Otago Nuggets and former NBA centre Lance Allred is a heavy soul who has had to overcome more than most during his 30 years.
He was the first legally deaf athlete to play in the NBA and, as cliched as it sounds, basketball was a sort of saviour for a lanky, introverted teenager battling obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD).
Allred spent his early years growing up in a polygamous sect.
God was their whole life but the family became disenchanted with the fundamentalist Mormon group.
"When we broke away from the polygamous group we discovered some of our leaders had been sexually abusing children for years," Allred said.
"We were like 'if these are men of God why is this happening?'."
While walking away might seem like an easy decision, it also meant leaving family behind.
"We could just get up and go because my dad only had one wife. But my mum's two sisters were married to great guys in plural marriages.
"But we had to leave. The whole family, my two parents and four older siblings. But at that point I lost my whole support base - all my cousins who were my best friends. We moved to a new part of Salt Lake [City] and it was all new to me."
It was a fresh start but with old and familiar baggage. Growing up, Allred found himself constantly questioning his worth and wondering whether he was being punished by God. That message was often reinforced in what he was being taught.
"It was impressed upon me as a kid: God had made me deaf as a form of punishment for being unfaithful in the previous existence. My parents never told me that but when your Sunday school teacher tells a 5-year-old that - well, what do kids do, they just kind of absorb it.
"Part of me knew it wasn't true but part of me was like, 'well, what if?' We lived in a society where God was everything 24/7. We really thought Jesus was going to come again and we really thought by being righteous and devout we could force Jesus' hand to come again. That is how self-appointed we were."
Breaking out of that train of thought proved a lot harder than just walking away from the sect.
By the time Allred was a teenager he had internalised a lot of guilt and had started showing signs of OCD.
"I remember very vividly when the OCD just got out of control," he said.
"I was 13. My dad and my brother and I had just been to see Jim Carrey's The Mask. It was the first time I'd ever seen Cameron Diaz. She was just a beautiful women and I remember thinking to myself 'how could anyone be gay when they see a woman like that?
'"Not that I have any issue with being gay now, but when you grow up in a society like I grew up in it was the worse sin ever.
"But then I thought,'wait, what if I am gay? Bam!'
"I thought, 'no, I know I'm not gay, but what if I am?' Then you start doing the whole feedback loop ... and the fear and everything takes over. That's when my compulsion to pray began. 'Please God don't be angry at me for having these thoughts'.
"I don't want to even guess how many times during that year at school I would take off to the bathroom to go and pray."
Allred got caught in a cycle of needing to pray more and more often. Happily though, the onset of the illness coincided with a growth spurt. Allred grew 15cm in 12 months and attracted the attention of the school's basketball community.
"Basketball allowed me to find a new network, a new group of friends and fit in somewhere at this new school. It helped me find a new identity.
"And looking back ... basketball allowed me to transition from this religious sect into mainstream."
Allred kept his illness secret and basketball allowed him to channel his OCD. Instead of praying to God about his fears, he could obsess about a bad pass or a missed shot.
"That slave driver in the back of my head is also what kept me going back. It demanded perfection, it demanded I kept working hard and meant I never gave up. It was a curse and a blessing at the same time." He got good, so good he was able to realise a dream and play in the NBA. He made three appearances for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2008 and played alongside basketball great LeBron James.
But it certainly was not an easy track. Going over and over your mistakes is exhausting and Allred became sick during a redshirt year - a year where athletes train but do not play - at Weber State.
"I wasn't playing and couldn't channel my OCD. It started to leak out to my family life, dating life and school work. I just shut down and thought 'I can't do this any more. I've got a problem and I need help'.
"The greatest weakness is claiming you don't have a weakness. We have to acknowledge mental illness. I mean a diabetic needs insulin and there is no shame in that."
Allred spent six years on medication. It helped him slow down and gather himself, he said. He had time to go back and work on restructuring his thought patterns and perspectives.
"You tell yourself stories; that is what we do with our memories. Even though those memories may hurt, we hold on to them because it is like a merit badge. It defines who we are. So we hold on to these things no matter how self-sabotaging they are."
Allred is off medication and feels well. He still has his ups and downs. After the Nuggets' loss to the Hawkes Bay Hawks in Dunedin last month he woke up wanting to replay the game and everything which went wrong.
"But I said [to myself], 'You know what Lance, it is gone, it is done. You can learn from it but there is nothing you can do about it'."
