Danni Di Toro speaks openly on World Mental Health Day

This year’s World Mental Health Day comes at a time when lives have changed considerably as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

We spoke to National Squad Member and Athlete Wellbeing Officer for the Australian Paralympic Team Danni Di Toro about how sport has played a role in keeping mentally well.

TTA:Danni, it’s great to chat to you today. Thank you for giving us your time today.

DDT: It’s a pleasure, thank you for raising awareness around a really important issue.

TTA: The last six months have been a really interesting time, not just for athletes aiming for Tokyo, but for the world in adjusting to a new normal. How has it been for you?

DDT: It’s been really up and down for everyone over the last six months, and I think it’s really important for everyone to recognise that even though there might be people out there that have gone through something more than you have, it’s okay to take time to come to terms with your own situation and adjust to this new reality.

TTA: You’re based in Melbourne, which is a city arguably that has some of toughest lockdown laws across the world. How are you dealing with it, and what are some of the things you’ve done to ensure you’re keeping as mentally healthy as possible?

DDT: In my role as Athlete Wellbeing Officer at Paralympics Australia, I spend a lot of time making sure athletes are doing what they can to keep as mentally well as possible, even before the pandemic.

I’m a true believer in focussing on the things you can control. This whole time has been very much been very much around taking a few steps back and seeing why I do what I do and what are the really little things that I can improve. So this time, our second lockdown, I’m trying to control really little things like, can I sleep better? Can I get my general level of pain under control? Can I meditate more? It sounds so basic but they’re the things that if I know I can do them, it will improve me as a person, which will therefore improve me as an athlete.

TTA: Tell us about how sport has played a role in keeping you mentally fit.

DDT: Sport definitely plays into it. The thing about Covid-19 is that it really reminds me of how important my physical health and my mental health both are. It’s not just looking after my mental health and not just looking after my physical health, but seeing the importance of both of those.

Certainly in the early days as a kid growing up, sport was a place to put frustration. I originally played wheelchair tennis, and that was a place to put all of the things that I felt like I couldn't control into a ball. If I could hit it hard, then that was a great release of energy in a way that was safe and useful and actually quite fun.

During my accident, sport was then used as a place to regain control, where you regain independence, where you gain a sense of community and feel more like I'm not defined by my disability, that actually it's now an opportunity, that it's now a vehicle to meet myself into and to explore the world and my place in it.

TTA: Tell us what it’s like for you when you’re able to put all your mental health tools into place.

As an athlete, when I’m in a good place, then all of the things that I’ve been working on have a free flow around them, and I’m able to actually be all of the things that I’ve worked to be. That also translates out of the sporting space. That’s as a partner, a friend, a colleague. In every part of my life, when I’m able to spend time that is valuing and supporting my mental health, everything else is easier to manage.

It doesn’t mean the tough times don’t come. I have a fair amount of anxiety that I’ve experienced over the last 20 years and I’ve found ways that help me manage them. But when I work on my mental health, when you’re aware of what your triggers are, then you’re able to activate plans a bit earlier.

The real important thing about mental health is knowing yourself and being able to respond appropriately so that you don’t get into a spiral so that when the days that are difficult come, you’re able to manage them because you’ve caught them early enough. Those days don’t last quite as long as they used to when I wasn’t talking about them, when I was just soldiering on and just getting over it, or toughening up.

TTA: Danni, before your table tennis career took off, you were world number one in a different sport – wheelchair tennis. Tell us about your mental health journey in the earlier years of your career?

DDT: Honestly, when I was number one in the world and speaking openly about feeling pressure or feeling overwhelmed, there was nothing in place to help me. I appreciate that part of your own mental health is when you understand where you're at, to be able to then tap into the resources and the people around you, and to be able to actively do that. That's a real piece that's important.

But often when you're feeling pretty stressed, strung out, burnt out, depressed, anxious, it's a real stretch to reach out. You have to really remind yourself of the value and the importance of it, because when you're right in it, it's often the last thing you want to do, but it's actually the first thing you should do.

When I was reaching out, that's the things I was getting, and what that reminded me to do really early on was to find people that that was a safe place to do that. So I've worked really hard to have, within my team, people that are really have around me who know and understand me, and that's a really useful thing.

Becoming number one and doing that for a number of years and being on the road so much, that definitely has created a level of burnout times in my life where it's really negatively impacted. That was back in a time when you had those conversations, it wasn't necessarily dealt with appropriately.

I feel confident that if I would have that conversation with my coach now, that wouldn't be the same response. And I know that's the case, because I've had those conversations with my team and I've had lots of things put around me.

I've utilised all of those things and I feel really grateful for it. For me, I need to be active. I need to be sweating. I need to move. They're good drugs that get released into my brain.

Sport is a really great way for me to focus my mind and use my body in a way that's really useful for it. It keeps me fit. It keeps me connected to other people, and I think that's the biggest thing for me, actually. Number one is great. You test yourself. You see what's possible. There's lots of learning in that about who I am, but I think the greatest thing I've received from being an athlete is community.

It's difficult to speak about in such a knowing way with other people. But there's a difference when you're talking about things to people that have really just been there and lived it besides you, and as I'm growing older and we're all experiencing different ways that our bodies are breaking down, that becomes an even more valuable community because there's another level of that depression, that kind of an anxiety that happens post sport where you're not as fit, you're not as independent, you're not as connected to community.

All those great benefits you get from being physically active removed because your level of activity isn't the same, often because whatever injury, illness, there's lots of reasons, and that's when community becomes an even more important part to connect to and learn from and share with.

TTA: Speaking of community, tell us about the Table Tennis community and how it’s helped put you in a really good place mentally.

DDT:It starts back when I was still competing in wheelchair tennis. The lead up to London 2012 was really challenging. I had my first major injury. My whole career was my thirties, and it was a really, it was a big injury that I needed a long time to recover from and really just pushed myself to be ready for London.

By the time London finished, I was not in a very good place, and had found myself pretty spent on a number of levels. But my immune system was actually really struggling, and every part of my being was really fatigued and burnt. After I came back from London, I actually had a bad burn that put me out of action for a year and a half.

At that point, when I had this burn, it was like a second degree burn that ... Man, I had to lie down!

I wasn't able to sit up. 20 minutes a day was the most I could sit up. For around eight months, there was a time there where I was hardly up at all, and that was probably the lowest mentally that I've been in. I knew that I was going to heal and things were going to be okay, but there were moments there where I'm like, I wonder if this is part of the first start where things could go down for me mentally.

By the time I was able to sit up for more than an hour, I was starting to think about how I can get into activity again, and it took about a year before I could actually sit up and do that for an hour, and table tennis was perfect. It was an environment that was very controlled, and I just found myself around incredible people. People who were really welcoming and insanely supportive and super friendly.

Other than Melissa Tapper, other than literally at a Paralympic games, I didn't know anyone from the table tennis community, but the people I met were just really open, really warm, really friendly, and super encouraging.

TTA: How so?

DDT:I was nothing and no one. People didn't know anything about me. They just was like, "Oh, there's a chick in a wheelchair. How nice. But she's here. And she's played tennis, clearly I can see that because she's got a terrible forehand and kind of an okay backhand.”

It was very clear that whether you knew anything about me or not, that I wasn’t great. But I've only ever felt incredibly welcomed, and from the get go, I was very open with them around, I'm here to enjoy sport. I'm using it as rehabilitation. At that point, I really appreciated that I've been out of game. I wasn't intending to retire from tennis, but my goal that year, 2013, was to play this tournament I liked, stay in the top eight, practice more Chinese medicine and find a really nice balance that worked for me.

I've just found myself in a great place, and I'm really incredibly grateful for it. I feel like coaches in this sport, particularly Alois (Rosario, TTA Para Head Coach) and Maggie (Meng), the assistant coach, and Sue (Stevenson, Para High Performance Manager). I've never seen a sport that operate like this. With the lack of funding they have, they're able. And it comes from a place of putting the athlete first.

TTA: To finish off today, tell us about why it’s so important to have a conversation about mental health?

There's lots of reasons. But I think for me, when I speak about where I'm at, it provides a mirror. It absolutely from the get go reduces stigma around it. It says, "This is my experience. This is my honest place that I'm at."

And by talking about it, you're not just creating the story in your own head, you're giving it air and space for you then to hear even how it sounds and start thinking about what next steps might be. You open yourself to the opportunity for someone to provide support, to even an ear, just a space to hold, a space for you while you're exploring that.

People need tools. People, when you're in a space and you've got, say you're managing your anxiety or your depression, but you've not reached out to anyone professionally. Then you're just trying to work with the tools that you have, and there are really awesome, useful tools out there. So it isn't until you speak about them that you're able to learn brand new tools or ways that are really useful for you. So you don't know what you don't know, and also there's a stigma around, "Well, it's yours. You should be able to deal with it." But if you're not a specialist in this field, why would you do that? It's easy to go, "Well, I'll be fine," or, "I'll treat it in another way."

Sport is a really useful way, but there's a point where it's really important to let people in. For me, as someone with a disability, that's been a real battle is to let people in. The idea is that in my mind, I'm independent. I can do it myself. I don't need any help. Pretty stubborn, and if I have reached out, I've maybe not gotten the help or the support that I've wanted, and so then that's kept me back into that conversation of, I don't need it.

But that becomes its own burden, and it becomes really tiring. The minute that you're able to actually bring someone in, you acknowledge that you can't do it all yourself. We're not super independent as we like to think. We think we're these independent human beings, but I live in a house that I didn't build, I sleep on a bed that I didn't make. I use a wheelchair that I didn't create.

I think the toughest thing about mental health is when you think you're the only one going through that, and that people couldn't possibly understand what you're going through. You feel really isolated, and that's the worst thing is the isolation and the hopelessness and helplessness.

But the moment that you speak, you start breaking down even some of your own misconceptions or own stigmas around how you're experiencing your own mental health. So you can't move through that unless you put it outside of yourself, and that's the key. Keep speaking until you find the right to speak to. I think sometimes that takes time.

TTA: Thank you for being so open and honest with us today Danni. We really appreciate your time.

DDT:My absolute pleasure. As I said, mental health awareness is something I’m really passionate about. It’s important for me to share my story so others can relate and identify and take action to look after themselves in a similar way.

Table Tennis Australia is an advocate for keeping mentally well, supporting R U OK? Day through its Table Tennis Corporate Cup program. Show your support at: http://ow.ly/jTsT50BLtqt