Snowboard star Pat Burgener "I considered taking my own life when I was eight"

Pat Burgener is one of Switzerland's great medal hopes at the Freestyle World Championships in St. Moritz. As a snowboarder and musician, he inspires the crowds. It wasn't always like this. Burgener used to hate his life.

Anyone who visits Pat Burgener's Instagram profile can hardly stop grinning. The 30-year-old feeds his 188,000 followers with funny sketches every day. He also presents his fans with spectacular stunts and demonstrates his musical talent.

In one clip, he races across the snow on his snowboard with a guitar in his hands and promotes the Freestyle World Championships in St. Moritz, which take place between March 17 and 30.

As carefree and relaxed as the snowboarder's life appears on social media, it was and is not. Burgener had a tough time as a child. "I used to hate my life," he says in the SRF format "Kehrseite". The Vaud native talks openly about ADHD, his attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity, which he now no longer sees as an illness but also as a superpower.

Suicidal thoughts on the bridge

Shortly after the turn of the millennium, little Patrick starts school in Lausanne. And quickly stands out. "I messed up a lot, threw my skates down the stairs or skipped school," Burgener recalls. "I was a rebel."

He was kicked out of school a total of five times. "They said: 'You can't sit still. You're stupid, stupid. You'll never amount to anything." The parents of the other children don't want them to play with Pat because they see him as a bad influence. "I heard all that and had to live with it. It made me feel like I didn't belong anywhere. That's the worst feeling a child can have."

Little Pat is not doing well. He is sent to a doctor every week. "I was seven or eight years old when I thought about killing myself. It's crass that I had such thoughts, but it just didn't make sense to me anymore," says Burgener. He walked over bridges and considered jumping off.

Music as a second great passion

ADHD is still present in his life today. But Burgener has learned to deal with it. "Today it's my greatest strength. I have so much energy, which I have to use, otherwise I get bored," he says. So even his one passion, snowboarding, is not enough.

Pat Burgener is also a musician. He has 80,000 monthly listeners on the streaming service Spotify. His most successful song, "Staring At The Sun", has already been listened to almost 7 million times. He recently released "ADHD", a song in which he comes to terms with his behavioral disorder. "Let the world know that it's okay to be different," he writes on Instagram.

His songs are often profound and emotional. Listening to his music, you realize that Burgener didn't always have it good as an adult either. He found his safe haven in snowboarding, but numerous injuries - including two torn cruciate ligaments - and operations repeatedly set the Vaud native back.

"I can inspire many other people"

The music and the not always entirely serious social media posts help Burgener to stay strong even in difficult times. "Many people see me as Pat Burgener, the Olympic snowboarder who always had it easy. But they don't see that I almost took my own life when I was eight, that I had a lot of trouble with my self-confidence until I was 25, and that I was injured ten times and had operations."

It is therefore important to him to also show people the downsides of life. "Today, I have achieved all my goals and am on the right path. I can inspire many other people and show them the way," says Burgener.

He is now competing for medals at the Freestyle World Championships. He already took bronze in the halfpipe in 2017 and 2019. But sport is not the only focus for the 30-year-old in St. Moritz. On 23 March, in the middle of the World Championships, he will also be giving a concert on the festival grounds.