Getting back up again

Has COVID-19 and the fallout sent you into a spiral in an unknown direction? Do you feel like you’ve been knocked down? Do you feel like you have or are likely to fail?

If you said YES, that’s overwhelmingly normal and what I call being human. At some stage, we are all knocked down and face challenges that are extremely complex in different environments. So why is it that the solution most friends and family give us – “get back up and try again” – so widely used and yet hard to implement?

Mental health and wellbeing

When I was 12 years old and in Grade 6 at primary school, my mum and my two younger siblings moved from Fitzroy to Clayton. Mum had obtained emergency housing after one too many domestic violence incidents with my stepdad.
A friend that I met at school and his family got me involved with the football and cricket clubs, and from then on it became my outlet: first from my poverty stricken home-life, and later on from the drugs and crime that my brother and returning stepdad were involved in. I loved being able to get away on the weekend, to just enjoy sports and the family-orientated environment that they provided.

COVID-19 and its many faces

I know returning to sport is vital, turning up to game day and being a team player… however when I’m crippled with anxiety it’s not the same. For the past 5 years I have struggled with postnatal depression and anxiety after a rapid return to work in my small business as a naturopath just weeks after my daughter was born. This was not an ideal situation however, due to the way the cards fell and a combination of personal events, that was what had to happen.

An athlete in isolation

It is true, there is no sport. There are no training nights, there is no game day. There is no waking up on game day with the excitement and nervousness that comes with sport. There is no seeing your teammates, there is no banter,