The Hidden Opponent I Didn’t Know I Was Facing

TW: mentions of eating disorders

I’ve never been one to keep it short, so short story long… 

As an adult, I wasn’t prepared to be asked: "Who am I if I’m not performing?

After the crowds, the team lifts, the stats. 

For a long time, I thought the hardest things I faced were on the field, in the gym, or in the classroom. Looking back, I know that wasn’t true. 

My athletic career had a clear finish line; the laces were hung up, the early morning lifts stopped, and I could finally go back to being horizontal in bed for as long as I wanted. 

Not all journeys have a clear finish line, my mental health journey being one of them. It’s something I’m still navigating, but now I do it with awareness and a lot more compassion for the younger version of me who was just trying to keep up. 

From a young age, I felt like a fish out of water. I noticed each of the small ways I could be different. I was taller than everyone else. I was competing with the boys in gym class. To say I wasn’t doing crafts or other “girly” labeled activities was an understatement. I was the running, pushing, rolling-in-the-dirt type of little girl, trying to keep up in spaces that didn’t always feel like they were built for me. 

Belonging in these spaces came with performing well. Performing well came with hard work. Hard work turned into stats and praise. Work hard. Perform well. Produce results. All proof that you were doing enough and that people had something to be proud of, and if you did it well, friendships came with it, too. You met people through sports, got invited to birthday parties, sleepovers, and new spaces I felt lucky to be part of. 

But at the center of it, performance was always part of the equation. I didn’t realize how much of my identity was built on that cycle until I stepped into a space where it didn’t apply. 

At 17, I was walking my friend to lunch, helping her carry her tray, laughing a little too loudly in a crowded cafeteria. It was simple, it was friendship. It was Best Buddies, where no disability, no insecurity mattered, just kindness. For one of the first times, I learned what it felt like to be accepted without performing. 

At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But looking back now, I can see those moments differently. They weren’t just small parts of my day. They were steady, grounding, and quietly becoming moments I would lean heavily on. My buddy didn’t care about wins or stats or how many likes I got on my last post. She cared that I showed up, and that mattered more than I knew at the time.

A few years later, I went to college and stepped into collegiate athletics. Everything got louder: the expectations, the comparisons, the pressure. Everyone was talented. Everyone was driven. And the measuring didn’t stop when practice ended; it quietly followed you everywhere. I held it together the way I knew how. I showed up, I pushed through. I kept performing, because that’s what had always worked. 

From the outside, I looked fine. On the inside, I was struggling more than I let anyone see. I was eventually diagnosed with an eating disorder and entered recovery. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what was happening. I just knew I didn’t feel like myself anymore. Looking back now, I can say it more clearly: 

I needed help. I needed support. I needed to say out loud that I wasn’t okay. 

And through all of it, there was something steady, my Best Buddy. The texts, the phone calls, the random check-ins in the middle of the day. The expectation that I would show up not as an athlete, not as someone impressive, but just as her friend. 

On days when I didn’t like myself, she liked me anyway. 

On days when I felt off or distant, she noticed and was willing to listen. 

Without realizing it at the time, those moments kept me connected to her, to myself, to something outside of everything I was carrying. 

Looking back, I understand this in a way I couldn’t then. The things that helped me the most didn’t look like “help.” They looked like small, ordinary moments. 

A walk to lunch. 

A shared laugh. 

A friendship that didn’t ask me to be anything other than human. 

We don’t talk enough about life after sports. About what happens when the structure, the identity, and the constant motion all slow down. About who you are outside of it all. 

What helped me navigate this uncharted journey (seriously, can we get a “life after sports for dummies” book?) was a friendship started in a high school cafeteria. 

What started as volunteering became friendship. Friendship became acceptance, and that acceptance became something that supported me through some of the hardest moments of my life. Best Buddies didn’t just give me something to be a part of; it gave me a relationship that reminded me, again and again, that I didn’t have to earn my place. 

Today, I’m still navigating my mental health, but I do it differently now. With more awareness. More honesty. And a lot more compassion for the version of me who was doing the best she could with what she knew at the time.

I now have the privilege of working for Best Buddies, helping create the same kinds of connections that once changed my life. And my buddy and I? We’re still best friends. 

We still text. 

We still laugh. 

We still show up for each other. 

Because what I once thought was “just being a friend” turned out to be something much more, it was belonging. And sometimes, the strongest thing you can find after a life built on performance is a place where you don’t have to perform at all.

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Written by Elsie Zajicek

Best Buddies International is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment, leadership development, inclusive living, and family support for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.