Fred’s Story

I’ve always played sport from a young age, mainly team sports, this was ultimately for fun especially when I was very young and yet when I got older they continued to get more and more competitive. Ending up going to competitive tournaments and I realised that it was becoming more of a chore almost, rather than doing it for fun. It felt like I was doing it because I had to do it rather than before when I was younger I was doing it whenever I wanted not whenever I had to. And when I went to college I ended up stopping most of my sport so I could focus on my studies and as a result of this ended up becoming one of the lowest points because I didn’t have the physical drive to push myself  that gets in your head all the time when competing.

When it came to getting ready to go to university this was when I started to get really excited for myself because I knew the opportunities for sport there were going to be amazing. In my eagerness I probably went overboard trying almost every variety. But the one thing I’d wanted to do for ages was get into the gym, it’s something I hadn’t able to do leading up to this and I was really excited to start doing this because I know some of my friends who were older than me had been going. It was the first thing I did as I got to there was get my membership.

However this is when I started to become ill so there were often days I felt so tired. This affected mainly my actual time at uni especially socialising; I couldn’t keep up with everyone as much.  It almost felt like I was fighting my own body in a sense, which was tough. I found that one of the only time I could feel fully in control of myself was in training sessions and focussing on the gym. At that point in time you’re not thinking anything apart from completing the action, you can’t feel the pain or the exhaustion as much, you’re just fully focused in on what you’re doing at the time. When I was changing my body that was the only real times that I felt I had full control. Once I got diagnosed and treatment started, the same pattern as continued and unfortunately once I was fully recovered in the space of the year the mentality behind fighting my body still continued so even though even though I was fully healthy, I thought my body owed me for what it had put my mind through. I still was fighting it which was not a good mindset to have because I

I was continually pushing my body further beyond what it could physically do. I was so used to it being a physical barrier and it had been pushed back I was still exhausting myself through my own doing rather than the illness.

I ended up so focussed on this I was missing out on many of the good social aspects university had to offer. Throughout second year my life basically revolved around changing myself physically and lost the fun aspect it had previously had at the start of university. It was only when I started talking to my friends more about this just towards the end of second year, I remembered that I should be doing stuff because I enjoy them, rather than feeling like I have to do something.

Since that time I like to finish a day knowing that I have learned something new from class or in my own time or that I have at least improved myself physically in performance. However this notion has changed slightly in my head now for the better. Before if I was unsuccessful in doing at least one of these things by the end of the day, I would write the day off a failure. Which pushed a negative mind on myself and I did not like myself when these days happened. Now I know that not every day can be a step forward for these ideas otherwise I can exhaust myself. I have found it beneficial to look out for myself more some days and listen to what my head and body is telling my mind, so if I need a day of rest and recovery that’s fine. It aids me into a more positive frame of mind consistently rather than beating myself up every time something doesn’t go as planned.

It was only during third year when I started to implement this more and use sport as a supplement to life rather than escaping from life through sport and hiding away from problems by blocking them out in those moments. There are still times when I can feel bad that I haven’t had a successful  day and I can start to go back to the bad headspace. But I feel more fulfilled and positive by not taking each day as an individual moment, and rather looking more openly and setting more realistic goals for myself with flexible time frames. Only then does my headspace become a lot more positive and my work output has improved dramatically, rather than being over critical of myself.