Content warning: mentions of eating disorders and suicidal thoughts
Swimming was my first love before it stripped away who I was. My parents signed me up for the summer swim team at age seven. Though nervous about my first practice, I remember getting out of the pool ecstatic to get to go again.
Every fall, when summer swim had ended, I waited impatiently for school to be over in the spring to return to doing swim team again. I began to swim at the gym to hold myself over until summer. As I grew older, swimming became my escape from the chaos of my home life. My friends and I would wake up early and ride our bikes to practice. Swimming was my favorite thing in the world until a coach made me quit.
I finally made it onto the year-round swim team. I had tried out twice, and I know now that I was only let on to the team because the coach felt bad for me. Because I put everything I had into every practice, pushing myself so hard to keep up with everyone, I would have asthma attacks. I don’t have asthma.
Every practice was the same. My coach would push me in with the kids who were overwhelmingly faster than me. So fast, I would get swum over, pushed under, and lapped by them. He would then tell me at the end of practice that I needed to start swimming with the younger kids. The cycle continued like that. One practice, I was having one of the mysterious asthma attacks, and I told my coach I was going to throw up and had to get out. He answered that I could get out when everyone else did. I quit swimming the same week. I wasn’t accepted by anyone on the team, the coach even knew I wasn’t good enough to be on it, and I felt defeated. I had worked so hard to make it onto this team and my love for the sport was stripped away from me. I was left feeling frustrated, defeated, and worthless. I felt like I lost a part of myself. Had swimming ever truly been a part of me if I was no good at it?
I had learned that it was okay to put your worth into something other than yourself. I learned that my worth came from what other people thought of me. It came from how fast I swam. It came from how smart I was. It came from the desire to always be the best. My worth always had to come from something external. It grew impossible for me to find my worth within myself. I had nothing nice to say about who I was.
Shortly after quitting, I began to hate my body. As a swimmer, you eat a ton to make up for all of the calories you are burning. I put it into my head, that since I wasn’t working out and swimming, I couldn’t eat anymore. I developed disordered eating. I would skip meals, binge, or only eat when I couldn’t lie to my parents any longer. From the spring when I quit swimming to the beginning of the following fall, I had lost a scary amount of weight
Over that summer, I fell into an extreme depression. I struggled to wake up in the mornings, was exhausted all day but couldn’t sleep at night due to crippling anxiety. I literally couldn’t stand myself. I hated how I looked, I hated my personality, I hated pretty much everything. I finally started going to therapy, but even then, therapy doesn’t work if you don’t talk to the person trying to help you.
I put my worth into swimming, and once that was gone, I had nothing. Eventually, when I was 15, I managed to get myself a boyfriend. I finally found someone that would “make me feel worth something.” He filled the void that I had needed for so long. He replaced the love I had been missing. Or what I thought was love. When he broke up with me, the cycle of missing out on loving myself continued.
Before my senior year, the bodily growth that had been delayed due to growing up an athlete had finally hit. Physically and mentally. The biggest part of this glow-up was developing a positive mentality. Just because I wasn’t going to the gym every day like I did when I was on the swim team, didn’t mean I didn’t deserve a meal. I would catch myself saying something negative about myself and swap it around to something positive. I decided one day to choose to love myself.
Unfortunately, along with this glow-up came a very intriguing group of boys’ attention that I had never once received before. Just like that, I was putting my worth into someone else’s thoughts of me. This very same year of high school, I began to get bullied. Relentlessly. So bad I couldn’t get myself out of bed in the morning, was late to school week after week, and couldn’t get through the day without crying. I tried to keep my positive mentality, but when everyone around me said how much they hated me, it was hard not to hate myself. Upon the loss of worth by everyone telling me I was worthless, I also managed to get on bad terms with my family. I had no one, not even myself.
My mental health was so bad that I was getting physically ill. I had virus after virus, fever after fever, nausea, a lack of appetite, migraines, and delayed periods when I had never been late before in my life. I couldn’t pass a test or get a homework assignment done to save my life. I had a teacher pull me aside and tell me he was worried about me. I was so drained that people could see it. My anxiety was so bad I was developing stress acne and rashes. No amount of dying or cutting my hair could fix the ever-spiraling fight to keep my sense of self.
Who was I? How did I get to this point? Who was this girl staring back at me in the mirror? I wasn’t the star athlete I dreamed of being since I was a little girl. I didn’t have the same body I did as a swimmer when I was a part of a team that valued me. I didn’t recognize the purple circles under my eyes that matched my purple-dyed hair. I didn’t recognize the bony limbs, protruding ribs, or the girl who hated to see another day. I grew out of my fear of death and began to welcome it. It was more anxiety-inducing to think of living another day of hell than it was for the pain to just stop. I didn’t know who I was or why I even existed. It didn’t feel like I served a purpose.
After another yearly round of finding my worth through boys, my friends, and anything but myself, I finally came to a breaking point. Upon the occurrence of needing an emergency Plan B, I turned my phone off for three days and didn’t talk to anyone. I lay in bed barely eating or showering. I called out of work for two weeks until I could get my head straight. I reached the end of the lengthy road between me and a total and complete crash-out.
I nearly lost my entire friend group after that, so my fear of being alone with myself was faced and had to be dealt with. So, I hauled myself out of bed, got in my dad’s nice car, and drove to the nearest Dick’s. I found a pair of bright blue running shoes and ran two miles. I had never run two miles without stopping. I found myself running nearly every day. Around my neighborhood, trails, anything that I could find long enough to keep my head clear. I found not only solace while I was running, but I began to feel better about myself. I began going to the gym as well as running. This was the most crucial step I’ve ever taken in my journey.
Going to the gym and running wasn’t for anyone else but me. I was doing it because I wanted to, not because I felt like I had to. I was eating because food fuels you, not restricting as I was so used to doing. I began my positive affirmations again, refusing to let myself feel like I was less than I am. I finished all of my finals strong and have been keeping up with the waves since.
While there are times I get hard on myself, it’s easier now to remind myself that life is too short to ever want to go back to the dark places I have been in. I never want to put my worth into anyone or anything other than myself. I want more than anything to advocate the importance of loving yourself and loving the life you live. It doesn’t matter what sport you play, if you go to the gym eight times a week, have no idea what you want to do with your life, or if you failed one test out of many. You are worth more than what the world wants you to think.