Zion Wright on expectations, pressure and mental wellness

Zion Wright: I feel like there's a lot of expectations, either I put on myself or whatever it is. You're curious, you wonder why you feel like this or why these things are the way they are. I would say definitely anxiety building up to it and just making sure you're prepped and you have everything in order, I feel like proper planning prevents poor performance. But sometimes not everything goes your way. So in that manner you got to look at it from a bigger perspective.

My early stages of really getting emotional was the whole Olympic stuff. I was going into that and really getting on board as far as with my skating, with my health, with my nutrition and all that to really go to the next level and take myself where I needed to be. So I feel like once I got all that stuff lined up in order, it was so good.

One morning I woke up to go train, but I had just got back from a short trip. I flew out of town for the weekend, came back and then was just kind of exhausted, but I was just like, fuck it. I'm going to get up, I'm going to go do this stuff do my workout and all this stuff. But it was weird. It was like I had knew I was going to win or just, I don't know. I just had this feeling and dude, I just broke down, started crying, got in the car, started crying.

Then I got to my workout and then just broke down and my trainer started crying. And it was like, I had a breakthrough. I was telling him, 'Yo, I'm not upset or sad or anything. I'm just having a breakthrough. I feel like at this moment in my life, I'm actually breaking through to something and just something I'm working towards and it actually feels like it's paying off.'

We're trying to put this role on and us being this tough. Trying to keep this role of not knowing that it's okay to feel those ways and it's okay to go through those type of things and speak about it. They're not the only ones, there's other people that's going through it. It's not really a thing as far as us men, but this is why we're here. This is why I want to be able to speak up on it.

There is a taboo of us just being like, 'Oh, we're going to see a therapist' or this and that. It's like at the end of the day, who cares what that person thinks of that? If you need to go speak to someone so you can be able to break through and get to that... to where you need to go as far as you feeling better, that shouldn't matter what someone thinks. It's about your wellbeing and you being okay and being able to be in your own skin.

Mental health is number one. If I'm not functioning good up here — up top — then I can't really function around other people or I feel like people shouldn't be around me in that manner because it's just not good. Our minds are a very powerful thing. We have tools now to help train our minds, to move and go to other places where it's light for us and it doesn't get dark.

I'm my own worst critic. When it comes to skateboarding, I feel like this is why skateboarding helps me be able to look at stuff differently. So it's like I'm envisioning and I'm knowing how I want to do stuff and break stuff down to the aspects or to where it's like if it doesn't work out or if it doesn't go the way I want it, I've just got to be able to pick myself up and be like, well, I can't control everything, I don't have superpowers.

Dude, when I'm just out skating or surfing with my homies. Just not even thinking about anything, just out there having fun, that's I feel like when I'm the most happy. No one's controlling me and telling me 'This is how I had to do this.' I go on my own freedom and push.

Don't wait. You can't wait. You can't hold it all in that long. You got to just speak up. Don't be scared to open up. No one's going to hurt you or look at you some type of way, because you have these feelings that you need to get out.