Mental health has long lived in the shadows of sports culture. The World Health Organization has reported that one in four people will be affected by a mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lives. Though it's one of the most common global health issues, it's one of the least understood.

Helping this understanding are some elite athletes opening up about their personal struggles with depression, anxiety and panic attacks. Their stories – often written in their own words – outline the shame, confusion and powerlessness of their experiences. They also reveal how they came to understand their mental illness, and how it reshaped their sense of self.

Below are some of the athletes who have opened up about dealing with mental health problems in 2018.

NFL's Steve Smith Senior: ‘What's wrong with me?'

In his 16 years in the NFL, wide receiver Steve Smith Sr. had 81 touchdowns, more than 14,000 receiving yards and made five Pro Bowls. Despite these achievements, he writes “I routinely felt trapped, inferior and alone. This overwhelmed me internally and often left me mentally, physically and emotionally broken.”

Writing on NFL.com in August this year, Smith describes his ongoing experience with depression. “Throughout much of my life, unhappiness, constant self-criticism and an inability to let old blunders go weighed so heavily on my mind.”

When his team won the conference championship game in 2003, Smith said, “We earned the opportunity to become world champions, but in that victory, I felt defeated.” Like many other people, he asked, “What's wrong with me?”

Smith started seeing a counselor in 2013 and says the experience has helped him understand his “inner battle,” something that he constantly fights with. “I needed someone to help me comprehend how my mind deals with disappointment, grief, failure…and, most importantly, how to prohibit that critical voice inside my head from defining who I am on an everyday basis.”

Serena Williams: ‘Postpartum emotions'

After having her first child in September 2017, Serena Williams wrote in an Instagram post this year that there are times when she feels like she's not a good mom.

Reflecting on an experience shared by many mothers, Williams talked about the challenges in balancing the needs of a new child with her career. “… Although I have been with her every day of her life, I'm not around as much as I would like to be. Most of you moms deal with the same thing. Whether stay-at-home or working, finding that balance with kids is a true art.”

Deliberately avoiding the medical term “postpartum depression,” Williams said she was dealing with “postpartum emotions.” Explaining her choice of words to Australian parenting site MamaMia, Williams said, “I felt like it was really important to talk about because a lot of people feel like the word depression is bad and just because you're going through things, doesn't necessarily mean it's depression…I thought it was important to say something that a lot of people could relate to and understand.”

Kevin Love: ‘Everyone is going through something we can't see'

During a basketball game in November last year, Kevin Love ran back to the locker room. Sensing that something was physically wrong with him, he writes, “I was running from room to room, like I was looking for something I couldn't find. Really I was just hoping my heart would stop racing. It was like my body was trying to say to me, you're about to die. I ended up on the floor in the training room, lying on my back, trying to get enough air to breathe.”

This ended up being a panic attack. And when it was over, Love was left struggling with what it meant and why he didn't want to talk about it. “I remember thinking, what are my problems? I'm healthy. I play basketball for a living. What do I have to worry about? I'd never heard of any pro athlete talking about mental health, and I didn't want to be the only one. I didn't want to look weak.”

Since this story was published in March this year, Love has openly discussed his experience dealing with anxiety, including seeing a psychologist. Overcoming his fear of being perceived as weak, Love's voice has become one of the strongest on the issue of mental health.

Quoting Demar Rozan, another NBA player who has spoken out about depression, Love says, “Everyone is going through something that we can't see… The thing is, because we can't see it, we don't know who's going through what and we don't know when and we don't always know why. Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another. It's part of life."

(Top photo: Kevin Love #0 of the Cleveland Cavaliers shoots the ball against the Golden State Warriors in Game Four of the 2018 NBA Finals, June 8, 2018, at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. / VCG Photo)