Alexi Pappas has a complex relationship with depression. This is how Olympian deals with the 'metaphorical scratch on your brain'

By Kerry Flynn, CNN

Updated 0915 GMT (1715 HKT) May 30, 2022

Olympian and actress Alexi Pappas is a mental health advocate.

(CNN)Olympic distance runner Alexi Pappas describes herself as an «extremely motivated person,» and it would be difficult to disagree.

She is not only a professional athlete, but a filmmaker, actress and writer who lives with her husband Jeremy and their pug Bernini in Los Angeles. Her social media is overflowing with photos of herself sporting colorful outfits from her sponsor, Champion, in scenic places from the mountains of Colorado to the beaches in Greece, each one captioned with a poem she wrote herself. She comes across as bubbly, positive, creative, energetic… and all of those descriptors are true. Yet Pappas also happens to battle clinical depression. «Just like when you fall down and break a bone and your bone can heal over time, you can almost fall down and have a metaphorical scratch on your brain,» Pappas tells CNN. Read MoreShe firmly believes in the concept that mental health and physical health are one and the same. «The brain really is a body part and it can get injured just like any other body part, and it can heal or be managed just like any other body part,» says Pappas.«It's really hopeful to think about it that way, because I knew even though I wasn't going to feel better tomorrow, if I just focused on my actions, my thoughts and my feelings would change over time, just like a bone heals over time but not overnight.» After losing her mother to suicide when she was four years old, Pappas and her family knew she needed to get help when she was at her lowest. «I grew up really scared that if I was ever sad like her that I would… have to go,» says Pappas.Pappas competes in the