In Response
This was sent to me yesterday, and I'd like to thank the author for such a raw, genuine reflection. I'm not naming them at their request.
I felt the need to comment on your post regarding Liam Payne and provide some small insights because I was one of those professions you mentioned. With the proviso that I do not know Liam Payne, and have no understanding of his life or what it feels like to be a successful artist. My only connection to him is having enjoyed One Direction a long time ago.
I do understand what it's like to have peaked young, though. I am a dried-up former gymnast of some success once. I spent 19 years in the sport, beginning when I was 4. I spent time training at the USA National Team camp and was later a collegiate athlete.
That's the short of my background, and I've lived with the feeling of having peaked long ago. All my accomplishments are long past. I will never be as good at anything in my life as I was at gymnastics. I will never be worth as much to anyone as I was when I was a teenager. I don't know how to tell you how much that sucks.
But that's not actually the hard part. At least not for myself, or for those in other sports I've talked to. It's figuring out what you're supposed to do with the rest of your life. For many of us that means discovering who we are, even though a great many of us haven't known anything outside our sport. We don't have hobbies, or friends separate from our sport. We don't know what we enjoy. We would get up for an early morning workout, have school, train for hours after school, eat, and go to bed. There weren't any gaps for hobbies or 'playing' or going out with friends. Anyone you met outside your sport learned not to ask you to go out because the answer would always be that you couldn't.
I can imagine some of those feelings were true for him. Maybe it's easier if you leave on your own terms, having accomplished what you wanted to. He was losing his career despite his best efforts to cling to it. However, he still had plans and hopes and dreams of another solo album. I lost my dreams to injury, and watched as my teammates' one shot at a national championship was a fleeting appearance in the semi finals.
Despite that I was far luckier then most. I burned out hard in my late teens and much of my collegiate career was lost to recurring back issues. It gave me some time to discover who I was and what I was independent of gymnastics. I also got a degree unrelated to athletics. I had a support system outside the sport to fall back on. Did Liam have that? Did he know what to do if he could no longer be a singer?
Many within sports don't have an answer to that. They have no grasp of what they are supposed to do post-career. In a very real sense, for the first time in their life their time is their own. All of their former friends are still attached to their sport, and so they are alone in trying to discover who they are and how to make a life. An entirely new life, because it feels like you are starting life anew as a new person.
That's terrifying and confusing. You wake up every morning having no idea what you're supposed to do. It's not all bad, of course. For a few days it even feels good. The stress and fear of failure is gone. It's so difficult waking up every morning knowing you have to be PERFECT, and even a slight mistake could be the end of your dream. You're constantly living under pressure and it never feels like you can relax or catch your breath.
Beyond that I had to re-wire my brain to understand that it’s OK for me to skip a day of workouts. Only working out four days a week for an hour is an ongoing struggle. I think most ex-athletes feel that way. Taking a day off was associated with laziness or lack of commitment. Days off are essential for recovery, though, both mentally and emotionally. I remind myself I am not who I used to be and my body isn't what it once was and that’s OK. The things that were required of me aren’t required anymore. I'm not the same person so I don't have the same requirements.
There’s a certain brutality to fleeting success. In many fields you can fail and it's no big deal. You still have time. In gymnastics, that’s it. Off of the podium, and maybe not on the team. Your entire life as you've known it to that point is over. Liam didn't have a podium, and his stage was far grander. But he'd lost his place all the same.
I know of a former Olympian who passed to suicide a few months ago. It passed the media unmentioned, when just five years ago it would have been breathlessly reported. He was no longer making headlines, so no one cared. I remember a young girl I trained with for over four years, a gifted athlete with her entire life ahead of her. She's no longer with us. They never learned how to live independent of their sport. I wish the media noted not just Liam's death, but others like him who pass too often, unmentioned and forgotten. There are options out there to help them, psychologists who specialize in these situations. Help people like Liam probably needed.
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