Something my mom would always say to us growing up is “life’s too short”. I never understood the true meaning of that phrase until I started college.

Post-traumatic stress disorder in athletics is something you virtually never hear about as there is a huge stigma with mental health as it associates the athlete with being weak or not being able to do the job they are supposed to do. This stigma allowed me to suffer in silence for three years without receiving help. At this time I had never felt more alone with no one to relate to. As today is the start of mental health awareness month I wanted to shine a light on PTSD in athletics by sharing my story.

Growing up, I wasn’t in the best physical shape throughout middle school and I still feel like I’m not in the best shape now. I started playing lacrosse around 5th grade because my parents decided it would be great for me to start making friends due to my social anxiety, but I would constantly feel like passing out after running a lap and would always be the last one to finish a team run or never finish at all. I thought lacrosse would help me stay in better shape and meet new friends, but my own experience with lacrosse has negatively impacted me more than what I had expected.

Growing up, I played soccer as a goalie from age six to thirteen. At thirteen, I was asked by my friends to try out to be the field hockey goalie. I had no idea what field hockey even was. They put me in this huge padding where I could barely move because it looked like I was drowning in it. The first game I ever played was against a team Mackenzie Allessie played on. For anyone in the field hockey world, they know Mackenzie Allessie is one of the best field hockey players of this generation. She is currently on the Olympic team right now and playing D1 at Penn state. Needless to say, we lost by a lot. I bawled my eyes out after that game because I felt like I let my friends and my team down even though this was the first game I had ever played, and I was playing against a future Olympic player. I was only thirteen and the pressure of the position and the game was already getting to me.

I wasn’t the greatest student in high school. In fact, I was sent to a private school in my hometown because my parents were nervous I’d do the bare minimum to pass my classes in our local public high school. The worst part of that whole situation? They were absolutely right. I was much more interested in playing sports throughout my high school career, and I would famously forget to do my homework on the days it might conflict with any athletic commitment.