Life Will Go On
By Zoe Levy | IG: @zoe.levy4
Growing up, my parents always told me I needed to find something I loved. For as long as I can remember, sports have always been that “something”. Playing sports was my escape from reality. That was until I became my own worst enemy.
I’ve spent my entire life trying to figure out “my” sport. It’s always seemed like no matter what sport I chose, I never felt good enough. After finding what I believed was “my” sport, I had no idea that would be the sport that ruined me. My mental health soon became destroyed by coaches who constantly made me feel like I was never enough. As much as everyone told me, “you are enough”, I never believed it. I had coaches who told me I would never succeed in my sport. I remember one practice very clearly being told “you aren’t even trying”. Those 4 words changed my life forever. No one ever understood how hard I was trying. I tried every day to practice my best, perform my best, and be my best. To this day, no one will ever understand how my coaches and my sport changed me. When struggling with mental health, some people don’t understand how difficult doing a sport can be. The perfectionism, the negative mindset, and the thoughts took over me. I let a sport define who I was. I let coaches destroy my love for a sport.
Not only did I have coaches who pushed me past my breaking point, but I pushed myself, too. After a while of being treated this way, I began coping in very unhealthy ways. People began to find out and that changed everything. At that point in my life, I gave up on myself. I lost my love for the escape in my life. Suddenly, my escape turned to the last place I wanted to be. I tried so hard to make my coaches proud and to prove them wrong. But no matter how I performed, someone always found some way to put me down or find something I did wrong. Even on my best performance days, no one ever made me feel like enough. No one ever saw my talent.
Once the season ended for that year, I told my parents I needed to stop. When I told my coaches I wouldn’t be returning next season, they almost seemed happy. It broke my heart to leave the sport I knew I really did love. It was never the sport that I didn’t love. It was the pressure and the constant shaming that made me lose my love for the sport. As hard as it was leaving, for the first time, I put myself first. Putting myself first and learning how to move on was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. While trying to get through one of the hardest times of my life, I constantly felt weak and hopeless. After a long time, I began to realize that I couldn’t let a sport define who I was. I needed to find the strength to realize that I was enough.
No one will ever fully understand how I felt and what I went through while in that sport. In this world, there is so much lack of understanding around the topic of mental health in athletes. So many athletes struggle every day with mental health due to their sport. The pressure that sports can cause on a person is immense. Feeling like you’re never enough or like you aren’t capable of something, is one of the hardest feelings an athlete can experience. Sports can change people for the worse. My biggest regret is letting coaches take away my love for my favorite sport and defining me in a way that wasn’t true. I hated not being okay. I hated not knowing how to cope. I hated feeling alone. Struggling and not being okay is a part of life. It requires great strength to realize that. It was no longer just my past sport that began to make life difficult, there was so much else happening. Even in the darkest times of my life, I knew eventually I would get better. The quote, “there’s light at the end of the tunnel” is something that I try to shape my life around. I needed to get through that “tunnel”. That process was, and still is extremely hard and comes with many ups and downs. All I could keep telling myself was “I will get better” and “it’s okay to not be okay”. Even though I didn’t believe it, I had to make myself believe it.
I had to accept the fact that I was not okay and that I needed help. There were countless days that I spent alone not knowing what to do. I was at the worst point of my life around the end of my 8th-grade year and into my freshman year of high school. I truly believed for a long time that I was “un-healable”. Eventually, I finally had the courage to ask for help. I learned how to cope properly and heal from my past. During that journey, I got help from many people, but there will always be these two people who I will never forget. During the hardest parts of my life, I found 2 people who changed my life forever. They changed my life for the better and have helped me grow so much as a person. They know exactly who they are, and I thank them for being the people they are. Without those two people, I don’t know how my life would be today. Although I am still at a very bad point in my life, now I know that I have support and that I am not alone. The importance of finding people who can be your support system is so crucial. Everyone needs “their people”. And I found mine. And I will forever be thankful for those people's impact on my life. To this day, they are my best friends and help me get through very difficult times. I met these people when I needed them most and can’t express my gratitude for them. My biggest advice to people would be to find your people. The people that are going to support you. The people that are going to make life better. The people that are going to help you in every way possible. Although anxiety and depression are still a part of my life, my people make life better. They help me in ways they don’t even know. When struggling with mental health, finding people who can bring out the best in you is so important. I’ll never forget how those two people changed my life. Changing to what now is my favorite sport in the world and having those people, mean the world to me.
Learning to accept the fact that “it’s okay not to be okay”, was the hardest lesson I have had to go through. No one wants to struggle. Everyone wants to be happy all the time. But unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. If there is one thing I could say to everyone, especially every athlete, I would tell them that life will go on and get better. You cannot put a time on how long it will take to get better, but learning to heal and get better takes extreme strength and work. Instead of hating my coaches, I actually thank them for making them the person I am today. I still go currently go through very hard things every day. Struggling with depression while being an athlete is extremely hard. Many people don’t know how much I struggle because I constantly feel the need to hide my true self. I try hard not to let it show, but sometimes it does. And that’s okay. Everyone struggles with their own stuff. I learned that struggling and not being okay was not something to be ashamed of. 25% of all athletes experience depression. Being a part of that percentage changed me. I try every day to get better and to heal. Now, I know my worth. As much as life feels like it will never get better, I know it will. Teaching myself this was extremely hard, but I knew I needed to. Although I hide it every day, I know that I struggle. I learned to accept that I do have depression and anxiety and that I shouldn’t be ashamed of that. Mental health issues from sports, really do affect people’s life. Even though I still do struggle, I am proud of myself. I am proud of the person I have become. I am proud of my life. And most importantly, I am proud of the way I am healing.
To anyone reading this, do not ever let a sport, coach, or ANYONE other than yourself define you. Only you know your true self and your worth. Remember that it’s okay to not be okay. Life will get better. Even when it doesn’t seem like it, you will get better. I wish I could help every person in the world heal from any mental health struggles. No one deserves the mental health issues caused by sports or by being an athlete. Everyone deserves to be okay. But, life will go on. Don’t let anyone hold you back. Your sport doesn’t define you. Acknowledge your worth and use that to be the best version of yourself. Keep your head up, find your people, and keep trying. You are loved. You are strong. You are good enough. You will be okay one day, I can promise you that.
With Love,
Zoe Levy
