Educators Are Like Candles

I know what it is like to be a student-athlete and feel less than, to be not good enough to feel like a failure; however, as a teacher and as a coach I know that my words and actions positively or negatively affect my own student-athletes. When I started my career I knew my goal was to change as many students’ lives for the positive as possible. My entire life I have struggled with depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and trauma. I don’t trust easily and never have. I just put my mask on and act like everything is okay. I wouldn’t let others help me, mostly because I didn’t know how. I was giving so much to my student-athletes that I neglected to take into account my own mental health; the more I gave to them, the more my own mental illness worsened, to the breaking point of a failed suicide attempt in November of 2022. That was the moment that everything had to change.

There was an amazing opportunity to go to Transformations Mending Fences and be at a long-term care center to really get my medication right. The only thing was that I had to leave the next day and go to a detox center first to get off of medication that had been prescribed to me for years. That was the hardest 7 days of my life but I got through. I had no choice other than being better for my students and athletes. After detox I was transferred to another facility that is specifically for mental health and spent a little more than 30 days. Of course while I was gone I felt so guilty and like a failure. I just kept thinking how I let my students down.

I had to keep reminding myself that I needed help. If I wanted to be better for them I had to put in some major work that I had been avoiding for years. Transformations gave me an opportunity to strip everything down to the core and lay a solid foundation for me to continue building on when I got home. I am not sure where I would be right now if I wouldn’t have been given this amazing opportunity. Just remember… it only works if you work it.