Serena Williams reminds fans that everyone has bad days.
On Tuesday, the 23-time Grand Slam tennis player, 42, shared a comforting message about mental health on social media after letting her followers know she wasn’t feeling well.
“I’m not well today,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “And it’s okay not to be okay. No one is ok every day. If you are not well today, I am with you.”
“There’s always tomorrow 😘,” she added. “I love you.”
Below the post, several of Williams’ followers shared words of encouragement and praised her transparency.
“Thank you for speaking openly about your feelings. We appreciate your honesty. Please take care my champion,” one follower wrote, while another said: “Tomorrow is another day. Thank you for being a truly inspirational person.”
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Last year, Williams spoke candidly about her mental health during an interview with Selena Gomez for the singer’s mental health platform, Wondermind.
“Mental fitness for me is just really learning[ing] close,” Williams said. “And you know I did that years ago, before mental health was even a topic on everyone’s mind.”
“It was more like, okay, I’m shutting down today. Just subconsciously, it was something I’ve always done,” she continued. “Now that I know it’s really important to put yourself first, especially mentally, I always have moments of closure. I have serious boundaries and I don’t let anyone cross those boundaries.”
“It’s so important for me to make sure, every day, I’m on my period, like… it’s so bad, because I really don’t do anything for myself, I’m terrible at it! And I’ve said it over and over again – I’m working on it . But more or less, at least I’m prioritizing what I need to do,” Williams added before concluding, “And then when I’m off, I’m off .”
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Serena Williams.
Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty
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Williams has often been vocal about her mental health over the years, especially her struggles after giving birth to her daughter Alexis Olympia in 2017.
“Some days I cry,” she said TIME back in 2018. “I’m really sad. I had my downs.”
After giving birth to her daughter by emergency C-section, the athlete suffered a near-death experience that included a pulmonary embolism – which left her bedridden for the next six weeks. She stated that she couldn’t shake the feeling of sadness from there and that a battle with postpartum depression followed.
“Honestly, sometimes I still think I have to deal with it,” Williams admitted Harper’s Bazaar UK her struggles with postpartum depression. “I think people need to talk about it more because it’s almost like the fourth trimester, it’s part of pregnancy.
“I remember one day I couldn’t find Olympia’s bottle and I got so upset that I started crying… because I wanted to be perfect for her,” she added.
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