Amelia A.
Photography done by Colleen Charchut
IfYou’reReadingThis.org at Northwestern is proud to host this series featuring NU student-athletes. We understand that mental health is something that impacts everyone, including athletes. We are highlighting the student-athlete experience by sharing directly from NCAA Division I student-athletes at Northwestern. This series of letters comes from a group of athletes who volunteered to speak about their journeys with mental health, as well as the particular pressures of being both student and athlete in the Big Ten Conference. We hope to bring attention to the idea that despite the strength of athletes, they too have to build and cultivate emotional wellness. To our student-athlete authors, thank you for your willingness to share your experience with our community. Whatever the particular pressures you’re facing right now might be, from athletics to academics, we hope this letter resonates with you. The impacts and challenges of mental health are universal.
If you’re reading this, you should cry in public.
How embarrassing, that girl is legit crying as she’s walking down the sidewalk. My second thought a year ago would be, why doesn’t she go to her dorm room.
My name is Amelia Albers and I’m a current sophomore on the field hockey team at Northwestern studying Journalism and Psychology. My larger issues with mental health came about last year when beginning at Northwestern.
The increasingly demanding schedule of an athlete, the rigorous course load, attempting to have a social life and missing my family took a toll as it does with most first-years. I did a lot of crying walking down the sidewalk, in the hallways of Bobb, and in Walter Athletic center. I thought I should be ashamed of this, that I needed to be more mentally tough, I needed to figure it out myself.
But through my teammates, attending mental health sessions, and seeing a therapist, I slowly started to learn. Allowing yourself to feel everything as it ebbs and flows helps you understand how you’re doing. Letting yourself feel is a way of opening up about struggling, it’s how you find your support system and those who care most about you. The ability to be open about mental health is a strength. You need courage and time to be comfortable with who you are and all of your feelings.
There’s a large pattern I seem to find everywhere in the world: that the more you hide your feelings and push them down, the harder it gets to confront those feelings, and the harder it is to heal. Feel what you need to when you need to. Let yourself cry, laugh, frown or smile when walking down the sidewalk. Listen to your mind, heart and soul. You deserve to take up that space.
Amelia A., Northwestern University
Women’s Field Hockey
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