Injury is an Emotion.

Coming back from any injury is hard and coming back from a serious injury is really f-ing hard. The process of this is complex so I am going to do my best to summarize it. I am also not going to tell you how to rehab or things like that. I am touching more so on the emotional side of an injury. In this blog I am focusing on those injuries that take you out of your sport 6 months or longer. The ACL and Achilles tears. The back fractures. Things like that. An injury like this is scary, frustrating, and overwhelming. It is easy to get lost in these injuries. To doubt yourself, to question your passion. We often find ourselves drowning in insecurities. I am here to tell you that you are not alone. That although at times it feels like you will never find your way back you can. I am also here to not lie to you. Sometimes these serious injuries do change your path and that is something you may need to deal with but, no matter where these injuries take you I know one thing for sure. Getting through a serious injury as an athlete will change you.

When we first get hurt our brains run wild with what if’s:

What if it doesn’t get better?

What if I get hurt again?

What if my coach thinks I’m faking?

What if I lose my skills?

What if my body is never the same?

What if I lose my spot in the lineup?

These are just a fraction of the what if’s that likely go through your head the first couple weeks after an injury. I wish I could tell you that they are just what if’s and everything will be fine but I can’t. I can tell you that the more you focus on the what if’s the harder your recovery will be. Most of these you don’t have control over so stressing about them only make it harder and is a huge waste of energy. Energy that you could be using for getting better. Ask yourself what you do have control over? Things like how hard you work on your rehab. How much time you put into your strength program. Putting nutritious food into your body. Getting enough sleep. Drinking a lot of water. All of these things will help you heal and your number one priority is that you heal. Life is long and although it seems like your sport is everything, it’s not. The health of your body is much more important. 

So, all this being said, rehabbing your body is not the only thing you need to rehab when coming back from an injury. You have to rehab your mind. Like the title of this blog, injury is an emotion. Injuries can really screw with you. Keeping a balanced state of mind is really hard. Like really hard. In the beginning I said that when we get hurt we often find ourselves drowning in insecurities. We doubt ourselves and our skills like we never have before. It is so easy to forget our strengths when we can’t use them and this causes a serious lapse in confidence. Be aware of your emotions and know they are justified. If you are feeling it there is a reason. Healing our mind is much more difficult than healing our body so try to stay in control from the beginning. And if you start to lose control, go to those people you trust for help. Please don’t think you are in this alone because you aren’t. You never are. Be a big enough person to ask for the help. Just think of it this way, if a friend came to you struggling you would help in a heartbeat. No questions asked, because you want to. Just think about that for a second…

Here are my tips for helping you overcome an injury:

Mental

-Have someone to talk to. A sports psychologist, a coach, a teammate. Someone you trust that understands what you are going through.

-Take pride in those “little” accomplishments. I put little in quotes because things that may seem like a small thing is a huge thing when coming back from an injury. For example, extending your knee a degree after a ACL tear. That is a big deal, be proud of that. 

-Know that it is ok to be frustrated but it is not ok to let that frustration control you.

-Take it day by day. Getting too ahead of yourself can be detrimental.

-Make sure you spend time with your team. Whether is it being in the gym for an hour to do rehab or spending time hanging with your teammates, those connections are very important and will help you heal. If you get too disconnected you can feel pretty lonely.

-Know that the people around you may not always know what the right thing to say and you can’t expect them to. Acknowledge that they care.

Physical

-Find a good PT and listen to them!

-Do the work. Don’t expect that you will come back if you don’t do the work.

-What you do to your body as a whole will affect how quickly or how slowly you heal. That means take extra care of yourself. Sleep, eat healthy, drink lots of water etc.

-Have a strength program. Once you get the ok rom your doctor, get back into a strength program. Working the rest of your body will not only help you heal but once you are back will get you back to you faster. 

Now I touched on the idea that sometimes, your sport come to end, after an injury. I am not saying your body doesn’t heal. I am saying maybe it heals differently. Maybe you can’t perform like you once did no matter how hard you work. Maybe you are always in pain when you do your sport. Maybe the injury made you realize you don’t actually love the sport you thought you did. There are a handful of reasons that could potentially bring you to the decision to be done with your sport.

If this happens remember, you are not your sport. Don’t ever define yourself by your sport. Your competitive days will always come to end for one reason or another. You graduate. You retire. You just don’t love it anymore. You got an injury you couldn’t come back from.  Then what? You just don’t matter anymore? You don’t know who you are? Never let that happen. A sport is something you do because you love to do it. I am not saying that you shouldn’t be proud, you should be! Sports have a big impact on the kind of person we become but those impacts are always there. You don’t all of the sudden lose you work ethic when you are done with your sport. You don’t forget what it feels like to be part of a team. Your sport will always be a part of you whether you are still playing it or not. We often times don’t have perspective until we are forced to, which is really an unfortunate thing. If you take anything from this blog take this. Everything you do in life is a part of you. The decisions you make, the relationships you build, the sports you play, the injuries you get. All of this is a part of you because they taught strength, determination, resilience, humility, friendship, integrity, respect, and so on. These are the things that make you who you are, not the fact that you are a gymnast/basketball player/dancer/hockey player etc. So if an injury ends your sport, just remember it isn’t ending you.