Cavaliers' Kevin Love addresses mental health, panic attack

Kevin Love said he experienced a panic attack during a game in November that caused him to address his mental health.

The Cleveland Cavaliers All-Star forward wrote in an article published by the Players Tribune on Tuesday that he went to the hospital with shortness of breath and stomach pain on Nov. 5. The Cavaliers were playing at the Atlanta Hawks. Love left the game in the third quarter.

"It came out of nowhere. I'd never had one before," Love wrote. "I didn't even know if they were real. But it was real -- as real a broken hand or a sprained ankle. Since that day, almost everything about the way I think about my mental health has changed."

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Love later left a game in January that prompted a challenge from teammates as to legitimacy of what was described by the Cavaliers only as an "illness." According to reports, several players immediately questioned Love over his status and held a team meeting.

The meeting and reaction of teammates was not addressed in the article.

Love, 29, said part of his inspiration to open up about his issue was Toronto Raptors All-Star guard DeMar DeRozan admitting publicly that he suffers from depression.

"It really makes you think about how we are all walking around with experiences and struggles -- all kinds of things -- and we sometimes think we're the only ones going through them," Love wrote. "The reality is that we probably have a lot in common with what our friends and colleagues and neighbors are dealing with. Mental health is an invisible thing, but it touches all of us at some point or another. It's part of life. Like DeMar said, 'You never know what that person is going through.'"

--Field Level Media

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