A Disorder in Disguise

Now hear me out, I want to make it clear that I worked my butt off throughout my college career because I wanted to be as good as I could possibly be, for myself and even more so for my team. Everything I did was catered towards trying to break the ceiling of who I was as an athlete, and I can say in full confidence that I gave it absolutely everything I had. Sure, there’s some days when my 100% didn’t look as impressive as other days, but I always left everything I had on the court or in the weight room. During my career I was simply doing what I knew to do: to train as hard and as often as I could, to eat the foods that I thought would benefit me, and to push myself to new limits daily. In the heat of all of this, I can honestly say I was never doing any of it to try to harm myself or my body. I just didn’t know any better or different, and I was doing what I thought I needed to do.

The driving factor for everything in my life was my sport. With every decision I made, I had volleyball in mind. I wasn’t under-eating by approximately 1,000 calories intentionally, that was just a by-product of my lack of nutrition knowledge at the time. I was simply doing the things I thought to be healthy, and was honestly convinced that I was the epitome of health. When I realized the degree to which I was under-fueling, I didn’t change anything because it was working and always had, so I didn’t see a logical reason why I needed to alter the one area of my life that I thought I had under control. Working out on my off days wasn’t all punishment induced. Yes, sometimes I did it because I felt that I had eaten to much, didn’t deserve to rest, etc. But at the end of the day, I was doing it because I believed that putting in the extra work that others weren’t would only set me up for success in the long run. I knew that my competition was resting, and I saw this day as a way to gain an advantage over everyone else. It wasn’t all selfish, because I knew that any degree of improvement for myself, also meant for my team. I for sure wasn’t deliberately trying to prevent my muscles from properly recovering, or trying to deprive my body from rejuvenating after a long week. I didn’t know how much I needed those by-products of an off day to help me become a better athlete. At the time, I thought all of those things would just hold me back, so I did the exact opposite.

If I haven’t made it obvious yet, I did the things that I did because I wanted it so dang bad. I wanted it at whatever cost, and I was willing to do whatever I thought it took. I wanted to achieve my goals and dreams, but even more importantly, the ones my teammates and I had set out to accomplish. I was just trying to carry my weight of it all, and didn’t want to let anyone down by not being at my best every day. I didn’t see the bigger picture until I was done playing. I had no idea that a lot of the things I was doing were often unnecessary, or not beneficial, and I never dreamed that I was the unhealthy one.

When I finished playing, I still had the drive to push myself and go to extreme measures to be my best, but something was missing. That “something” was simply a reason for it all. The motivation and driving factor that I had relied on for years and years was suddenly gone. I still wanted to workout as hard as I had my whole life, but there was no longer an actual reason to do any of it. Not for myself, and not for my teammates. The desire was there, but the dreams and constant goal chasing were yanked from underneath me overnight. All I was left with was the other side of things; the unhealthy, obsessive, dangerous side that I never knew existed until it was all that remained.

What’s ironic is the way it all overlapped.

I wouldn’t say I used my sport and goal chasing as an excuse, but rather that it helped hide the severity of what I was truly facing. I was so deeply caught up in my career and my team’s success for so long, that I never took the time to stop and get to know myself outside of the game. I knew myself on the court like the back of my hand, and probably could have played with my eyes closed if I had to (I basically did that when my contact would fall out mid game and I didn’t want to come out to get a new one). I knew how to work with my teammates, what motivated them, and how to get them fired up. I put all of my time and energy into these things, and almost none into myself, and I liked it that way. I never had to ask or wonder who I was as a person without the game, because I still had it. I knew who I was when my identity was found on the court, and my worth was driven by success and accolades. I also didn’t see that as a negative characteristic of mine at the time. I simply saw it for what it was-chasing my dreams. When my career ended, my identity was gone. Whether I wanted to or not, this is what opened the door to me starting to tap into who I was without a volleyball.

It took almost a year after the closing of my career for me to see my disordered eating and over-exercising for what it really was. It was no longer able to hide in the shadows of my athletic dreams or be mistaken for crazy work ethic. Of course I knew that I ate differently and exercised more than the average college athlete during my career, but I never realized how deep it ran until it was all I had left. I was clearly aware that I had body image issues during this time, and it bothered me somewhat, but I also thought it was normal so I didn’t really sweat it too much. Eventually it became all I had left to sweat because even though volleyball was over, this part of me still remained. I didn’t do the things that I did as an athlete because of the disordered eating or body dysmorphia, but the things I did inadvertently took care of and satisfied those issues.

Picture it like this: volleyball was my umbrella, and everything else (disordered eating, body image issues, over-training, etc.) was kept safe and sound underneath the umbrella. Volleyball took the fall and the blame for everything underneath it, and I never had to worry about those things on their own until the umbrella was gone, and all things were exposed for what they truly were. If one of those factors was bothering me, I would just take it out on my game and go even harder in my training or alter the way I was eating to try and fix whatever I was feeling. Think about it, all the reasons I gave for working so hard and eating the way I did were actually fueling the issues I had, I just didn’t know it. They were becoming a deeper part of me year by year, with every workout and meal decision I made, and it was never evident until I had nothing else to attribute these habits to.

I don’t blame the sport of volleyball for it, because the ball itself didn’t cause this. It was all of the factors that went into becoming the athlete I wanted to be, and my belief that I was going about it all the right ways. I also kind of definitely blame it on diet culture and it’s prevalence within sports that made me think everything I was doing was not only normal, but exceptional. People praise you for engaging in certain behaviors to such an extent where you don’t think there could be possibly be anything wrong, and I thrived off of that adoration. This is how I (and many others) got away with it. I got away with it until I was no longer an athlete, and I realized the things I was doing might not have been as normal or healthy as I was led to believe.

I know what it takes to become the athlete you want to be, and sometimes it does require putting in work on an off day, or choosing one food over another. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with making choices to benefit or fuel your game. What I am saying is that it’s important to take a step back and try to recognize why you’re doing the things you’re doing, and if they could be doing more harm than good for your body or game. There’s no right way to chase your dreams, and I’m proud of the way I went after mine. I only wish I would have been more prepared to handle the underlying issues when it all came to an end and no one was praising me for my “healthy habits” that were just disordered in disguise.