Alright, well, normally when people ask, I just tell them that I wrote a book about what I experienced, and if they really wanted to know they could just read it.
Naturally, people usually are either turned off by the response or they just push me to tell them. It’s hard to really sit there and explain the situation because it was just.... Insane. Even now when I think back it just seems like lifetimes apart.
Started sports at 3, including gymnastics, and then after my best friend’s parents broke up and his mom was fiscally unable to drive the hour and a half to bring him to do sports here in Plainview, TX, I just kind of lost my drive.
I sought comfort in food. I always ate. Terribly.
By the time I was 15-16 I was 512 lbs. Unhappy. Reserved. I felt invisible. It was around that same time i began to go online and taught myself how to make graphics and what not.
About a week after a random run in with a guy who turned out to be my best friend from aaaaall those years back, John, my old coach called me up. He explains this whole ordeal about how they’re not doing well fiscally and how he’s trying to get back all his old students or reaching out to see. If they would know some guys interested in taking classes... As he’s saying this, in my head? I’m like... I’m the size of a whole whale.
After he finished, I explained my situation, and after he told me he was fully aware, he offered to help me lose the weight and get back in shape to do gymnastics.
At first, although it was extremely difficult and tedious (especially having to drive back and forth from Amarillo almost every day,) I lost weight rapidly. In less than eight months I had lost over three hundred pounds. His training methods were... A little extreme, but I was thankful for the opportunity and saw his commitment to my weight loss as a reason to not complain or question him.
Once I had lost the majority of the weight, I began working out with the team at the gym and eventually was named to the team.
That’s when things started to change. Even though I had lost all the weight and my body showed it, I was left with loose skin on my stomach, arms, and legs. It was a huge blow to my self confidence, but people kept telling me it would go away.
I tried believing them, but it just wouldn’t. I plateaued at 170-165. My body would just not lose any more weight. Which, at that point, I did t necessarily mind, until John started using it against me.
It started with him mentioning it in passing, but it quickly evolved to him saying something along the lines of, “that skill would be easier if you lost a little more weight,” every single time I would falter, or a skill would give me trouble.
I wouldn’t ever really say anything back... At that time I was still relatively soft spoken, obedient... I would just nod and continue attempting whatever skill drill it was he had assigned.
Fast forward a couple months. At the time, while i knew him and his wife were separating, I didn’t realize the full scope of what’d happened, (she had taken a lot of his money, and a lot of other really shady shit,) not that it excused his behavior or treatment, but... Idk.
Anyway, what had started off as just comments had turned into outright yelling, calling me fat ass, and making horrible jokes. The other guys and coaches knew it was wrong, but they excused it as just guys being guys. I didn’t.
I developed bulimia, and without making a long story longer, I ended up losing about thirty more pounds.
One day, during practice, we were doing drills on the floor and I blacked out during a handstand. He lost his shit on me. We had a competition the next week, and he basically blamed me for wasting their time, and basically everything else in his life.
The day we left for the competition, my entire body just started feeling weird. The next morning, I woke up, and I just knew it was going to be an off day. During podium training for the competition, (it was a state qualifier, or something along those lines. Point is, it was a big deal.) I was doing timers on vault, and they just didn’t feel right. I couldn’t get my block right, and... I just... I knew that i shouldn’t try one.
Needless to say, John pushed me to throw a vault that I hadn’t even managed to land consistently into the pit yet. I was always under-rotated and he knew that. Still, I listened and went for it. Just so he wouldn’t yell at or berate me in front of everyone.
As I’m blocking off the table, I distinctly remember hearing the voice of this physical trainer that had started volunteering to our gym say, “don’t lock your knees!”
And what happened? I locked my knees. I landed still twisting into the mat, and.. Well, I tore almost everything in my left knee.
I passed out from the pain shortly after they got me onto the car to go to the ER to get it checked out... By the time I was able to fully wake up, the doctors had informed my parents that I was showing early signs of kidney failure, malnutrition, anemia, etc. They explained to them that i most likely had an eating disorder and... Once I was able to leave the hospital, I was sent to Rosewood Center in Wickenburg, AZ.
A couple years after that, I tried doing cheer, but it wasn’t the same, so.. I tried coaching, and while i was good at it, I was in a car accident in which I fractured my C1 vertebrae in four places.
I haven’t tried even doing a cartwheel since then, coaching, yes, I ended up coaching at The Los Angeles School of Gymnastics for a while, but... That’s it. That’s my story. My book goes a LOT more into detail... There’s a lot of stuff i left out of this post, because.... It was just a lot.
It’s taken me a couple days to write this because even beginning to think about all of this again just really messes with me.
Thankfully, though at least I was able to donate the majority of the proceeds from my book to charities and organizations that help teens with eating disorders as well as some charities and funds that help the survivors of LN.
Any way, thanks for reading. Support all athletes. #gymnastalliance.
