Derrick Rose was in Chicago on Thursday for the upcoming All-Star Weekend, and during a panel discussion in Dorin Forum, located on the University of Illinois at Chicago, he touched on his level of mental health while growing up.
Rose grew up in the neighborhood of Englewood on Chicago’s South Side, and he said some of the things that he witnessed as a kid gave him mental trauma.
“When I was younger, we used to have a lot of things that used to happen in my house and on my block to where I kind of got PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) in a way,” he explained. “I’ll be downstairs in the basement doing something and I’d hear somebody playing upstairs and I’d run up there thinking somebody was bursting in our house about to attack my cousin.”
“This girl, she used to beat up everybody in the neighborhood, like she would beat up somebody and I would think they were coming back for revenge,” added Rose. “So any little bumps or sounds in the house, I’m scared, or at night I would hear something and get scared because I was thinking that these people came back.”
Elsewhere, during the panel discussion, Rose implied that being an NBA star isn’t cracked up to what he thought it would be, and he’s envious of those who can live a quieter life.
“I hate living with boundaries,” he said. “It kills me when I go on vacation and I just know people are chilling there as a dentist or somebody with a regular job.”
“They’re able to live the life to just walk around freely, and I’m jealous of that, because deep down I want that, but I can’t have it. So be careful for what you pray for because you’ll never know how it’ll turn out,” added Rose.
The 69th NBA All-Star Game will be on Sunday, Feb. 16., at Chicago’s United Center.
