athlete – Chronic Courage

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month. In honor of a cause that holds a very special place in my heart, I have decided to share my own TBI (traumatic brain injury) story:

I skated up to the lift on shaky legs, sitting down harder than I intended as the seat hit the back of my knees before I could react. My heart beat fast, as if in anticipation of something. Rays flickered down on my face, filtering through the pine needles as we climbed. I put my goggles down. I put them up again, winced, and put them back down. I knew. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me or anyone else to confirm my fears. I just knew.

Three years prior in October of 2016, I was warming up for the last soccer game of my eighth grade season when I took a shot to the right temple. I was only thirteen years old. Little did I know that my life had just changed. It was diagnosed as a minor concussion, my first. But as time moved forward, my progress did not.

I distinctly remember one moment early on in my recovery when I emerged from my hobbit hole of a dark room. My brother had brought me something and tossed it to me from a foot away. In that split moment between his “head’s up” and his toss, I panicked. Startling, my hand closed on empty air. I was a lacrosse player. I was a coordinated athlete. I could catch things — one-handed — lefty — in my sleep. Who was this person that had taken over my body?

“I was a coordinated athlete…Who was this person that had taken over my body?”

Photograph of a teen girl play lacrosse.
"I was a coordinated athlete...Who was this person that had taken over my body?"

Photograph of a teen girl ski racing GS.
"I was a coordinated athlete...Who was this person that had taken over my body?"

I struggled with a constant headache, spikes of migraines, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, and countless more symptoms on a daily basis. I was in and out of specialist’s offices from sports medicine to neurology, on and off of medications that gave me every side effect from depression to tremors, all while juggling high school. Sports were my sanctuary, and even my participation there fluctuated day by day, season by season. I spent years barely scraping by, talking myself through life, hour by hour.

Which brings us to my opening moment. My biggest fear after my first injury was hitting my head. I truly believed that I wasn’t strong enough to do it all again. Then, on February 12th, 2020, just over three years after my original brain injury, I crashed ski racing in Maine, shooting into the ground at 40 mph, sliding headfirst through the next gate. I do not remember much of what happened, nor much of the weeks that followed. I feel blessed to have walked away on my own.

So there I was, riding up that chairlift, skating to my team, keeping a hand firmly planted on my teammate’s shoulder to keep my balance, mixing up the location of the accident. Looking back, it feels like a dream. I was sleepwalking.

But the sharp stab behind my eyes tells me otherwise. I have additional vision issues now. When I am tired my right eye droops, not tracking with my left. I struggle with screens and reading. I run into doorways. Every minute of every day, I have a headache.

After the second accident, it took me a month to let myself fully grieve. I was petrified that if I let myself feel, if I let the walls crumble and I fell apart, that I would never be able to pick up the shattered pieces. But I did, painfully, piece by piece.

Pencil drawing of a girl's face made of a puzzle, one piece left to be places, representing the struggle of piecing yourself back together after a brain injury.
"But I did, painfully, piece by piece."

“But I did, painfully, piece by piece.”

For a while, I lost a part of myself. I was forced to give up things that were parts of my identity, some of which I haven’t gotten back. I struggled in school with simple problems, I couldn’t follow a conversation, I missed the jokes. I had to reconcile the fact that I am not the same as I was before, and I can’t go back to that person. All of this – twice. After my first injury, I found my new normal. I got back up off the ground for the world to lay me flat again. I have to once again make peace between who I was and who I am.

It is in this that I found LoveYourBrain and Concussed. For so many years, I told myself that post-concussive syndrome and traumatic brain injury were two very different things. I cut myself off from the TBI community because I didn’t believe that I deserved to be there with my “minor concussion.” But it wasn’t a minor situation. And slowly, I began to open myself up. Thanks in part to both LoveYourBrain and Concussed., I continue to do so.

Sometimes I wish that I could have insignificant teenage problems, like figuring out what to wear or who my friends are, but that isn’t the hand I was dealt. My injury happened at such a young age, when one is discovering so much about themself, that I truly don’t believe I would be the same person if not for my injury.

And I love the person that I have become. My injury taught me patience and self-love and resiliency. It taught me that life is not fair and that I won’t always have control over the important things and that bad things happen to good people without it being punishment for something. I learned that the athlete, buckle-down mentality I’ve always had is not to be at the expense of my health and wellbeing. (Read more about this here.)

“I love the person that I have become.”

Photograph of a girl looking out over trees on a hike in a baseball cap, laughing and smiling comfortably.
"I love the person that I have become."

Now, over five years later, I am grappling with my future. As I apply to college, I ask myself whether my brain will be able to handle the science- and math-heavy paths I am interested in. I struggle every day with the idea that I have so much of my life ahead of me, and yet that many decisions I make will most likely be impacted by this injury. But not all of them will be.

I have recently started journaling. In the morning I write down three things that I have control over, three little things that I will choose to do that day. At night I write down three tiny moments that brought me joy. I am working to focus on the aspects that I can control. (You can read more about my journaling here.)

People say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But what if it isn’t a tunnel? What if it’s a deep, dense forest, but you don’t need to make it to the other side? What if all you need to do is find the glints of sun through the trees? Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life. It is a process, but you don’t need to make it to the end of the tunnel to find happiness.

Photograph of light shining through tree branches as a metaphor for finding the light through the darkness.
"Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life."

“Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life.”

There are two traumatic brain injury organizations that are very close to my heart. In honor of Brain Injury Awareness Month, please consider donating to LoveYourBrain or Concussed. foundations. I am not affiliated with either, but they both mean a lot to me. Donations go to supporting TBI survivors and caregivers in acquiring resources, continuing research, and sponsoring individuals to go on TBI retreats. As someone who has attending such a retreat, I can tell you firsthand that it is a life-changing experience. Thank you for considering, and Happy Brain Injury Awareness Month!

_{disclaimer: partially adapted for a college essay.}

“If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.”
~ unknown

I was raised on an athlete mentality. It was not driven by my family, but rather the activities I chose to take part in. It was ingrained in the coaches I had and the kids I surrounded myself with.

From a very young age, I was on the soccer field. You fall down and scrape your knee? Brush it off and keep playing!

I was also in the horse ring. Your horse dodges a jump and you go crashing down on top of it? You get back on, and do it again. Show that horse who’s boss!

As I got older, lacrosse and alpine ski racing soon joined my arsenal. If you wipe out in ski racing, you pop up as fast as you can and hike up the mountain, skis on, to the place you fell, in order to finish with a time.

An athlete's mentality "was ingrained in the coaches I had and the kids I surrounded myself with."

“It was ingrained in the coaches I had and the kids I surrounded myself with.”

As an athlete, I was taught to grit my teeth and push through. And I was good at it. No pain, no gain…right? But what happens when my body says no?

I was 13 when my body first said no. When I tried to brush off a concussion, to push through like I was always taught, my brain shut down.

When I was 18, as a senior in high school, a Prefect, a captain of the lacrosse team, a straight-A student, and a striving overachiever, my body once again said no. I was sent into a tailspin of chronic ailments, from heart rate dysregulation and POTS to debilitating joint pain and exhaustion.

I eventually realized that this was a wake-up call. My body was no longer asking me to listen to it, it was demanding. Where I was once able to stay on top of everything and continue powering through, I now found lights flashing in my peripheries. While I was once able to ignore physical ailments, my body now literally sent me to the ground, gasping for breath when I pushed too hard.

“As an athlete, I was taught to grit my teeth and push through. And I was good at it.”

"As an athlete, I was taught to grit my teeth and push through. And I was good at it." — Photo by Tim Stewart

Although I didn’t know it at the time, this became an opportunity for me. An opportunity to learn how to truly take care of myself, something very few athletes let themselves do. It was an opportunity to learn the tune of my inner self and to listen to her. I had to choose to work with my body, not against it.

So I played sports on and off, day by day, season by season. Instead of ski racing, I coached. I captained my lacrosse team mostly from the sidelines. I let my body rest when it said it needed it. And it sucks that this lesson has to come from such pain, and every day it is a battle, but I show up, and I try.

Photograph of a ski coach skating up to a lift before the sun rises on a race day. — Coaches rise before the sun on race days!

“Every day it is a battle, but I show up, and I try.”

Athletes take their bodies to incredible lengths. It is amazing what the human body can do, but it takes a toll. And that toll looks different for each individual. For me, that toll was too high. I committed with everything I had to the idea that the only way to get better was to push harder. And it nearly broke me.

This is not to say that all parts of an athlete mentality are bad. Mental toughness is one of the most important life skills one can learn. Because of athletics, I know my strength. I know leadership, teamwork, and perseverance. I know that it is never over until it is over. My athlete mentality is the reason I keep fighting for my body every single day.

This is also not to say that we should stay within our comfort zones. Life is not always comfortable. Athletics taught me how to push through that discomfort, to find a path forward through experiences of displeasure. Athletics taught me grit. But grit that gets you through hardships and grit that destroys your body are two different things. Discomfort is okay, until that little voice inside you rings a warning bell.

We need to change the way we view being an athlete. Being a hardcore athlete doesn’t need to mean never coming off the field. Being an inspiring athlete doesn’t need to mean playing through every adversity. Yes, there are times when we brush it off and we get back up. But there are times when your gut tells you something is wrong, and you ignore it because you were taught to pick yourself up, no matter what. If not for yourself, for your team, we are told. But your health matters. Your wellbeing matters. You are no good to your team incapacitated. We need to respect the boundaries that our body places for us. And we need to not cross those lines so clearly set for ourselves.

It is not weak to take a step back. It is not weak to listen to your body. It is not weak to take more time than expected to heal. You are not weak for taking care of yourself.

“You are not weak for taking care of yourself.”

Photograph of lacrosse sticks lined up on the sidelines, taken by a player sidelined by injury. — From the sidelines…

I crossed a line when I didn’t pull myself off the field that day I got my first concussion. I crossed a few more when I rode a horse and then played two different instruments the next day.

I am learning how to respect my body’s boundaries — the big ones, and the daily fluctuating ones. My body said no to college this year, so I listened. Last week I may have played in a full lacrosse game, but if my body says no to practice today, I sit out.

We must learn to read the tiny intricacies of ourselves, the little signals that are so vital to our health. To me, being an athlete was once pushing through the warning bells and achieving anyway, but my definition is changing.

Imagine what we as athletes could achieve if we respected our bodies and gave them what they truly need to succeed . . . what they ask for.

Tag Archives: athlete

My TBI Story

The Athlete’s Mentality