The Untold Truth of Being a Student Athlete

[Music]

my name is kiera young

i’m a part of the women’s soccer program

at goldie beacon college

i’m currently a senior pursuing a degree

in psychology in hopes that one day i’ll

be a sports psychologist

and i’m going to be talking about the

untold truth of being a student athlete

student athletes internationally and

across the country

different divisions in different

conferences struggle to balance

their academics their athletics and

their social life

today i’m going to be sharing my story

in hopes that

i can show everybody what athletes

across the world and across the u.s

are struggling with and hopefully i can

be a voice to bring about

change in breaking the social norms that

student athletes have been

held down with the first thing i’d like

to do is go over my schedule now mind

you

gordy become division two women’s soccer

program this isn’t what

every schedule looks like for student

athletes division three is different

division one is different

conferences are different schools are

different but this is what my schedule

looks like

i start my day when i have lifts at 5

team lift usually lasts about one hour

so that’s six to seven

i then go from 7 15 to about 8 o’clock

showering and getting my breakfast in

and then from 8 to 11

i work from home i’m fortunate enough to

work with a company that allows me to do

that while i’m in school

from then i start my first class at 11

15 and that goes to about 12 45

and then from 12 45 to 1 15 i have 30

minutes to not only get in lunch

but get in a nap and to complete any

school work that i’ve missed from games

or practices there are some days that i

can get all three and that’s great and

other days not so much

i then go to the athletic training room

at 1 30

to get in my stretches and to work out

any aches and pains from the previous

game in practice

then practice starts at 2 o’clock from 2

to 4 we’re working on drills

watching film and practicing for our

upcoming game

that takes me to about 4 15 i make it

back to my dorm

i shower and i complete any school work

and homework that i need to catch up

with

my next class starts at 5 30 and

depending on the professor can last till

about 9 or 10 o’clock at night

which is when i have the time to make

dinner if i didn’t have time before my

night class and then i finish up some

homework i’m in bed by 11 or 12 o’clock

like i said before this is what my

schedule is like and it’s hard to

compare

other athletes from different schools

and divisions but for

this it’s busy for me it’s something

that i struggle with but i work hard

every day to work with it

but now i’d like to reintroduce myself

hi

my name is kiera young i’m a part of the

women’s soccer program at goldie beacon

college

i’m a senior pursuing a degree in

psychology and i struggle with ocd and

depression

now the schedule that you saw before may

not have seem busy now

but now when i incorporate my ocean

depression

it’s a lot harder for me so what i’d

like to do

is talk about specific points in my

schedule that are very

difficult and i would like to make a

comment that it doesn’t matter

for any student athlete whether you have

developed

high levels of stress and anxiety or

mental health issues

prior to being a collegiate athlete

during or after your collegiate career

what matters is how we are going to help

each other and

myself once we get to that position

so the first thing that’s difficult for

me is my 6 a.m team lift

i wake up at 5 30 and i’m exhausted from

the night before because i

obsessed about not waking up so every

hour without setting alarm

i was waking myself up once i get to

team lift

it gets even worse from there every time

whether it’s with my team or by myself i

have to complete an exercise

such as squats right easy you have three

three sets

10 reps each however i have to always

complete an extra rep or an

extra set if that doesn’t feel right to

me

i do it again and again and again

until my body feels as though okay i

completed the form correctly

i did the exercise correctly i’m going

to feel sore i can move on

if i don’t do that i get this feeling of

dread that something bad is going to

happen

and i don’t always know what it is all

the time

that moves into 8 a.m to 11 a.m which is

when i work

so i am a student manager at a

restaurant called mulligan’s pub and

girl

in college park maryland quite far away

from wilmington delaware but as i said

before i’m lucky enough to work from

home

i make the schedule for all the student

employees

so i use excel and i go through all the

hours all the days throughout the week

whether it’s wait staff they’re working

in the turn on the golf shop

or we have a function for a wedding but

i sit there

for those two hours two to three hours

and i go through every employee and i

have to explain to myself

more than five times

why they deserve this shift why they do

not why they have to take this shift why

they did not

this becomes time consuming and most of

the time i don’t get to finish this

and i have to send it off to one of my

colleagues to finish

that moves on to 1 30. i’m at the

athletic training room i stretch

every practice and every game i have to

do my stretches

if i don’t i can’t can’t play i just

have this bad feeling i’ll get injured a

teammate will get injured i can’t do it

so i complete my stretches

i have a set of them they’re all 20

seconds each

if i do not feel as though that stretch

was done properly

i tack on another 10 seconds if it

doesn’t feel right after that i start

the process all over again which is why

sometimes i’ll go in a lot earlier than

1 30

to complete all of my stretches

that takes me to practice this is

another thing that’s really difficult

for me

there are days when my depression kicks

in and i do not have any motivation to

go

and i have to have i have to call my mom

my dad

boyfriend friends get my teammates to

help motivate me so i can get there

because i still struggle to do it by

myself

so when i get there my ocd also triggers

i’m sitting there constantly going

through every activity and drill and

film that we go through

every conversation that is made between

teammates and myself and my coach

myself and i am repeating it in my head

multiple times and in different ways

because i feel as though if i forget

i won’t remember and i’ll do poorly in a

game all

somebody will get hurt or we just will

not have a good season

now they may seem like irrational

thoughts but they go through my head and

although i know

that those are not true it feels like it

so i do them until the feeling goes away

and for the last two school work and in

the class taking notes

i no longer write with a pencil and

paper

i have transitioned over to an ipad with

an apple pencil

now you would think typing would be

easier but i try to challenge myself so

i use an app

so that way i can write and it’s easier

to erase but if i need to i can type

when on the fly

i no longer can write with pencil and

paper because i have this idea in my

head

that my handwriting has to be perfect

and if that letter

crosses that line i have to start my

notes all over again

imagine writing 10 pages of notes and

starting them

over again in a class that you only have

an hour to do or luckily

a night class where you have four hours

to do it it’s not fun

and it is difficult and it is very hard

for me to do it so

ipad and pencil work ipad and apple

pencil work for me

but there are days where it’s still the

struggle

now what i’d like to do now is describe

a little bit more what depression and

ocd is like

and then go into detail on how it

affects me every day

now depression is a severe but common

mood disorder

it affects how you feel

think and handle daily activities such

as sleeping eating and working

now there are different types of

depressions there are different

intensities

and everybody is affected in different

ways for me

i am lucky that it doesn’t affect me

every single day

of my life and i’m fortunate enough to

not have to struggle

every day but it is something that i

still have to work on

as i go throughout my college career and

hopefully hopefully i don’t have to

but i may have to do it afterwards

because this is something that is still

fairly new to me

as i was diagnosed this past spring in

2019 now ocd

ocd is an anxiety disorder but it’s

broken up into two parts

obsessions and compulsions obsessions

are intrusive and unwanted behaviors and

thoughts

that are only um

that are only subsided through

compulsions and compulsions are ritual

and repetitive

actions that have to be completed in

specific rules

and patterns in order to subside the

obsessions

for me this is something that i struggle

with every single day of my life there

are days where i

am doing great and it only affects me

here and there and there are days when

it

is so bad that i feel as though i can’t

function and i can’t do my daily

activities this is something i’ve

struggled with since i was a kid but i

didn’t know until i got to college

because that’s when it got really bad

but like i said before everybody is

different

my depression may be different from the

teammate off to my right or the teammate

off to my left

my ocd may be different from my sister

or my classmate

everybody is different in how it causes

it

how they react to it and what they do

to solve it my depression and ocd

it is hard some days and some days it’s

easier

for me as i said before depression is

not an everyday thing for me

there are some days where it’s better

than others but ocd

is quite difficult

i wasn’t diagnosed with ocd until the

fall

till my the fall of my sophomore year

i didn’t know although i had struggled

since i was a kid but it didn’t get back

until i got to college and that’s when i

was diagnosed and i had no idea

how to help myself i had no idea who to

get in contact with what to do whether

there’s medications i need to take

so i struggled for two years by myself

trying to fix this on my own

with no progression then

in the spring of my junior year i was

diagnosed with depression after i hit a

low

i struggled for a couple of months and

realized i can’t do

all of this by myself i am one person i

don’t understand this i don’t have the

resources i need to get help

but the problem with that is that i’m an

athlete

it’s hard a lot of times

we have these social norms that we can’t

break

because we’re seen as weak and that we

shouldn’t be here

so what i’d like to do is show you an

example on the board

of what some of my ocd triggers are

so this is one of my notes i took on my

ipad

simple some of you may say uh it’s a

little sloppy handwriting

but there’s nothing wrong with it so

we’re going to get a little closer

you may say oh no it’s it’s fine a

little sloppy

i still don’t see anything

these arrows all point to areas

where it triggers my ocd the fact that

the n and the t

in orientation does not touch the line

it triggers it the t the line isn’t

straight across

that triggers it the o and the l are too

far apart and the e doesn’t finish

its curve it triggers it

this is just a small list of the

hundreds of things in my writing

that triggers it and i don’t know all of

them i just know that once i start

feeling

like something bad’s gonna happen when

i’m staring at my handwriting

i know i have to start my compulsions

now those are all different

right now it’s a blinking sequence i

don’t have a pattern i don’t have a set

number

but i complete a certain amount of

blinks in that time frame

until that feeling of dread until that

feeling of something bad is going to

happen

goes away and i feel satisfied

now as i said before this is something

that i’ve kept from my teammates from my

coaches

and i’ve struggled by myself even from

my parents and friends

because i thought that if people knew

they were going to see me weak i grew up

being the tough kid i was the only girl

in a group of all guy friends

they always saw me as tough and that i

could do anything and when i went to

college soccer

that title followed with me

but what i didn’t know is that i

couldn’t do it by myself

i needed help but because of the social

norms

such as you chose this lifestyle you’re

an athlete you chose to have this

schedule you chose to deal with the

stresses

you should be able to deal with it

you’re fine

you’re fine what’s going on it’s gonna

pass you will

get through it there’s no need to worry

about it

the word tough that one gets me a lot

because a lot of people believe that

since you do sports you’re tough nothing

can go wrong you can get through it

and you’re not cut out for this i felt

as though once

i told somebody once i tried to get help

those were the words i was going to get

and those were the words i did get from

some people luckily

being here at goldie beacon college and

having the resources that i did here

i didn’t get that but other places i did

and what i am here today

is to show people that we need to break

these social norms we need to get past

these words and sentences that bring

athletes down

and make them not want to seek help

like i said all conferences and

divisions and student athletes in

colleges

are different and everybody deals with

things in

a different way however we need to stop

with the social norms and we need to

bring on more psychologists

sports psychologists to every university

in college so that way athletes can feel

as though

they can get the help they need without

bringing themselves down

thank you