Reply To: ‘I realised I needed help’ – Sasha Glasgow

[Katrina Nissen]

#1344771

Exclusive Insight link now defunked. Here is the content of the article:

I Realised I Needed Help
November 19, 2018
|In Sport
|By Sasha Glasgow

***originally published on Exclusive Insight ( https://www.exclusiveinsight.com/sasha-glasgow-i-realised-i-needed-help/ )

If my story can help save someone else, then I want this out there.
I’ve always been quite structured and organise in my life, and when Netball wasn’t working out for me due to injury and form, things really began to spiral out of control.
Before I knew it, I was thinking for ways in which I could gain more control in my life.
Netball wasn’t working for me, and the injury that I was managing didn’t enable me to control the healing process.
Before I knew it, I resorted to controlling the way that I ate. I was scared to accept I had developed an eating disorder.
It was a really hard process for me to come to terms with, that I was actually doing it to myself.
It was frightening for my teammates and coaches to learn what was happening to me – I went from lifting 40kgs in the gym, and bench pressing the same amount to not even being able to lift up a 20kg barbell.
I realised that I wasn’t in the best shape to take the court, and it wasn’t fair for me to take it away from somebody else, because I wasn’t doing the right things to play, even though I probably could have run out a full game.
At the time, I was hiding it from a lot of people, and I thought that my body transformation hadn’t become too noticeable.
But when I got my second injury, which was a stress fracture to my foot, I couldn’t keep going down the same road anymore.
All my extremities were missing out and my bones were weaker… I realised I needed help.
I took the rest of the season off and I moved to Melbourne for a month, and I administered myself into a rehab clinic for my eating disorder and got the help I so desperately needed.
By far, it was the best decision that I’ve ever made. The girls were really supportive, as was the entire Australian netball sorority.
To me the biggest turning point was getting a call from Australian Diamonds coach, Lisa Alexander, and her just saying that I have the full support of Netball Australia.

Knowing that the whole organisation backs me as a player, made me realise that I do have time and patience on my side.
I’m 20 years old… I do have the time to get right and still come back and have a career and that it in’t going to be all over for me.
Taking a month off to get myself right has been the right call. Hopefully I’ll go on to have a long and successful career, that in 10 years time, this little period is just one small, but very important, chapter in my story.
But I couldn’t have been able to make any changes, without the support of my family and friends.

I obviously reached out to our family psychologist and he said that I needed to take some time away.
It prompted me to speak to our team general manager, Melody Cooper, about how I had been struggling with an eating disorder and was on the brink of breaking down because I didn’t how to approach the situation.
I was worried about where I would stand with the team and how they would accept it because at the time we didn’t really have a dietician that was available so I had to go seek that out myself.
But once Melody was made aware she put me to the right people and said that they would support me. When I said I wanted to move to Melbourne they said they we will help you and we will help you get there and you can take all the time you need.
They helped me tie things up in Adelaide for a month. My biggest worry was confronting my teammates, and letting them know what was going on. That was what I was most concerned about. How were they going to take the news that I was battling with becoming anorexic.
I approached all the girls as a group and just said that I wasn’t okay… that I’d been struggling with this disease for far too long, and that I could no longer keep waking up everyday, dealing with this major health problem in my life.
There was a lot of tears… and then a lot more tears. But they were happy tears, if that sounds right?
Because the girls had realised I wasn’t okay and that I really was struggling to turn up everyday and put on this whole act, as if everything was fine.
A few of them tried to talk to me afterwards, just to give me a tap on the back. I just nodded and say “Yeah, yeah I’m okay. I just want to get back playing.”
I said that I want to get help, and they were all just really happy for me. A lot of them reached out to me while I was away because they were still playing.
They had the last four games of the season, and for them to take the time to reach out to me even though they still in full training and the full swing of the season, I have everything to thank for them for that.
The message was consistent across the whole board.
They were like “Just go, and get yourself right and don’t ever think that we’ll forget about you.”
Because I was worried and I was just like they’re going to forget about me, but they never did.
The coaches knew my absence wasn’t just about netball, it was for my life and the quality of life that I needed back.
I had forgotten so much about how to live.
Coach was like you need to go away to just learn how to enjoy life again, and your love for netball will come back as well.
I now realise that I wasn’t pursuing in any aspects of my life, because I was so focusing on my eating disorder that my health was suffering, my netball was suffering and now I’m just doing what I can to prosper in both.
In many ways, I feel as though I have been given a new lease on life, and I want to make the most of it.
I appreciate now being able to run out a full session and be able to get on the treadmill and run out a full fit conditioning session, which before I would have absolutely dreaded.
I am on the other end now and in remission and I’m just looking to being a better athlete but also now being a better person.
I’m just looking forward to dominating life again, and beating what has been a massive struggle in my life for the past 6-9 months.