Kelsey Leeson: Athletic vs. True Self

I love swimming. Absolutely love it. It’s a sport where I trained all year to swim a 23-second race. And although that may sound crazy to non-swimmers, it always made sense to me even when it was immensely frustrating. It was where I could go to let go of the stress of the day. I made some of my best friends through the sport and it taught me a lot: time management, organization, working with different types of people, managing stress, perseverance, etc.

What it didn't teach me was how to separate my athletic self from my true self. In college, I studied for a biomedical sciences degree, had a rough first year academically, and ended up having to take a fifth year of classes. During that time I wasn’t able to compete collegiately anymore since I was out of years of eligibility. That fifth year was HARD. It really made me realize I had no idea who I was without the sport of swimming. My mental health suffered significantly but at the time I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to. I just tried to keep myself busy with work and school so I wasn’t alone with my thoughts for too long. I worked two part-time jobs and coached high school girls swimming while finishing my degree. I loved coaching but didn’t know I could/wanted to make it a career.

This was also a period where I had a lot of time to think about my body and how it looked. Transitioning from swimming 20 hours a week to not doing anything more than taking a walk a couple times per week hit me like a ton of bricks. I gained a lot of weight and my self-esteem decreased considerably. Now, I have never had particularly high self-esteem. I didn’t know that growing up but looking back, I really never had a lot of self-confidence. I have always been taller and bigger than my friends and most of my family. Senior year of high school, even though I had already been a five-time state champion, I was told by my coach that I needed to lose weight to be successful in my sport. So I did. Unfortunately, that mindset followed me throughout college and still follows me to this day.

After college, I had no idea what I wanted to do in life, so I moved back home. I hated who I was at the core. More accurately, I had no idea who I was and hated not knowing. For a long time (and still to this day) I have thought that if I lose weight, my life would be exceptionally better, so I started on a “weight loss journey” and, while it did give me more self-confidence, the way I did it wasn’t sustainable and stemmed from my hatred of my body rather than a want to be healthy and thrive. While home I was working in my degree field and coaching on the side but didn’t enjoy what I was doing. After about 2 years, an opportunity opened up to move to Alaska to coach collegiately under a very dear friend of mine and I jumped at it. It turned out to be the greatest decision, don’t get me wrong, but the hatred of myself and my body never went away, it just followed me here.

Currently, I am the Interim Head Women’s Swim Coach for the University of Alaska-Fairbanks. It’s a role I never imagined I would undertake but circumstances led to me taking the team over in July 2021. I can honestly say, it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Working 60-70 hour weeks, dealing with COVID and team issues, having all the team training on my shoulders with my assistant to help. It was starting to break me. During the Christmas break, I was told by someone close to me that I no longer seemed like my normal, happy self. My heart stopped at that moment. I reflected on my (short) career up to that point and realized that for the last two and a half seasons I had been telling my athletes to make sure they are taking care of their mental health as well as their physical health yet I was suffering mentally more than I ever had.

Outside of work and counseling, I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend and our pets (2 cats and 2 dogs). This summer my goal is to put myself in a position to be uncomfortable/vulnerable so that maybe I can find some other things I enjoy. For now, I have been trying yoga and dog agility! I hope to get out more this summer and challenge myself to do things and not connect my body image with my worth.

Throughout all of this, the biggest lessons I have learned are that my weight is not linked with my successes in life (something I have to constantly remind myself about), that I need to teach my athletes that swimming is not who they are, it's what they do at this current moment, and that if you are struggling, even for a short amount of time, seek help.