Camille Lacourt: Depression, "It can happen to anyone, listen to yourself"

Mental Health, Breaking the Taboo is the title of the documentary that will be broadcast Tuesday evening on M6, which brings together testimonies from celebrities and ordinary people. The objective: to better understand the mental health problems that affect millions of French people, whether it be depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Former elite swimmer Camille Lacourt is one of the athletes who agreed to speak out, alongside Yanick Noah, Florent Manaudou, and actor François Berléand.

Camille Lacourt has notably gone through two depressions, one of which was in 2012 after his failure at the 2012 Olympic Games. "I didn't realize it was one," he confided this Sunday on RMC . "At the time, we didn't talk about it much, I called it a difficult moment. I was a spectator of myself, it was very hard," he continued on Anaïs Matin .

As an athlete, he considered it "complicated to talk about it, especially for a high-level athlete, results are expected, we don't want to show this weak side", explains the man who is also involved in raising awareness against breast cancer, the cause of which he pleaded on RMC last October.

Her second depression came after her retirement from sport: "I no longer knew who I was, I no longer had a goal, what kind of human being I wanted to be," says Camille Lacourt, who admits to having had to overcome alcohol problems at that time.

"I realized that mental health is like a physical injury when you're an athlete. It can happen to anyone when you push yourself too far. I realized there's a balance to be had," he explains, "on both a personal and professional level."

"Today, everything is fine, I've grown, I try to listen to myself. When there are moments of doubt, when you start to ask yourself questions, there is a real reason, listen to yourself," says the former multiple world and European champion swimmer.

"This documentary – a true manifesto film – aims to change mentalities. It unvarnishedly exposes the weight of the gaze of others – whether familial, professional, or social – the shame of confiding one's suffering to those close to oneself, the mental barriers that one imposes on oneself," claims M6.

Recently, another media personality has highlighted a mental health problem, namely the journalist Nicolas Demorand, presenter of the France Inter morning show, after the publication of his book Intérieur nuit , in which he explains in the first sentence by saying "I am mentally ill."