Johnson 'better than ever' after therapy

Depression, anxiety compel Rays infielder to enter clinic, where he resets priorities.

By MARC TOPKIN, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times
published August 14, 2002

ST. PETERSBURG -- With nowhere else to go, with nothing else to do, Russ Johnson lay down on the Baton Rouge, La., hospital bed and cried.

He had left the Rays a few days earlier after several episodes of erratic behavior. He had gone home to his family, but that didn't make him, or his worried relatives, feel any better. At the urging of his mother and his wife, he agreed to be admitted to a hospital and be seen by a psychiatrist.

"The lowest point was when my wife and family left me at that clinic that they put me in," Johnson said. "That's when I knew, here I am amongst normal people. I was in California playing the (Anaheim) Angels -- believe that -- then I'm in some medical place in Baton Rouge laying on my face crying."

It turned out, Johnson said Tuesday, to be the best thing that could have happened.

After three weeks of treatment for what he said was severe depression and related anxiety, Johnson claims he has never felt better.

"I feel totally different today than I did," he said. "I'm doing better than ever."

Johnson, who left the team July 6 in Anaheim, today will start working his way back into shape at the minor-league complex with hopes of making a few appearances for Orlando and Durham and rejoining the Rays in September.

He does so, he says, with a different view of life.

For too long, Johnson said, baseball had improperly been his No. 1 priority; "basically it was my God." Now it is third, behind his faith and his family.

It was those misaligned priorities, along with his overly competitive nature and a departure from his Christian faith, that he said led to his problems. It was not, he said, any type of problem with alcohol or drugs.

"I just didn't know who I was as far as as a person," he said. "I just lost it as a person."

Johnson said Dr. Gerald C. Heintz told him the first thing he had to do was address the problem. That meant two weeks living at the Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, listening to Heintz and sharing his innermost feelings in group therapy sessions.

Johnson was treated initially for high blood pressure but said there were no other medical issues. He said he took anti-depressant medication for one day but didn't like the way it made him feel drowsy and convinced the doctor he could work through the issues on his own.

"I felt it was spiritual with me," Johnson said. "My mind was so cluttered with so much mess from things I'd seen and heard and done, it got to the point where I was overwhelmed. I didn't know who I was. I lost my face. And I'm learning as I go."

Johnson acknowledges that he can't explain exactly what happened: "It was just a form of depression that was causing the mental breakdown as far as the confusion and personality swings and all that." Nor can he succinctly describe how he has recovered. It is not that simple.

He talked repeatedly Tuesday about understanding that he is not in control of anything, not even "my next breath," but he also said he is trying to open himself to other things, such as reading books for the first time in his life.

Johnson said he first realized he must have been acting strangely in June when he noticed teammates reacting differently to him.

"I could tell people were looking at me like, "This ain't you. Why are you saying the things you're saying?' I think it just opened my eyes that I wasn't being myself," Johnson said. "And then it just progressively got worse. I started to try to do more to show, "Hey, that's not really me. This is who I am.' I tried to lie and fake it more and it just got worse."

Eventually, with the support of his family, he realized he had to do something: "Do I live the rest of my life running around like this not knowing who I am? Or do I walk away from the thing I love more than anything for 29 years and try to figure out what the deal is? That's the step I took, and it's the best steps I've probably ever taken."

Johnson's behavior became an issue on the team's July 4 flight from Texas to California, where he was said to be abusive and confrontational, instigating several incidents. His erratic behavior continued the next day in Anaheim, leading to his departure for what were said to be "personal reasons."

Manager Hal McRae said team officials were scared and concerned at the time but now understand what led to Johnson's actions. "We reassured him that he was not responsible," McRae said. "We were confused because we didn't know what was going on, but once we realized that he was okay and what was going on, everything was forgotten."

Johnson at first was skeptical about the benefits of psychiatric treatment "like what is this? ... What am I going here? ... I don't need to go here."

But once he started listening, he found that it worked.

Then he found something else.

"I found myself," he said. "Sitting in there, by myself, all alone. That's where I found myself."