College is really hard. We obviously all know this. As a person who suffers from severe anxiety being a student athlete takes a huge toll on me. Everyday is the same thing over and over and it honestly drives you crazy. We practice for hours a day and still have class and homework. It is such a struggle to try to balance everything. I grew up as a straight A student and never got in trouble. My parents had huge expectations for me which was so hard to try to keep up in college. My grades dropped from all A’s to B and C’s. I started to struggle and sometimes still do a little bit. It is so hard to juggle everything in your life when you feel like you have no control. I do the same thing every single day and it makes me crazy. I feel like I have no control of my daily actions because I am tied down to a sport which I don’t even truly love anymore. My parents think quitting makes me a failure, but they don’t understand how mentally and physically exhausted I am. UMBC is a hard school already, but when you add in trying to play a D1 sport it makes it drastically harder. You become emotionally drained and mentally exhausted. My anxiety makes it so hard to do normal daily activities as well. My parents don’t understand mental health and the fact that you can struggle so hard with mental illness. They think I’m just being dramatic and lazy because all I want to do is go home and forget about sports and school. I crave having control in my life and have no idea how I can get it. I love my friends here and found great people to surround myself with, but It doesn’t feel like enough. I just want to be free and do what I want every day instead of constantly doing the same routine over and over. Student athletes deserve a break and coaches need to realize were human beings not objects. We deserve to have good mental health and take a step back when we need to.
Unruly Bodies 
I agree with you. Students do need breaks. People need breaks. I had to change my words (even though I left it) because I feel like students masks the actual person that we are. It is a term that has been used to wipe away identity. I always felt like that in Highschool. School/education has a way of lumping people together in a way we forget that the outside world exists even though we walk in it everyday. That being said, I do hope you find time to yourself to breath. I cannot imagine the stress. I am not a D1 athlete, but I am a full time worker, plus a full time student…. ya girl tired… I really use all the resources the school has (like the centers for support and the counseling office.) UMBC has AMAZING resources to aid the PERSON not the STUDENT. You’re not alone in your tiredness no matter how you feel your school is here to support as much as it might feel like an enemy of the state!
I totally understand where you are coming from. I ran track for four years during high school, and will be resuming the sport soon this semester. During high school, my grades were good, but I was not always a straight A student. I got a few B’s here and there. My parents never understood how hard it was for me to keep up with work and school at once, and they treated me as if I made no effort at all when I didn’t get all A’s. They never took time to appreciate how well I did in school for someone to be as fast in my sport as I was and still get decent grades.
I can absolutely appreciate your personal connection to this certain expectation that many people seemingly experience, especially when “competing” in sports. Such scenarios can suck the passion out of anything you do as a hobby, not just as an academic profession, from individuals and even groups of people that truly love sports or at least the one’s they play and possibly excell at. Thanks for sharing!
As a student athlete myself I fully relate to all of these feelings. Since being in college I have experienced many similar things. Grades have dropped and many friendships from before college have been lost due to the demands of being a student athlete everyday. Also, I feel as though some of the love for the game has gone away because of how much of the sport has taken over my life. This has been extremely hard to express to my family, especially from a mental health stand point. Sometimes it is so hard to be heard without it being perceived as a weakness or a lack of effort and drive.
Totally agreeable that students need breaks… adults and people in general need breaks. Society has established that working long hour shifts for 5 days a week or even going to school as a full time student is doable, which in fact it’s not. I would say I have never been a student athlete and don’t know fully what you all have gone through, but I can get the gist of what you all go through. Having so many responsibilities and meeting deadlines (especially work, school, extracurricular and organizations) you get so caught in those things you start to lose yourself. I went through a time where everything became overwhelming for me, and my grades were dropping and I wouldn’t go to class… it was a lot. After awhile I just had to take a BY FORCE break, and alleviate my stress by enjoying the things I want to do. Your coaches and professors have to understand that if you’re not mentally and emotionally well, you won’t be able to do anything or give them the best you.
I FEEL YOU! I am as well a student-athlete here at UMBC. High school came so easy to me! I would go to class, pay attention, take notes, and get straight A’s. It is obviously very different here. I’ve had a very hard time adjusting to college academics and the time and effort that needs to be put in to achieve good grades. Of course it doesn’t help that I am juggling a D1 sport on top of that. I feel like I have no free time and when I finally do get some it’s spent on studying and preparing for the next weeks work. It’s basically like attending an honors college and working a full-time job at once. It is HARD. I agree, We need a break!