I looked up her Virginia medical license; it had expired in 2014, and some kind of action was taken against it but details are not available online.
I agree that it sounds like drugs, alcohol, and/or mental health issues.
Existing thread
So sad, obviously something happened that resulted in her medical license being revoked.
Worse part is the fact that she is living with her abusive boyfriend, shows she feels she has no where to go.
Very sad, she is living with an abusive jerk which shows she has no one else for support and no where to go, so she is sticking with him.
I saw that after I started this one.
Could they be whooshed?
Could it be that she does have support but she stubbornly chooses to stay in the relationship? Thats something I have been guilty of doing.
It does seem like a series of bad decisions is in play here; this relationship may be just the latest example.
Where does it say that her boyfriend is abusive? I’m not saying he isn’t but I’ve only seen that he’s poor and doesn’t have movie star looks.
I think that’s the standard for abuse these days . . .
I heard a long interview with her in 2009. She came across as funny, mature, self-assured, able to look back at her experiences and make a realistic assessment of her personal flaws at the time of the Olympics. She did not come across as bitter or mentally ill.
However, in 8 years a lot can change. Surgeons and anesthesiologists tend to be high risk for substance abuse. If I had to pull a guess out of the air, I’d guess that.
“Anger issues” is a code word for “abusive”.
I hadn’t heard of Iyanla Vazant before reading that article, but that’s exactly the same reaction I had. Also, how is demanding that someone feel ashamed supposed to help them? Isn’t that likely to make her crawl further into her hole, and lose the will to do anything at all?
Ms. Van Zant had several massive best-sellers in the 1990s, mainly aimed at black women and in the inspirational/self-help realm. I had no idea she was still around.
…that word…I do not think it means what you think it means.
This story saddens me. This was a young woman who had pretty much everything the world has to offer. And she got it by working for it. You don’t become either an Olympian or a surgeon easily. She should have cruised through the rest of her life with colors flying.
It would be interesting to know what really sent her off the rails, whether it was drugs, fraud, or some type of mental challenge (I’m leaning toward the undiagnosed bi-polar theory, too) that arose when she reached barriers she couldn’t overcome and wasn’t able to handle the failure.
In any case, I hope now that her issues are public, that she gets the help she needs to get back on her feet. Somewhere deep inside she still has the grit and determination that got her to the top of her sport and got her that medical degree. Hopefully she can reconnect with it.
I “smooshed” 
these two threads together for you.
Well according to the article he “felt lost in the midst of her popularity.” I have a feeling he might have a different perspective.
We use that term on another website.
A little Google-fu revealed that her son is actually 18, not 13 (maybe he was 13 when they divorced) and he and his father live in Arkansas. The son is on a college football team.
A friend of mine who has been following the media on this story today tells me that Debi’s son (or someone else posting under his name) has been vigorously defending his mother all over social media today. If that is indeed true, I feel so sorry for this young man being put through this wringer because of his mother’s issues. There is always collateral damage with these stories.