Anxiety In Sports

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Ever since I was little, I have always had a love-hate relationship with sports, and I find my anxiety around athletics to be my cave. Some of my best and worst memories have come from being on a team, and a lot of the good memories from past events like winning the championship with my school baseball team or scoring the game-winning three in the playoffs have been blocked out by my ugly past by my former teammates and peers. In athletics, I have had some poor experiences with teammates and various athletes who I encountered on opposing teams or in tryout positions throughout my athletic career. Many told me that I suck and others would laugh and talk poorly about me when I made a mistake. I am a nervous person by nature, and these experiences have chained me to stay away from any sporting event where the eyes were on me, so I could avoid the nerves and the pain that I have gone through in my past. I …show more content…

Even though I go back to the safety of my cave, I know the feeling of excelling beyond my safe place and doing well in sports, but that all gets clouded over by my anxiety. In the offseason, I think of my anxiety as one small piece of sports and my accomplishments as far greater, but when the season approaches, my fear of being judged starts to grow, like a paint bucket full of white with a single black dot that turns the whole bucket to gray. It's hard for me to comprehend the fact that one small aspect of sports, such as nerves, can dilute all other accomplishments. I know what outside the cave feels like because I've been there, but I still find myself crawling back into my shell where I'm unable to fully find my way out of the dark to overcome anxiety to be able to take the risk of shooting the game winning three no matter what the outcome may

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