my identity that had been present before my mental health crisis, and that gave me tangible goals to meet every day – slowly rewired my brain. I was also on a massive dose of anti-depressants. Yay for modern medicine, sometimes, it is so very necessary. Don’t let anyone tell you any different.

3. Sunrise Schuy; who I am now & what I hope this new day brings

So, there I was, in Chapel Hill, NC, finally happy to be alive again.

Every day, I was focused on figuring out how to be successful in graduate school. At first, my goals included things like “be able to have a conversation” or “figure out how to feed myself.” Eventually, as my brain healed, those objectives weren’t a concern.  My goals became “teaching myself Python” and reading the lit review that I curated based off of my advisors’ work.

I went on a cross country road trip with my brother, from San Francisco to our home in New Jersey, which solidified being back at my baseline of capacity and happiness. I went back to Chapel Hill to do some more grad school prep, then joined my best friends in Maine to celebrate the lovely Emily Goldman’s birthday in early August. After spending a few more days in New Jersey on the drive back to North Carolina, I got back to Chapel Hill the night before my classes started.

I was still on my massive dose of anti-depressants, and I was on it for a month longer than I needed to be. I started to take on too much, and classwork was not my priority. If I had to choose between calculus homework for my geospatial analysis class, or playing beach volleyball, we all know what I was about to go do. No, I was not going to withhold myself from beach volleyball after spending 8 months in a black hole of suicidal depression devoid of any human connection or fun.

I also felt like Trump being the US president for another 4 years was an existential threat, so I devoted a lot of my energy towards making sure he wasn’t. I began to engage more with social media, I met and volunteered with the Sunrise Movement, and I started to think about launching a website and online gallery that highlighted artists who created works with environmental and social commentary. 

So, I got super behind on my course work. Which, in hindsight, was not surprising considering I was also enrolled in the maximum of 15 credits (9 is a full load) and they were primarily quantitative classes. I was enrolled in financial risk analysis for water resource development, microeconomics for public policy, geospatial analysis, along with others. I loved all of my classes. I loved my professors, and my peers. I loved being back in an academic environment, where everyone was focused on answering similar questions, and solving the same problems. Everyone was so different, but we had the same goals – to make the world, for humans, other beings, and the earth itself, a better place.

But I got too behind, and my professor, Dr. Characklis – thank you for your gentleness and support – suggested that I take a break. I hadn’t even considered it. But, as soon as he said, Hey, grad school will always be here, it felt like an elephant had stepped off my chest, and the anxious clouds of spinning thoughts cleared enough for me to see what my life could look like without graduate school, and it looked beautiful.

Here is the thing. I wasn’t supposed to be in grad school. I had wanted to play soccer abroad for another 2-3 years after my contract ended with the Reign, and I had intended to work in the ‘real world’ for at least a year or two after soccer. A mental health crisis and COVID had, for all intents and purposes, forced me to apply to grad school.

So, after a lot of hard conversations, I withdrew.

Around this period, almost everyone in my immediate family had become convinced that I was manic and needed to be medicated. Which, yes, I was trending manic without a doubt. Remember that massive dose of antidepressants I was on for too long? Yeah. Not to mention the excitement surrounding a new graduate school program and being ecstatic to be alive after months of being suicidal. I felt like I was over-caffeinated all the time. I was sleeping 4-5 hours a night. I have never done cocaine, but I assume it would be a similar experience.

As soon as grad school was removed from my plate, I felt myself coming back down. I tried to make an argument that I should wait to start a new medication and see how my body and brain responded to removing a huge anxiety inducer in my life, but everyone was like THAT’S THE MANIA TALKING. I remained defiant until 1) my brother started having his own intense anxiety around my non-medicated anxiety, and 2) my doctor made it clear that the medicine was designed to prevent me from entering another cycle of suicidal depression. I was like, k, fine, give me the pills.

I am still on the bipolar medication, which is evidence that dealing with mental health is a life-long journey. Because I am the happiest I’ve ever been. And yet, I am still medicated, and I do not know if I truly bipolar or if I am prone to unipolar depression and had an episode of mania spiked by being on my antidepressant for too long. We shall see.

So. What am I doing with my life now?

Like I said, I am the happiest I have ever been. Once you have been suicidal, you have a new appreciation for what life-or-death feels like, and suddenly, you take everything else a little less seriously, including yourself.

I truly did everything I could to make sure Trump wasn’t re-elected.

I took care of my mental health by surfing, skateboarding, playing pick-up soccer, meditating, doing yoga, and creating art.

I started building out my personal website, schuylerdebree.com.

Basically, every day, I got to wake up and do whatever felt right for my body and mind. What a concept right?

I was also making new connections, all the time. Similar to the pregnancy glow, I would like to propose a new concept: the post-suicidal-ideation-for-months-of-hell glow. If you ask the people that I have met and interacted with over the past few months, they would likely tell you I am one of the most social people they have ever met. But I identify as an introvert. I tend to prefer trees and dogs to people. But I guess I have been radiating let’s talk about how beautiful and interesting life is energy, because that is what I have been doing, with a lot of incredible humans.

AND, that brings me to what I hope this next chapter of my life is going to hold.

I want to help change how humanity relates to the rest of the natural world.

I will be working on a few part-time projects including content creation for Soccer.com and Hidden Forest. I will also work on a variety of freelance projects with my partner and amazingly talented videographer/ photographer/ storyteller, Connor Guest. I am also playing with the idea of coming back to professional soccer, and I do plan on re-enrolling part-time in graduate school eventually. I like the idea of turning my masters into a PhD one day too.

 I wanna do all the things.

Okay, if you have made it all the way here, 1) wow, I appreciate you and 2) mad respect for your attention span.

All of this is me. This is me being vulnerable because I have been vulnerable for months now, and I have been rewarded with nothing but love, respect, and support.

I hope that you will give me feedback or ask any questions if you have them. I hope that you will join me in making this world a little bit lighter, and a little bit more sustainable. I hope that you will be gentle with yourself and others, and give yourself the love that you need, and in turn, the world needs because we are all connected and inter-dependent.

Here’s to a new chapter, but here’s to the old ones too. Because I am alive and here and I am the best version of myself right now, solely because I went through hell and back to be here.

A huge thank you to my support system for making sure that I stayed.

To anyone who is struggling to stay – my heart hurts for you, but I love you, and I promise it will get better. Hold tight and please let me know if I can help.

I hope that my story is evidence that the darkest nights do eventually lead to a glorious sunrise.

Let’s make this day as beautiful as it can be.

If you or someone you know needs help,

call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at

800-273-TALK (8255)

You can also text a crisis counselor at 741741