Shortly after beginning my D1 athletic career, I sustained a serious injury that prevented
me from participating in my sport. At the time, we did not know the extent of the injury, so my
team’s athletic trainer and local sports doctors attempted to treat it with stretches, strengthening
exercises, and anti-inflammatory medications. It was during these couple months of constant injury-related pain that I discovered just how isolating and mentally degrading it can be to have an injury on a team. Because I could not do the same workouts as my teammates, I was first moved to the exercise bikes, where almost all the injured athletes on my team were sent. The bikes were kept in a different area than the usual equipment, so the injured athletes had little contact with the rest of the team throughout the course of their injuries. My injury persisted despite all treatment attempts and inconclusive
doctor appointments, so I was further isolated when I was sent to use equipment in different
rooms entirely.
Completing my assigned workouts all by myself in these rooms was a lonely and
miserable experience that left me with far too much time to get caught up in my own thoughts
and anxieties. One of my worst irrational fears during that time was that my coaches and
teammates thought I was faking my injury to get out of the workouts, and that I had been
purposely banished to places where I could not be seen or heard. Due to these fears, I became a
bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy and started to isolate myself from my teammates during the few
times I did see them.
My hope is that coaches and athletic staff in all sports will start to understand how
socially and mentally damaging injuries can be, and that they will find ways to include their
injured athletes in team activities rather than isolating them.