iilEMMAlii

Midnight Thoughts
2022-01-24 20:02:32 (UTC)

FOR ATHLETES: Mental Health SUCKS (PT2)

Hello! This diary is my therapist, and I can anonymously talk about anything here, so this is the story to read if you are an athlete, especially a pre-teen or teen. Also, feel free to message me if you find this relatable in any way or form; I’d love to chat :) So here we go!

Some background info (especially if you haven’t read the previous parts):
- I am a 14-year-old girl.
- I have been cross-country skiing since I was 4.
- I have 5 practices a week, and I do the sport very competitively.
- I have had the same ski coach since I started with practices at 6.
- My coach left for maternity leave in 2019, so we had a replacement coach for a year.
- The replacement coach is young, pleasant, supportive, protective, and important to me.
- I am a late bloomer.
- I am a closed person (it takes A LOT of time to open myself to people, especially older).
- I am emotional (I start to cry EASILY and over EVERYTHING).

People:
Coach: Elsa
Replacement coach: Anna
My brother: Kaspar
Me: Emma

OK, so now, for the second part of my story, about the time during when we had our replacement coach. She was with us from 2018-to 2019. When I was 11 or 12 years old, puberty and growth support started hitting some of my competing enemies. At that point, I fell behind physical development-wise, and it was tough for me to see how others were so fast suddenly, and I could not get past 6th place.
Since Anna was so easy to talk to, supportive, and understanding, I had no reason to hide my feelings from her. At that point, I also started not to want to compete anymore. I would talk to her after a competition, cry on her shoulder a little, hug her, and she would tell me it was fine and no one other than myself was disappointed even though I thought that everyone was. That was one of my mentally most challenging seasons, but to be honest, that coach helped me so much.
In March of 2019, Anna had to go because our leading coach was coming back. It was so sad to see her just leave, and honestly very scary when Elsa came back since she had a baby, and we hadn’t seen her a year. I cried myself to sleep almost every night for 2 weeks after she left, but that’s not all.

Timeline:
Before replacement coach 2014-2018 (PT1)
During replacement coach 2018-2019 (PT2)
After replacement coach 2020-2022 (PT3)
Now how to deal with sports stress and emotions 2022 (PT4)
I will upload the parts throughout 2 weeks, so a part every 3 days or so!
Stay tuned for the next one :)

Later Gator,
Emma




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