One of the best football players in the NFL missed his chance to play in the Superbowl because he was hospitalized—not from injuries on the field but because of overwhelming depression. Barret Robbins, of the Los Angeles Raiders, was incoherent on the eve of the game, according to his coach. Robbins, who has a history of depression and bipolar disorder, had stopped taking his medication and was suicidal.
"You just cannot stop taking your meds," explains Rosalind Cartwright, Ph.D., specialist in depression and sleep disorders at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago. "He would have a rebound of symptoms." While medications can make a patient feel lethargic, sudden withdrawal is dangerous because the body is biologically adjusted to the meds.
