Life can come at you hard at any given moment. Lately, a few people close to me have been pounded by extremely challenging events, deaths in the family, injuries, divorce, and other types of loss. It's hard to watch anyone you love suffer, especially when you see them slipping emotionally as well.
Recently, my sister faced a string of upsetting events that started with the announcement of a divorce and, unrelated, ended with her having an accident at her home that landed her in the hospital. Fortunately, my nephew was home to help her, and, after receiving 18 stitches on her forehead, she is doing the right things by reaching out for help and taking care of herself throughout these added life challenges. Still, she has a long road ahead, and it's never easy to see someone you love in pain. Because it's a head injury, it's a lot more concerning than something like a broken wrist.
Someone else I consider a good friend and mentor also survived a brutal accident and other hardships recently, but she is struggling more in other ways. I see her inner turmoil but can't figure out how to help, especially since her family has already stepped in to try to do so to no avail.
It's always important to remember that mentors, teachers, idols, and athletes are human. Everyone hurts, struggles, gets injured, and has setbacks. At a time when I really needed, my mentor was there to fish me out of the coldest, darkest regions of hell and pull me through the flames to safer ground. That doesn't mean she's invincible or that I’ll never struggle again. It just means she was there and responded in a way that was beneficial to me when I called out for help.
While you can throw a lifeline to someone who doesn't want it or isn't ready to accept it, be prepared that the response might not be what you hope for or expect. Despite being able to see when someone is restless and experiencing internal conflict, I'm not in a position where I can provide a potential remedy if the one struggling doesn't ask for or want help. All anyone can do in this kind of situation is continue to offer support, even if the offers go unaccepted. It's a tough position to be in, wanting to help someone who doesn't want the support.
Regarding mentors, just because one might slip, it doesn't mean the lessons she taught are invalid. It's unrealistic to think that those who struggle can't give back to their communities or provide help to someone else. It's a shame that people, especially women, feel the need to present themselves primarily in one of two ways, either as superhuman and perfect or in a self-deprecating way, very little in between when that's where most of us live. The message on social media is that you either have to be flawless or you have to be a failure but funny about it. It comes back to honesty falling through the cracks because people would rather be viewed a certain way than be real and possibly vulnerable.
The research that came out confirming that Instagram is harmful to the well-being of teens probably extends past the teenage years. More and more, I'm limiting social media in ways that allow me to avoid "influencers" as much as possible. These are generally not people who have your best interest at heart and consist primarily of those who flaunt their own warped relationships with their bodies and food or those who are out for a profit. Seeing that kind of content doesn't improve my mental health one bit. If anything, it puts me at risk for feeling bad or angry.
This week, I find out if my 13th foot surgery is a go or not. If so, I'm actually hoping it will be number 13 and 14 rolled into one, but it's unlikely the doctor will do that. I don't like the idea of going under the knife knowing one surgery will only potentially resolve one of two issues, but patients don't always get a choice in how these operations go. Either way, the decision isn't easy. While I *can* run, I'm also experiencing terrible bouts of nerve and joint pain even outside of running, mostly when walking or standing, which makes volunteering at the Humane Society, something I find very rewarding, difficult. Obviously, the idea of another surgery has impacted my emotional health in a negative way. With uncertainty, I have to be careful about how critical my inner voice can become and need to work on decreasing the anxiety that comes with a lack of perceived control. As always, listening to my favorite podcasts keeps my monkey mind at least a little less agitated. I can tell I’m a bit all over the place here, but I think I’ll let it slide.
Last week, I tuned into an episode of The Science of Sport podcast that addressed the new guidelines released by the multiple sports councils in the UK regarding transgender athletes and their participation in sports. An article in the Guardian summed up their findings nicely:
From the podcast, the key takeaway reiterates this idea that a large body of strong evidence (not one or two weak studies) shows that suppressing T levels does not remove the biological differences that create performance differences that males have over natural females. In other words, these differences are not like varying height in basketball players or arm length in swimmers, which was always a ridiculous comparison. The differences and ultimately advantages are far more extreme than that.
What people do with this information is the real question, but it has been crickets from the running journalists in this country who have consistently demanded inclusion over fairness but falsely claimed inclusion is fair. In this case, either you believe the science or you don't. There's no denying it now, which is what many of us thought about the Houlihan burrito defense being shown to be unlikely after the CAS ruling came out, and yet that dead horse is still being flogged.
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