Success Story

TW: Throughout this post, I will be discussing things such as depression, eating disorders, and anxiety. If you are in a place in your life where this may be triggering to read, bookmark this post and read it when you are ready.

I have always wanted to be a success story. From a young age, I envisioned myself in interviews and on talk shows, telling the world how I became successful and talented. I never knew exactly where this success would be but I knew that I wanted it, badly. It was an innate feeling. A feeling that I was capable of accomplishing anything. It was pure, innocent, and completely natural. It felt right. The world was not scary and seemingly capable of doing any wrong. But, as I grew older, I saw the darkness, I saw what the world could do to people who weren’t prepared. I saw the people I loved, hurt and resentful. I saw how the world could be so incredibly cruel sometimes that it could cause families who are supposed to love, hate. I did not understand why but I knew, deep down in the depths of my soul, that I would never let the world hurt me. I was better. I was prepared. I would be the exception.

The one thing no one ever tells you growing up is that the world can break even the strongest of people. I remember watching YouTube videos of famous individuals who talked about their success stories and I figured that they were a type. A type of person that I could work to be. The type of person who was strong, resilient and born to be that way. They talked about a feeling, the same feeling I woke up every morning with. The feeling that one day, through hard work, passion, and purpose, they would someday make it. I watched these videos like it was my job. I took notes, practiced what I would say in interviews, adopted their routines, habits and schedules, I read books and watched movies, and most importantly, morphed myself into a determined and motivated human being.

For a very long time, as I looked back on my childhood and what might have driven me so much, I had a very difficult time remembering if my motivation to be perfect was because of trauma or if it was because I was born that way. I immersed myself into my psychology classes and read self-help books on trauma and success. However, as I kept reading and watching videos, the more and more my confusion debilitated me. It was about a year ago when I let go of the sport that was supposed to be a part of my success story. It was about a year ago that the sport I loved the most and brought me the most happiness, became an extremely dark place. It was about a year ago when I moved back home to my parent’s house and while sitting in my childhood bedroom, broke down, chained to a sinking feeling. I was no longer a success story. I had failed and I had no idea how I would ever recover.

The world had failed me and I did not understand why. How could I have worked so hard, loved so hard and developed such a fixed mindset, only to be greeted with failure. I was going to be 20 years old and I felt like I was starting over. I was terrified and lethargic. Seven years gone to waste. No light at the end of the tunnel.

This was a very dark time in my life yet, looking back I really can’t remember what the days were like. This could have been because every day felt the same or that the darkness seemed to just mesh into those long months. Nevertheless, I still remember how I viewed the world. I resented everyone and everything. I resented running, the thing that hurt me the most when it seemed to promise me it wouldn’t. I resented my friends and family because I did not think they could ever understand. I resented the people who had helped throughout my running journey because I had felt like I had let them down and wasted their time. I resented myself, for being so naive to think that this could’ve worked out or that I could have been so careless to choose the wrong passion. I did not want to talk about it, I wanted to hide and I did not want to face the facts.

Denial was before the depression but even before the denial there was a thought in the back of my head that I could make my disordered eating, anxiety and OCD work in a lifestyle that would not be sustainable enough to live for very long. I always thought that maybe all of those things would just go away as soon I became successful but sitting here now I can tell you one thing, success does not get rid of your problems, it amplifies them. The more you try to just bury it and bury it deep into the ground, the stronger the roots are when you try to pull them out and plant a new seed. Behavior over time, becomes fixed. The things that I was struggling with a year ago were always in my life, they were just continually buried and internalized and now the roots were strong. I had grown so accustomed to burying, that the things I did on a day to day basis seemed normal to me. They were what I knew. I thought it was normal to write down what you ate and to use only even numbers when counting out reps or calories. I thought it was normal to workout to exhaustion to get rid of anxiety and be able to sleep at night. I thought it was normal to hate intimacy, hugs and love (I still to this day hate being touched or hugged). And I thought these things were normal because I was gaining success through them. Good grades, a state championship, recruitment, scholarships, AP classes, good friends, family, awards, medals, congratulations Lauren! I liked feeling valued and validated. I could measure my success and I could see my success story getting closer and closer.

A journal entry from January 4th, 2020: “There once was a girl with bright blonde hair that always bounced around in a high, high ponytail. She loved to run and read and write and her heart was full. She was hopeful for the future and had big, Hollywood-like dreams full of sunshine, big houses, dogs, beaches and fame. She smiled at every moment of every day because to her, life was hopeful. But this girl, this girl was young, so naive to the truth of the world. And when darkness came, she was knocked off her feet and laying on the ground. She felt should would never be able to stand again. Slowly, her tears were drawn out of her like chains and soon, she became locked to the cold and dirty ground. She could not move, think, speak, feel, eat or sleep. The darkness would now keep her a prisoners, feeding/feasting on her hopeless soul. The ground turned her hair brown and her soul would become emptied. The chains left scars on her body, invisible to the eye but enough to become debilitating. She had attempted to escape at first but now, exhaustion holds on to her. And even though the girl hurts, she can no longer see and is too tired to find a way out. There once was a girl who had to become friends with her darkness because it was the only thing left to hold on to”.

The first time I went through my journals recently, I read this entry and could feel the depression sneaking back into my life again. I shut the journal with force because I could remember sitting in a Starbucks writing this with tears in my eyes. I felt the pain, the uncertainty. But I also remembered that same day, how I had watched what must of been hundreds of people passing by and wondering how many of them were like me. How many of these strangers were depressed, lonely, lost, confused, and afraid. And as these people continued to walk by, I found comfort in knowing how big the world was and how I was just a small grain of sand on a beaches’ surface. I believe that I felt this way because there seemed to be comfort in knowing that we all have that in common. Just a small particle that makes up the earth, a small particle that, by chance, was given life. I thought about my mom and how she took a risk, a leap of faith, to move 900 miles away from her home in New Jersey to a random island in Michigan and because of that, met my dad.

When I look at my journal entries now, I utilize them as a reminder. As I mentioned prior, even the strongest of people will get knocked down and potentially stay there for awhile. My self worth has always been measured through my successes, never through my failures. However, there is much more to learn from a failed attempt, an argument, a fall-out, a break-up, and most importantly, depression. Even though these things have a negative connotation attached to them, they are things that upon hearing we suddenly become intrigued. I remember when I first stopped running, I avoided a lot of people. I had no clue how I would ever be able to explain a failure or explain how a motivated and positive person like me could suddenly struggle with depression. My body dysmorphia was so horrible that I thought people would tell me that I put on weight and that running kept me in shape when in fact I was skeleton-like and lifeless. I thought that people would be disappointed in me and that staying in bed all day staring at the ceiling was much more appealing. What I didn’t realize at the time was that people knew. I confided in some, though not many. It wasn’t until many months later when a person who I truly cared for asked me about it and by no fault of their own, had been misled by rumors about my disorders. I was extremely hurt at first because of how much I had gone through but I did something in that moment that I had never done before, I let it go. I subconsciously reminded myself that each time I tried to gain control when it wasn’t possible, I only ended up hurting myself and others. I knew better and what really mattered were the people in my life who were standing in front of me, arms stretched out towards me, reading to let me in.

I get emotional when I talk or think about running because there are a lot of things in my life that are inexplicably attached to running. A lot of the relationships I formulated over the years were through running. The school I chose was through running. Many of the people I follow on social media are runners and the books that sit, now in storage, are all about running. A lot of my journal entries hold truths about the highs and lows I experienced throughout competing in the sport and my closest is still mostly running gear. Last year, I tried to throw away all of these things. I couldn’t bear to look at them and be reminded of what I wasn’t. I think this is why I became so isolated, I did not feel safe walking around my hometown and seeing a street corner that I used to round time and time again. It felt like too much. However, I have always been an avoider. It is the achilles heel in my life and is by far one of the biggest reasons I have missed out on big opportunities in my life wether it be relationships, jobs, or school. I never faced my problems, I ran around them, literally. But now, there was no way to run around them, they were standing in the way of my happiness.

My therapist, who I’ve now been seeing for close to a year, said something to me that was very impactful to me on one of my first visits that I wanted to share. We were talking about the future, something that has been a focus of conversation because, despite overcoming depression, debilitates me and my progress. I explained to her how I feel as though I waste a lot of time worrying about wasting time. I told her that I felt like I had to start over and that I have no idea what I wanted to do with my life now that running wasn’t at the center. This is an excerpt from that conversation that I later wrote down in my journal:

HER: Lauren, what do you want more than anything else in this life?

ME: I guess, to be happy.

HER: Does living in the future make you happy?

ME: Well no, it stresses me out because I can’t see it very clearly.

HER: This may be hard to hear, but unless you’ve traveled in time, how could it possibly be clear? How ever you imagine what the perfect future may be, it will never live up to it. It could be close, but not perfect. If you spend the majority of your time thinking about and worrying about what hasn’t happened yet, you will suddenly wake up one morning and realize that it has already been ten years. Fear and anxiety create a stagnant life, one that never moves forward or backward. Does that make sense?

ME: Yes.

HER: The difference between obsessive planning and obsessive living is that the latter will have you waking up in ten years saying, where has the time gone while the other will have you saying, I’ve wasted so much time.

ME: What does obsessive living?

HER: Imagine one of the best days of your life where 24 hours felt like one. Obsessive living is just that. Doing things like that every day. Constantly listening to your intuition and doing things that make you lose track of time. That is where life begins. Life should never feel like a chore.

ME: How do I even start?

HER: Start by writing down in your journal 10 things that make you the most happy or things that make you lose track of time. Then, every day, choose one to do in between tasks such as school and work. It should feel like a meditation and if you finish and begin a new task still feeling stressed, cross it off the list and add one that you would like to try. Over time, these acts will become a form of self-care and maybe one them will outshine the rest but the key is to not overthink and instead intuitive.

That night, I wrote down ten things such as writing, drawing, listening to music, taking my dog on a walk, reading, watching movies/tv shows, spending time with family, crossword puzzles, etc. The next day, I started the process of obsessively living.

I experienced something this past year that is hard to describe but has changed me so completely that I want to try my best to share it. In the last 7 years of my running career, I developed what many psychologists call “tunnel vision”. It began when I realized I could be great at something and enveloped me more and more as I saw it as my only source of long-term happiness. The world was simply black and white, one way or no way. I think that this term sometimes has a positive connotation when it comes to sports and performing at a high level because it prevents distractions from obstructing your view and therefore, your goals to achieve in the future. This makes a lot of sense to me now as to why I was so stubborn and in denial when I first stopped running. It explains why the world seemed so confusing and foggy. It also explains why I felt like it was the end of the world and that I failed so completely. However, through therapy and self-care, I began looking around and noticing things I had never seen before. It started with my family, recognizing their love and how thankful I am for them. I noticed that little things they were constantly doing for me and how my behavior/actions impacted them. But, it was also looking out the car window and noticing a tree that had been there my whole life and yet never came to fully recognize it. This morphed into much larger ideas such as new interests and hobbies. I remember sitting in a lecture and suddenly being drawn to movies and film and imagining myself in the industry and then repeating the process in all of my other classes. More and more each day, I was seeing the world as it is, a sea of opportunities. Why couldn’t I experience it all? And why has it taken me so long to see it?

When I turned 20 this past year, a wave of panic washed over me because I was scared of the endless stream of opportunities in front of me. I could now see how much more there is to life but how was I supposed to choose one and trust? I felt like I had lost a lot of trust in myself and my decisions through running. What if it didn’t work out? What if I put in the effort and I fail again? It felt so overwhelming that I almost didn’t want to have to choose. I wanted someone to walk up to me on the street and tell me what to do. I wanted to wake up one morning to a voice telling me to go one way or another. I did not have trust in myself or the universe. It can at times, paralyze me to the point of not trying. But one day, like every other Gen Z in the country right now, I went on Tik Tok to do my morning scroll and the first video that popped up was that of Jim Carrey speaking at a commencement ceremony. He talked about his father who instead of pursuing the job of his dreams, settled for something safe because of the fear of failure. His dad got fired from that “safe” job. Carrey tells the crowd that you might as well pursue your dream because there is just as likely of a chance that you will fail at anything else.

Why am I writing this post now? To be completely honest, I wish I could end saying that I have this big plan for my life now. The truth is though, I still don’t know what the hell I’m doing. The difference now is that I know its okay because I’m trying. I wake up every morning and pursue as much of an optimal experience of life as I can because I’m never guaranteed anything. I do things that make me happy even if they don’t seem productive because if there is anything I have learned in the past year, it is that happiness is productive. Living in the present, is productive. I know that I will be better off working on myself, my relationships, my schoolwork, my job, and my happiness for that 30 year old me who needs it the most. My success story begins and ends with me. We are all success stories. We are all living, breathing, and passionate miracles. I’m thankful for you. Turn off the tunnel vision.You are so loved. You are a success story.

Be kind. Be brave. Stay Safe.

Lauren