MY WEEKLY BLOG<\/p>\n
HELP!<\/p>\n
When I was six or seven, I used to sit on my parent\u2019s bed\u00a0and watch the Olympics on a black and white television. I was mesmerized by
what athletes were capable of: Skiing, gymnastics, swimming, diving and for me,\u00a0the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me, figure skating.<\/p>\n
I still have the same kind of enthusiasm for the Olympics as\u00a0other people have for the Super bowl but it lasts for three weeks. I marvel at\u00a0the beauty of it all, the skill and majesty of flying down a mountain at 80\u00a0miles an hour. Diving off a 33 foot platform into the water without leaving a\u00a0splash. Flying into the air, spinning four times and landing on a blade on the\u00a0ice. It\u2019s all physically dangerous. I cringe when the athletes crash and fall\u00a0and break bones, but these days, a different kind of danger is coming to the\u00a0forefront. Mental health.<\/p>\n
In the past, athletes didn’t admit to having mental problems.\u00a0It was taboo. When I was in the ballet, we didn’t complain or ask for help. We\u00a0weren\u2019t supposed to need it. If we voiced any kind of weakness or need, we\u00a0might be publicly reprimanded or replaced.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why it was so unusual to see a public service\u00a0announcement a few years ago from swimming champion, Michael Phelps. He talked\u00a0about his athletic challenges: Swim. Win gold. Repeat. But when it came to\u00a0life, he admitted to a lot of problems. He talked about his mental challenges. \u201cTherapy\u00a0might help you. It helped me,\u201d he said. I was surprised and relieved.<\/p>\n
I grew up as an athlete. Many of my fellow ballet dancers were
anorexic, bulimic, insomniac, smoked cigarettes and popped diet pills. The\u00a0pressure to be the best, the skinniest, the strongest and never have needs\u00a0takes a terrible toll on the nervous system. We were so young, but no matter\u00a0how we felt, we stayed silent for fear of being reprimanded or replaced. It was\u00a0the athletic version of \u201cIf you can\u2019t do the time, don’t do the crime.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ballet company had an on-staff massage therapist to help\u00a0us when we were physically injured but we didn\u2019t have a mental therapist. There\u00a0was no one to turn to when we were depressed or anxious. And we had those\u00a0feelings a lot. We were there for each other but we didn’t have the knowledge\u00a0or expertise to really help. \u00a0<\/p>\n
These days, some powerful athletes are changing things by following\u00a0Michael Phelps\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n
Tennis champion Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open
for mental health reasons. \u201cIt’s okay not to be okay\u201d was her message.<\/p>\n
Gymnastics champion Simone Biles withdrew from the 2020 Olympics\u00a0finals after becoming disoriented in the air. They call iit the \u201ctwisties\u201d and\u00a0she felt it was too dangerous to compete.<\/p>\n
Skating great Gracie Gold left the skating rink for several\u00a0years to deal with an eating disorder.<\/p>\n
Two days ago, the authorities discovered that a 15-year-old
Russian Olympic skater, Kamila Valieva, had tested positive for performance\u00a0enhancing drugs a few months earlier. The fallout was terrible. They decided she\u00a0was too young to have taken the drugs deliberately and it would be better for\u00a0her to let her compete. Big mistake. The shame was too much for her. Uncharacteristically,
she stumbled but she righted herself. She fell but she got up. I thought it was\u00a0courageous that she finished her program but when she got off the ice, her\u00a0trainers scolded her for making mistakes. The adults around her had failed her.\u00a0She had done some spectacular jumps in her performance but all they showed us\u00a0were the times when she fell down.<\/p>\n
No one can carry the expectations of an entire country without
crumbling at some point. Kamila crumbled and there was no one to comfort her. She\u2019s\u00a015. Remember when you were 15? She sobbed. Her fellow skaters with whom she\u00a0trained daily cried. So did I. The trainers bullied all the skaters and they\u00a0watched their team fall apart, even though Russians won gold and silver.<\/p>\n
This has to stop. People are calling out for Olympic reform\u00a0so instead of being remembered for falling, maybe Kamila could be remembered\u00a0for getting back up. They\u00a0could raise the age of performers so they would have better\u00a0coping skills. But no one of any age can carry the burden of always winning.\u00a0It\u2019s too much for anyone to bear. It\u2019s a beautiful thing to watch athletes\u00a0perform seemingly impossible feats. With a little mercy and compassion, instead\u00a0of focusing on taking home the prize, we could see them as the prize. They are\u00a0beautiful and they deserve that. They are human beings with strengths frailties,\u00a0just like everyone else.<\/p>\n
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MY WEEKLY BLOG HELP! When I was six or seven, I used to sit on my parent\u2019s bed\u00a0and watch the Olympics on a black and white television. I was mesmerized bywhat athletes were capable of: Skiing, gymnastics, swimming, diving and for me,\u00a0the cr\u00e8me de la cr\u00e8me, figure skating. I still have the same kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2081"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2082,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2081\/revisions\/2082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andreacagan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}