Petria Thomas

Born in Lismore, NSW, on 25 August 1975
Elite Athlete – Swimming

Over the course of her swimming career, despite recurrent illness and injury, Petria Thomas won 3 Olympic Gold Medals, 3 World Championships, 9 Commonwealth Games Gold Medals, 13 Australian Championships, and 3 Pan Pacific Gold Medals. Her tally of eight Olympic medals (three gold, four silver, one bronze) is the best ever for an Australian woman, equal with Dawn Fraser and Susie O’Neill. She was inducted into the Australian Institute of Sport Swimming Hall of Fame in 1996, and was crowned the AIS Athlete of the Year in 2001 and 2002, and awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2005.

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Petria Thomas was known as the ‘Queen of Butterfly’ and admired by millions for her achievements in the pool.   However, the general public did not know what great achievements they actually were as Petria had battled debilitating depression during her career. 
 

Here Petria talks about her experience:
 

'Hopeless' Thomas reveals drug overdose
(June 29, 2005 – Sydney Morning Herald)
 

Triple Olympic gold medallist PetriaThomas overdosed on non-prescription pills in the lead-up to her first Olympic medal win in 1996 because she had lost hope, passion and focus in her life.

"I just felt hopeless, I felt useless as a person, I didn't see a future and I was only young at the time," the now 29-year-old told ABC Radio.

"Even though I had my swimming, my shoulders were starting to hurt at that stage.
"In a sense, swimming is all I felt like I had in my life.

"If I wasn't swimming I didn't know what the hell else I was supposed to be doing, so that scared me.

"Whether it was right to feel that way or not, that's the way I felt at the time and it was tough to get through but I just took each day at a time and tried to make the most of it."

Thomas speaks about her fight against depression in the intimate biography Petria Thomas: Swimming Against the Tide by Andy Shea, to be released on Friday.

The book includes interviews with family, colleagues and coaches, as well as Thomas's diary entries.

She said the depression hit hard in 1994 when she moved away from her family to the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) in Canberra.

She was 19, lonely and coping with injuries and the growing pressures of international competition.

In a cry for help, she took an overdose of paracetamol tablets, which led to her stomach being pumped.

"It was almost 10 years ago and it was only for a two-year period or so," she said.

"I think I was just at that age where I had moved away from home, I was in a new environment and I was just trying to find my way, find where I fit into everything.

"I don't think I was a lot different to a lot of kids my age.

"But I'm a very emotional person and I probably took things to heart a bit more than I should have.

"It was a tough time for me and obviously, it was very private to me at the time.
"I just needed to get through it and I took each day at a time.

"There were some bad days, there were some good days, it wasn't all bleak and horrible.

"But I get down on myself very easily and at that time in my life I was questioning everything that I did.

"I didn't think I was good enough and I took it all to heart a bit much."

Thomas said it was difficult to talk about her depression in the book because she did not want old wounds to surface.

"No one likes to remember things that are bad in their life and I suppose I sort of put them out of my memory and moved on with everything," she said.

"It was a bit hard going through and reading some of my old journals and things. It made me cringe a little bit to actually think I was actually feeling that way at some stage in my life.

"But that was just a small part of my journey.

"I learned a lot from it. I became a stronger person because of it and I'm much happier at the other end."

The full article is available on the web at:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/hopeless-thomas-reveals-drug-overdose/2005/06/29/1119724670090.html 

 
 

Here Petria talks about how support helped her through difficult times and has thrown her support behind the RUOK? Day:
(10 September 2009 – The Daily Telegraph)
 

ON THE surface, swimmer Petria Thomas is someone who worked hard to achieve goals as a national champion.

But under the confident veneer of an elite athlete Thomas had a darker side.
Unbeknown to the country which embraced her exploits for a decade, the darling of the pool often had bouts of debilitating depression.

Thomas backed a new initiative to get Australians talking to each other.

RUOK? Day aims to connect workmates, friends and family with a simple message – call someone you know who might be having a hard time and ask if they're OK.

Thomas recalled how that support helped her through a difficult period.

Her move from the northern NSW town of Mullumbimby to Canberra's Australian Institute of Sport in her final school year was hard, with rigorous training and high school studies proving tough for the retiring country girl.

"I was at the AIS and it was a long process to realise I wasn't enjoying anything and then work on trying to change that," the winner of 15 national titles and three Olympic golds said.

"I was lucky that I had some good people around me there to help. I had a great psychologist and I felt safe talking to him. He wasn't going to judge me or wasn't going to think any worse of me for anything that I told him.

"That's where I think RUOK? Day is a great idea. When people are going through tough times they sometimes don't talk to others because they think they're going to burden or worry them.

"But someone who you can talk to is a great thing," she said.

The full article is available on the web at:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/depression-haunts-aussie-swimmer-petria-thomas/story-e6freuy9-1225771265661

 

Petria Thomas is now retired from swimming and residing with her husband Julian and children, Aiden and Zara, in Canberra.
 

In mid 2005, Petria Thomas released an autobiography, Swimming Against The Tide, in which she describes her career, including her experiences with depression and her injuries.
http://depressionet.org.au/books/swimming-against-the-tide/

 

Reviewed January 2011