TW: eating disorder
When I was hospitalized due to my eating disorder during my freshman basketball season, one of the things that scared me the most about recovery was how I’d return to my sport because of it. For the two years leading up to my hospitalization and the start of my recovery, I’d been exercising multiple times per day (in addition to basketball practices and games) and restricting my eating, which I came to realize were anorexic behaviors. But at the time, I felt like doing those things gave me control over my body and, consequently, my athletic performance.
But now that I was forced to rest from physical activities until my weight was restored— a process that took about five months—and eat without restrictions, I felt like I lost that control. Anorexia had convinced me that if I recovered, I’d be a worse athlete. It told me that nourishing and resting my body would make me “out of shape”, slower, less disciplined, and thus, a worse basketball player. This put me in a really tough spot because, especially towards the beginning of my recovery, getting back to basketball was my main motivation to recover. Why would I recover to get back to playing my sport if I’m not going to be any good when I return?
Despite these fears, I continued to recover, and somewhere along the way I realized that those were just more irrational lies told to me by my disorder. And I realized that even if recovery were to somehow make me a worse basketball player, I’d be ok with that. Recovery saved my life and made it one I was happy to live. And my life will always be more important than basketball.
Fast forward to today: I’m a senior and the captain of my high school’s girls’ basketball team. I am fully recovered from my eating disorder, and contrary to my fears, I only improved as a basketball player ever since thanks to recovery. It gave me the strength, energy, mental clarity, and confidence I needed to unlock my full potential as an athlete —and, more importantly, as a person.
Honestly, the fact that recovery helped me become a better basketball player is just a bonus. The real benefits of recovering—the reasons I’m thankful for recovery every day— are how it’s improved my life. How I can eat practically anything I want without fears, rules or guilt. How I can go about my day, not thinking about food 24/7. How I no longer impulsively exercise, and the fact that I can move and rest my body mindfully. The fact that I am no longer cold all the time and my hair doesn’t fall out and I have working hunger cues and I feel physically stronger in everyday life and the fact that I’m alive are things I never take for granted, and were only made possible thanks too recovery. My mind is a safe place to be, and that to me is way more important than how good I am at my sport.
If you’re in a similar situation to the one I was in a few years ago, don’t let the fear of how recovery might affect you as an athlete stop you from experiencing all the wonderful ways it will affect you as a person. You will always be more than an athlete and your life will always be more important than your sport.
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