SWIMMER CARVIN NOT SUNK BY DESPAIR.

Byline: KAREN CROUSE

PASADENA - Swimmer Chad Carvin had a bad practice the other day. It's bound to happen when you're treating your muscles like old buildings that need to be razed to make way for something sleeker and more staggering.

Carvin was breaking down his body in order to build it back up so it'll be stronger by the time he gets to Sydney. Ensconced here with the rest of the 48-member U.S. Olympic swimming squad, the Mission Viejo standout has been covering almost as many miles as a migrating whale does in a day and he was exhausted.

So there were simple physiological reasons why Carvin was struggling through his interval training at the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center the other morning and going much slower than he felt was satisfactory.

Carvin, who will compete in the 400-meter freestyle and the 800 freestyle relay in Sydney, knew that. But he had complex psychological reasons for panicking anyway.

In the fall of 1995, when Carvin was far and away America's best middle- distance swimmer, his times started tailing off in practice. His poor performances sent him into a downward spiral that resulted in a well thought out (but, thankfully, poorly executed) suicide attempt that December.

Carvin, 26, had convinced himself he was going crazy, that his poor swimming was psychosomatic. It was only when he was in a Tucson, Ariz., hospital having a fistful of sleeping pills pumped from his stomach that doctors ran the tests that revealed his problem: A virus had attacked his heart, which was operating at 28 percent capacity.

As soon as Carvin realized there was a logical explanation for his fatigue, he felt better. He bypassed the 1996 Olympic Trials to allow his heart time to repair itself, but he was back swimming - and winning - by the end of the year.

He thought his dark days were behind him.

In 1997 Carvin became the first man since Mark Spitz to win four individual titles at a U.S. Nationals. He was back on top of the world.

And then, in December of that year he started feeling horrible and helpless again.

He was diagnosed with a bulging disk in his back and found himself entertaining the same suicidal thoughts as before. That's when Carvin realized his problems went much deeper than his disk.

He had been suffering from clinical depression and didn't know it. Or rather, he hadn't chosen to consider it until his own morbid thoughts scared him into resurrecting feelings and issues that had long been buried.

``When I started having the same thoughts and feelings as before, I realized I couldn't conquer them unless I got help,'' Carvin said the other day in an interview at the hotel where the U.S. team is sequestered until Saturday, when it leaves for Australia.

Clinical depression is not rare, just rarely talked about. Some 15 million Americans suffer from it at any given time. That means roughly 5 percent of the population knows the kind of despair that has gripped Carvin.

Despite the fact one person in six will experience a serious depressive episode at some point in life, clinical depression remains a scarlet-letter sickness. Society insinuates that depression is a sign of weakness and so its sufferers often feel stigmatized.

``If you've never had problems like that, it's hard to relate,'' Carvin admitted. ``I know I was the exact same way in my life before. If someone was going through a down period, I'd be like, 'C'mon, toughen up a little bit.' ''

Nobody thinks twice about going to a dentist for a toothache. But when your very soul is what's throbbing, it's not so easy to take the logical step and seek professional help.

``I was hesitant about seeking psychotherapy for that reason,'' Carvin said. ``It's hard to get past thinking that someone going through psychotherapy must be nuts.''

The athletic culture doesn't make it any easier. In sports, suffering is seen as just another opponent the strong must conquer in order to survive. Then there's the unspoken macho creed, Carvin said, which makes it clear male athletes aren't supposed to have feelings, much less give in to them.

Though he has been mining his feelings with the help of a psychotherapist for the past two years, ``I still have that mentality,'' Carvin admitted. ``I still fight it.''

That's why the bad workout the other day packed a punch. Carvin had to bob and weave around the inner voice that wondered if maybe the workout wasn't a sign that his body was about to fail him again in some way, that it was, as he put it, ``the start of something I couldn't get through.''

His circumstances are different now, of course, and that's his salvation. Carvin has people who can talk him through his anxiety. He is strong enough to be able to call out his insecurities so they no longer have the power to hurt him.

The day after his bad workout, he went body surfing in Laguna Beach with a few other swimmers on the Olympic team. Depression no longer is holding him back.

``It's easier every day I talk about it,'' Carvin said.

He was a finance major at the University of Arizona but now he sees himself working with people, not numbers.

``I want to look into being a spokesman for mental health,'' he said. ``I'm not here on some kind of crusade. I just want to let people who are suffering from clinical depression know they aren't alone. That's the biggest message I want to deliver. When you're struggling, it's OK to talk to people, no matter what those feelings are.''