Shiffrin opens up about PTSD diagnosis on latest YouTube episode

Mikaela Shiffrin chronicled the trials and triumphs of her injury comeback on the latest episode of the U.S. ski team star’s YouTube series, “Moving Right Along.”

The 16-minute video was published on March 26, one day before the Edwards skier finished off her 2024-25 campaign with a slalom victory at the World Cup Finals in Sun Valley, Idaho. The fourth installment of season three highlights some of the mental and emotional challenges the sport’s all-time winningest athlete faced throughout a roller-coaster season.

After winning two of the first three races to start the season, Shiffrin crashed going for her 100th-career World Cup win in Killington, Vermont, on Nov. 30. The abdominal puncture wound required surgery and sidelined the skier for the much-anticipated women’s World Cup races in Beaver Creek in December. After a 60-day absence from the World Cup, the 30-year-old returned to the circuit and eventually competed at the World Championships in Saalbach, Austria, in February. But she declined her giant slalom start because of post-traumatic stress disorder.

“It’s been scary to experience these flashes of images of crashing … not knowing what they were when I was feeling them,” Shiffrin said in a clip from Feb. 17, five days after her official PTSD diagnosis.

The episode shows Shiffrin meeting with a psychologist on Feb. 12.

“I think it’s important that we understand what’s happening and have words for it and continue to treat it and not just have it be some, ‘oh I’m having difficulty coping,'” the psychologist said in the video.

Shiffrin described having “visions” while skiing.

“They’re like flashes,” she said. “It’s not necessarily the crash from Killington, but it’s the same sort of experience. Like, the sort of tunnel vision, looking through goggles.”

Shiffrin said she’d imagine herself blowing through the fencing or crashing into the trees.

“That has really forced me to pull back and not want to take on the speed,” she admitted.

On Jan. 30, Shiffrin placed 10th in a slalom in Courchevel, France, in her first race back on the World Cup. Because she cut the world championships GS, the door opened for her to contest the new Team Combined event. Before committing to the two-person slalom/downhill, Shiffrin said she was compelled to touch base with Breezy Johnson, her presumed teammate.

“I need her to understand where I’m at in order to understand what the possibilities for this event are,” Shiffrin said. “Because if she’s going to be going into this expecting a medal, I don’t think I can give her that.”

Shiffrin proceeded to read a text message from Johnson, who had won gold in the downhill three days before the Team Combined. Johnson told Shiffrin she would be honored to be her teammate, but to not feel any pressure to commit.

“I would love to give you the opportunity to check out the slalom hill and have some fun, if you want. But I know you’ve been through a lot this year,” Johnson’s text read. “Do what feels right for you and don’t decide now, but know that I don’t expect anything from you. You are a warrior and it’s hard to mentally and physically come back from injury midseason. I support you no matter what.”

The pair, who bonded over their Atomic ski support as 12 and 13-year-old roommates earlier in their careers, ended up winning the gold medal.

Dr. Turner Lisle, head of trauma and robotic surgery at Vail Health, appears in the episode to discuss Shiffrin’s injury and subsequent December surgery in Vail.

“This was really an unprecedented injury in this level of an athlete,” he stated. “I see oblique tears all the time, but with a stab wound, along with the associated significant muscular trauma, coming millimeters from puncturing her colon, the initial treatment I thought was going to be pretty conservative.”

U.S. Ski Team VP of high performance, Gillian Bower, said she assumed the Nov. 30 crash would be a “season-ending injury.” She also pointed out the psychological component to Shiffrin’s comeback.

“I think the mental aspect of return is the least predictable portion of returning an athlete to sport,” Bower said. “Which is why it’s really important to have a solid team around an athlete.”

Shiffrin captured her 100th win in Sestriere, Italy on Feb. 23 before closing the season with a podium in Are, Sweden on March 9 and her 101st victory in Sun Valley. Lisle said he never doubted Shiffrin’s tenacity and ability to come back.

“After everything she went through with this injury and what I saw her overcome during the recovery — from the dressing changes to the wound vac changes to the surgical recovery, wrapped up all with such tremendous focus in the gym — I can say the 100th win really wasn’t much of a surprise to be honest,” he said. “I knew she had it in her from the first day I met her in December.”

Staring down an Olympic year, Shiffrin said the entire ordeal has given her upcoming prep season “so much direction.” Her overarching philosophy of sport seems to have matured as well.

“It’s not the most simple thing to say, ‘it should just be fun,'” Shiffrin said near the end of the episode. “Doing this when it’s hard is what gets you to the place where you’re doing it because it’s fun. You don’t get to have the good and fun and enjoyable and easy days without the hard days when you don’t fully understand why you’re there.”