Few people on this earth are as well received as Abby Way. The type of person you want to be your friend, she radiates positivity, always at the ready to make your day better. In her time at Slippery Rock University, she thrived both in academics (School Wellness Education) and athletics (Track and Field Throwing). It wasn’t a surprise when she became the Student-Athlete Advisory Council President, it felt natural and obvious. She was a perfect representation of what a good student-athlete was.
She impressively qualified 16-times for the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference championships (PSACs), won 2 PSAC championships, and completed all four years as a PSAC scholar-athlete. In the context of all of this, it’s hard to believe that she not only struggled with her mental health, but during her collegiate career, contemplated her life.
In lieu of September being suicide awareness month, I want to focus on sharing personal stories and speaking specifically about mental health in athletics. I was incredibly honored when Abby was willing to share her story. If you wish to share your experience and think it could help others, please reach out. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, with COVID dramatically affecting current student-athletes, providing resources and shared experiences is now more important than ever.
The following is a recap of the two-hour conversation about Abby’s experience with mental health in college athletics. My comment are made in italics.
What were some of the biggest ways your mental health impacted your sport?
Ok, so it makes the most sense if I begin with a backstory. In the middle of my sophomore year, I started dealing with mental health in college. It was a turning point in my track and field career and I had finally started seeing results and the numbers I was aiming for. Despite my success, I had a constant sense of failure. It didn’t matter if it was my personal best, I still was left feeling that it wasn’t good enough, I still suck.
I became super depressed by the end of my sophomore year. I started getting panic attacks for the first time ever and had sleepless nights. I kept putting so much pressure on myself and didn’t want to let my coaches and teammates down. So, for the rest of my sophomore and majority of my junior year, I began packing my schedule to push myself to get better.
I would wake up early and go to sunrise yoga at the rec center, go to class (which was physical activity based), go to conditioning and practice, go to lifting, and usually go back to the gym later that day to exercise more. That much physical activity ended up impacting my physical health too and I ended up tearing my rhomboid in my shoulder. Our doctor at school made it clear that things were not ok, but much like I had been doing with my mental health, I kinda pushed it aside and powered through.
At the end of the day, it seemed like the biggest impact it had on my sport was team-based. I felt like I was constantly being so fake, covering for myself when people would ask how I was doing. I’ve always been that person who people go to, a source of positive energy and it was just so fake. But when someone tells you that you did a great job at a meet, it’s not like you can say, “thanks, I’m super depressed.” At the time too, I didn’t necessarily understand what was going on. I just knew that I felt like shit all of the time. I hated that I was lying to everyone, including myself.
It carried into my senior year and it’s going to be crazy when people read this because they just won’t believe it. I got so good at covering things up.
It seems like there’s an expectation that if you’re winning or performing in college athletics, that everything else about you is good, too. Balancing everything we do while we’re student-athletes is so hard. We pour so much of ourselves into one category of our lives and it’s hard to balance, care about, and find time to focus on academics, our social lives, self-care, etc.
There are so many different things that we do in a day and athletics is just a minute part of our life, but for the four or five years we’re doing it, it means the most. I tried to match that energy throughout my days and it just ended up feeling like I was failing and not enough. I’ve always had high expectations for myself so that was incredibly hard. At the end of the day, I’m 22. I’m just a kid. And I’ve been through so much.
How did your mental health affect your daily life?
We talked about how packed and super crazy schedule was and how I felt that I was being fake with everyone. It got to the point that I had been acting like I was ok for so long, that it became a part of my identity. I tried all of the things they tell you to do, journaling, self-reflecting, but I just didn’t know the person I was anymore. Who is Abby Way? Because I don’t even know.
I never wanted to be a burden to anyone else, so I never brought it up. I didn’t want to make their days worse and who knows, they probably had it worse than I did. In that way, it affected my friendships, because I didn’t want to burden them, so it just ended up being fake.
I was lucky that it didn’t end up affecting my grades. In college, you get to major in something that you’re interested in and that helped a lot. Without a doubt though, there were days that I just asked “what’s the point? I’m never going to get a job. I’ll be a terrible teacher.” That combined with feeling like I sucked at my sport too and I just felt like I couldn’t get anything right. Look at me now though. (Abby recently began a job in the Conestoga Valley school district as a health and physical education teacher)
What were the factors that helped you get back on track?
I didn’t rely on my friendships. I was their fun friend and didn’t want to be a burden. I ended calling my mom every single day and even then, it would feel like a mistake because I would worry her with the things that I would say. She would ask if she should take time off of work to see me or if I wanted to come home for the weekend. As a student-athlete, you don’t just get to take the weekend off. You’ll lose your spot. I would think, “God forbid, track’s the number one thing in my life, it’s all about athletics.”
I was raised going to Church on Sundays and tried to rely on faith as much as I could. Kait Barackman deserves a huge shout-out for helping me get there. She got me into using a devotional (Victory 365 if you want to check it out) and it was great taking time to myself 2-5 minutes a day to be peaceful and reflect. But, once I put it down, I was back to real life, which was rough because I wasn’t the person to seek out help or resources right away.
Ok. This is awful. This was the worst experience ever. I’ve only ever shared this with two people in my whole life.
Things became the worst and I was at my lowest at the beginning of my junior year (that’s when I should have gotten help), but at the beginning of my junior year, I contemplated taking my life. That was for sure the lowest point for me. The same thing happened my senior year, but I was a little bit more stable (I guess) and decided to call the counseling center on campus. They said “oh, we’re so sorry to hear that you’re having these problems, our soonest appointment is in three weeks.”
It just felt like my problems didn’t matter. I was astounded. In the past year, we’d had three kids commit suicide on campus. It can be prevented, but they’re not actually taking the steps to do it, no matter what they say. These are kids lives, they’re actually going through shit. You’ve got four counselors for nine-thousand kids!?
I went to the appointment and talked for exactly forty-minutes, at which time the guy told me my time was up and it was the next kid’s turn. I talked to a random person about my personal issues for forty-five minutes, then they pushed me out the door and said, “see you in three weeks!” I had an appointment scheduled for three weeks later. I never went. They never followed up. It was like, “I’m so mentally unstable that I wanted to take my own life but yeah, I’ll see you in three weeks. I’m sure those three weeks will be a breeze.” Now that I’m outside of the athletics world, I’ve had time to think back on all of it. I keep thinking, “wow, that was really fucked up. I can’t believe that actually happened.”
I ended up trying to go to an off-campus therapist but had a similar experience. I was encouraged to try goal setting, journaling, finding someone to talk to. It felt like they just saw me as another depressed college student. Especially in college athletics, I couldn’t believe that no one else saw a problem. At first I thought it was just me, but then I thought, there’s no way. I especially feel for male athletes because they’re fighting the overall stigma of mental health in athletics but then get called “soft”. There’s just no safe space for athletes to talk about mental health.
Anyway, something that helped me get back on track was finally being honest with my teammates. We spent so much time together and were a family and they deserved to know what was going on. I took a huge leap of faith into the deep, dark abyss and started telling them when I wasn’t feeling great or was having a bad day. Transparency and vulnerability are terrifying, but they played a huge role in getting me back on track. I’m not saying that it’s going to work for everyone, but it’s what really helped me.
Post athletics, I now rely on friends, family, faith and so much more now that I’ve actually had time to focus on everything and work on myself.
What’s something you wish people had told you?
Stay strong!! When you’re being recruited (and we’ve all been here), your college visit is all sunshine and rainbows, happiness and unicorns. “Everything is great and perfect. You’re about to have the best four years of your life! You’ll never suffer! Things will be easy!”
I wish someone was honest and told you that things will be hard but you’ll get through them, that nothing will be handed to you, that you just need to stay strong and do your best to try and stay positive. From the get go, coaches and anyone in athletics need to be open because they are the resources for athletes and we’ll need them at some point.
I also think people should journal. JJ Olio, one of the best athletes and throwers ever, had an amazing routine of journaling after everything he did so that he could see exactly what did and didn’t work. Our coaches implemented it into the ends of our practices and lifts and it made a huge difference in our performances.
Small victories are SO important. Getting to the Rocky’s (dining hall) line before the rush during common hour counts.
Be vulnerable and transparent.
What’s something you learned about yourself through athletics?
This might sound weird because we’ve been talking about my declining mental health in college, but I’d say my mental strength. As awful as it was, I made it through. How incredible was it that I was able to do that. As weak as you feel, you look back and realize, “how strong was I to be able to overcome and get through all of that?” I did the damn thing. You learn, adapt, overcome and get stronger.
Think about your first day as a collegiate athlete. Do you think athletically you are the same as you were that first day? Absolutely not. How far we’ve come and how much further you’re able to push yourself and how much more you’re able to do. Sure, it’s just Slippery Rock, it’s just DII. Yeah, I rocked DII. We accomplish so much, I should really be proud of myself. We don’t give ourselves or each other enough credit.
There’s so much pride in just completing it. How many athletes did you start college with but didn’t finish with? People come and go and there’s so much pride in persevering through the experience. We never quit despite how hard it got.
Exactly. I don’t care if it’s DI, II, or III, it’s a huge accomplishment. It’s a huge time commitment, and so mentally, physically, and emotionally taxing. You don’t know how strong you are until after.
What will you miss the most?
Everything. Every single thing. If I had to choose though, probably PSAC meets. It’s the best competitors from every school in one place competing together. The PSAC has crazy talent but everyone’s cheering for each other. Millersville? Some of the best people I’ve ever met. Girls from East Stroudburg, so nice. The Clarion girls are like part of the Slippery Rock team. The camaraderie at those meets was awesome.
The energy too, was unmatched. I would call it a chaotic awesome mess. I loved cheering my head off for my teammates, having the distance runners come over and cheer for the throwers, lining the track for the sprinters…Nothing like it.
Talk a little about the impacts of losing your senior season to COVID.
March 13th, 2020. Arguably the best and worst day of my life.
Two weeks prior, my professor had called me about a job opportunity in a district near home, so I worked hard to get everything in on time and ended up getting an interview at 8am on March 13th. Rocked it. Got to go home for the weekend because it was in eastern, PA and was close to home. After waiting all day, at 7:30pm exactly I got the call that I had gotten the job. My mom and I celebrated me getting my dream job.
At 8:43pm, I’ll never forget this, my coach called me sounding completely unlike herself and just said, “it’s over.” I wanted to be so happy about my job but I was absolutely beside myself. Just absolutely gutted. My identify was gone and I didn’t have a choice in it at all. Since winning the outdoor PSACs in Mansfield the year before, I worked my ass off every single day. I wanted to go to nationals and I wanted to get the school record for the hammer throw (was less than three meters away). I never got that chance. That night, I didn’t sleep a minute. My mom held me while I just sobbed. I had lost myself.
Despite it being over, there was that weird period of time where we were told to train just in case. Now we know, just in case never came. We never thought COVID was going to do this, it just happened. My mom kept reminding me, “it sucks, but life has to go on.” I still cry about it and feel completely awful, I still have panic attacks and miss it more than anything. It was awful and I never would want it to happen to anyone else, but it is, right now. But life has to go on. You can only stay in the NCAA so long, that clock runs out.
I want to give Rock Athletics a shout out. The Senior Spotlight that they did was awesome and gave us a way to share our side of the story and our feelings. It was a small thing but it was awesome being recognized and helped with closure.
Important take-aways from what you’ve gone through?
Stay safe. To the people that still have time in athletics, you’ve worked this hard your entire life, don’t give up now. Do what you can with what you have, work out in your room if you have to.
To those whose clocks have run out, find a hobby. You’re so used to being busy, you’ve got to find something new to fill your time. Our work ethic was ingrained in us, use it!
No matter who you are, don’t forget about you. Self-care is key. Even if it’s a 5-minute face mask or walking your dog or watching Netflix. Reflect on your issues or push them away, I don’t judge.
I still have hard days. I still feel super depressed and have sleepless nights, even after athletics. Things will become easier. You’ll always have hard days and assholes ruining your good days. Adapt and overcome.
Abby’s story is a reminder that we can’t assume to know what’s going on in others’ lives. By normalizing talking about mental health in athletics, we’re slowly breaking down the stigma that keeps people from getting the help they need.
If you want to share your story or just connect, you can reach me at tspence210@gmail.com or any of my social media accounts.
If you or someone else is considering suicide and needs resources, they can be found at suicidepreventionlifeline.org