Skier Drew Petersen on shredding powder and stigmas around mental health

Ffrom the outside, Drew Petersen is living the dream. As a professional skier, he gets paid to travel the world, skiing powder and making turns in front of a camera. It is the life that children dream of, but it is not the whole truth.

Petersen, 30, has had a lifelong battle with mental health, nearly taking his own life several times before seeking help. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder type two, PTSD, depression, suicidal ideation and post-concussion syndrome. With the support of a therapist, EMDR treatments and brain rehabilitation, Petersen took a new path and started talking about his struggles.

Petersen grew up in Silverthorne, Colorado, a small town of 4,940 located between Vail and Breckenridge, in the heart of the Rockies. Because his father worked as a ski instructor, Petersen was “pretty much born on a pair of skis,” he says. His parents chose the city for skiing and helped Petersen and his older brother make their first turns when they were just a year and a half old.

“My upbringing was guided by the mountains,” says Petersen. He lived next to the Gore Range and fell in love with skiing while chasing his father and brother around the mountain. Petersen attended public school and played team sports, such as football. “Life was pretty normal. I was extremely nerdy and had perfectionist tendencies. I tried to excel in school and skiing so people wouldn’t see what was wrong in my head.”

When he was 15 years old, Petersen competed in his first ski race, the US Extremes in Crested Butte. “I got second place and beat some guys I had seen in magazines,” Petersen said. The next weekend he won a race in Taos and not long after that he landed his first sponsorship. The following season he made Powder Magazine, putting him on a fast track to stardom.

Despite the accolades and attention, Petersen was struggling internally. “I had a lot of concussions when I was young, all the way back to grade school,” he says. “Brain injury does not cause psychological disorders, but it can worsen them. They overlapped with episodes of depression and my earliest thoughts of suicide. The spiral fed itself. If you can’t get out of bed, you can’t fix anything.”

Meanwhile, his success on skis continued. Petersen won competitions, secured larger sponsorships and made a name for himself in leading magazines. After high school, he moved to Salt Lake to attend the University of Utah, where he spent most of his free time skiing in the Wasatch Mountains.

“From primary school my dream was to become a professional skier,” says Petersen, “in college that dream started to become a reality, until the crash.” Petersen landed awkwardly while doing a cork 720, dislocating his hip and shoulder, tearing his ACL and breaking his sacrum and ribs, requiring him to be moved home for help. “To be 19 and have your mom help you in the shower is super humiliating.”

With multiple surgeries and a two-year recovery, Petersen lost all his sponsors, but he continued to chase the dream. He returned to the sport and found success again, driven by his passion for skiing.

Years later, Petersen would discover that this high-low roller coaster was due to bipolar disorder type 2. “It’s defined by hypomania. Lots of energy, no sleep, lots of partying and doing things with a high focus, like skiing,” he says. “Then a crash and a long episode of depression, which can last months.”

The cycle repeated itself again and again. “I would spend all night cramming for tests, passing an exam and then drinking hard, then waking up early the next morning to chase the snow. Eventually I would burn out. These were the breaking points of the manic episodes. My physical body would break under the mental and emotional trauma I was experiencing.” As a result, Petersen has undergone thirteen operations in his life.

In May 2017, Petersen rode at a high level again. During the winter he starred in ski films, traveled to British Columbia, Japan and Kyrgyzstan, and made more money than ever before. But during a ski trip to Mount Hood in Oregon, he was hit in the head by a falling rock and survived only thanks to his helmet.

Immediately after the accident, Petersen told everyone around him that he was doing well, but he knew this time was different. “I had been hiding my struggles all my life, riding the highs and ignoring the lows,” says Petersen. “Before the accident, my thoughts weren’t so bad that I got scared. I thought about suicide, but knew I wouldn’t do it. That may be difficult for some to understand.”

That changed with his near-death experiences on Hood. “I started to wonder why I was still alive. I didn’t think about death in a philosophical way, but in a real way. I knew something was seriously wrong.”

In August 2018, more than a year after the cliffs fell, Petersen finally asked for help. “I spiraled and my body broke down from the mental trauma.” After breaking his collarbone in a fall, Peterson called his mother and brother to tell them he was going through a hard time and asked them to hold him accountable for finding professional help.

Soon after, Petersen found a therapist who he still sees. Over the next two years, he began exploring different diagnoses and providers. He would eventually undergo EMDR treatments, brain rehabilitation, and physical therapy for back pain and migraines. “I didn’t know there were so many ways to help yourself,” he says. “There is a resource for every problem you are dealing with. They may feel abstract, but they all help in some form. Just drop out at every level.”

After years of work, Petersen has found a new lease on life. “I have my oxygen mask on and can now help others,” he explains. Through years of reflection, he realized that many factors played a role in why it was so difficult to share his struggles with others. Shame rooted in suicidal thoughts, depression and mental health issues was the main reason, but so was a social dynamic of toxic positivity.

“My role models growing up never showed vulnerability,” Petersen says. “They chased the highs of skiing and went down the mountain without ever showing weakness. It was just a good atmosphere.”

The downside to just good vibes is that you have to be excited all the time. The mindset doesn’t take into account the hard, messy, and complicated parts of life. But, says Petersen, “sometimes I’m not happy. Sometimes I don’t live the dream, and that’s okay. We need to give people the opportunity to show up in a real way.”

To change that, someone has to open the door for others. “I’ve been put on so many pedestals because of how good I am at sliding in the snow, but why can’t we also celebrate the people who talk about hard things?” Petersen is determined to share his story because, he says, “with vulnerability comes vulnerability.”

“Other people’s stories contributed to my courage to ask for help,” says Petersen. “Rob Krar talked about depression and the fact that Corey Richards shared his experiences with EMDR showed me that you can recover. They were raw, authentic and vulnerable. They went deeper than just saying there were mental health issues. That’s why I talk about suicide. So people like me know they are not alone.”

While sharing his struggle is still difficult, Petersen believes this will create more vulnerability in our communities and the future generation. “I’m safe with where I am. If I lose sponsorship by talking, that’s fine with me. If my truth doesn’t resonate with someone, or if they see me as inferior, I won’t stop. People need the truth.”