I just found this place and I am really excited. I always seem to do well with these kind of things. I have had years of eating disorders, being fat, being teased and being too thin. Never once have I been completely happy with my weight.

Unfortunately as much as I would like to start my diary I have to go to bed so I decided to post an essay I recently had to write for a health class. While it's more about my gymnastics it does explain a lot of a big event in my life that changed me forever.

Glad to join you guys!

As a child full of endless energy my parents realized they needed to find me an activity that would relieve them of a hyperactive child. At the young age of four they took me to a gymnastics club and had me do a trial lesson. At the end of my lesson my father asked if I had enjoyed it and if I wanted to continue. I answered with a resounding ?YES!? Thus began my growing passion for gymnastics and dance. I did not excel early on. I wasn?t necessarily what you would call ?natural? talent. But I worked hard. I found later in life when I became a coach myself that children with natural talent sometimes took their gift for granted. Children who had to work harder to excel at their sport often would surpass those with talent. Until I was about seven years old gymnastics was just for fun and I loved it. At seven years old the team coach requested I try out for her team which was full of talented children and hard workers who were being trained to eventually compete. Practice time was upped to five hours a week in which training, although still fun, became much more serious. Dance also became part of our weekly lessons. I became very close to the girls I trained with their ages ranged from seven to fifteen. They became some of my best friends and we all got to share our love for our sport. I trained hard for a year in order to learn the required moves and routines. I was thrilled and nervous when it came time for my first competition. I was somewhat weak on bars and I knew that it would be hard to medal at least in the all-around. We were competing at a fairly run-down gym and during balance beam warm-ups disaster struck. The balance beams the gym used were very old and completely different from the way ours were set up. Their beams were adjustable at the ends to either lower or raise the beam. During warm-ups at competition gymnasts practice only their big skills because warm-ups are very short and done quickly. I had warmed up all my big skills and was preparing to execute my dismount as it was the only skill I had left to warm-up. I only had time to do one because it would then be time for march-in and then the competition would begin. My team was starting on beam with me competing first. As I ran down the beam and punched the end to dismount with a front flip (which I was so proud of being one of the only young girls able to perform this) the beam end sank as soon as I punched the end and I completed my dismount by landing flat on my back. At first I was certain I had broken my back and I was unable to breathe. I scarcely remember the gym owners, teammates and my mother rushing to my side. My mom was freaking out because she hadn?t seen exactly what had happened and I, being unable to breathe, could not tell her. The gym owners apologized profusely and once I was up and knew that I only had the wind knocked out of me they proceeded to fix the beam and check and then double check it. It was a nerve-racking way to start my first competition. However on my first event and routine I ended quelling my fears and actually won third place in balance beam. I also found I had a love for competing. I loved performing especially big tricks and fancy dance moves. I loved the applause and attention. As I moved higher up in the sport training hours increased. By the time I was ten I was training six hours a day, five days a week. I thrived on it at times and hated it at others. I was sore all the time because of the constant pounding the sport takes on a gymnast?s body. I had put up with sprains, broken toes, torn ligaments, and pulled muscles. Through it all I continued to train even if I could only do conditioning or bar work. I still loved gymnastics and competing which is the only reason I could get through all the aches and pains. During these years life was good however. A few teammates and I were predicted to have a chance of competing at the senior level (highest level in the sport) with the possibility of competing in big time competitions like Nationals, World Championships, even the Olympics. I was winning competition after competition and my grades were better than even. Gymnastics gave me a kind of discipline most kids don?t have at that young of an age. All my teammates were the same way. We missed out on a lot of things normal kids do like go to birthday parties or sleepovers but we would do these things together, often at the gym and so it didn?t seem like we were missing out as much. When I was about thirteen or fourteen we got a new coach. Her name was Patty. She was tall, very muscular and always wore tennis skirts. We all hated her. She was not like our old coach at all who was strict but not unkind and we all knew he cared about us. Patty was discouraging, mean, and way too tough. You were expected to train with injuries. No crying or whining was aloud. Fear was to be put in a box and ignored. It was the beginning of the end of my gymnastics career. Training hours were increased, one practice in the morning and one after school. This is not unusual in the high levels of gymnasts. Neither is the belittling of gymnasts unfortunately. I began to hear comments that I was too tall to ever be a great gymnast (I was 5?2?) that I was too fat (I weighed somewhere around 100 pounds) and these comments began to affect me. I developed eating disorders, both forms of Anorexia and Bulimia; I was getting more and more injuries, and my mental state was poor. I began to develop a fear of the vault and it was all psychological. I would run from my start point, 75.5, and literally run full speed on to stop right on the springboard or to veer off to the side. This would only push Patty to yell and criticize me more until it eventually was six months of no vaulting because I could not get myself over the horse. Patty hated fear and thought it was for the weak. I wasn?t afraid of hurting myself or injuries. I was just afraid for no reason. To this day I still don?t know what exactly caused this. However I had a teammate go through it as well although nowhere as severe. I felt like I was moving away from my Olympic dream instead of toward. I was getting worse not better. I kept injuring my left ankle over and over until one day I was running down the vault runway and it snapped. I was taken to the doctor who informed me I had been training on a broken ankle. I still trained what I could until it healed. My eating disorders were beginning to leave me fatigued and my formerly muscular body was now twig thin. My parents at that time were divorced and I lived with my mom who during this time didn?t know whether to pull me out or let me continue. My dad went down to the gym and told Patty what he thought of her. But I continued for awhile longer. I was no longer winning competitions. I hated gymnastics. I faked illnesses and injuries. I was depressed and hated my life. When I was about sixteen and mostly over my vault problem I attempted a difficult vault and landed wrong on my bad ankle. It was the most awful pain I have ever experienced. I tore ligaments so severely I couldn?t put pressure on it for almost three weeks. I also learned during that time my knee was shot. My gymnastics career was over. I was devastated. I spent almost twelve years working for a dream that ended in a day. I was left was sports injuries, eating disorders, and bitterness. I felt betrayed by the sport I loved. I felt like all my hard work and dedication, the missed birthday parties, the pain all had been for nothing. I have not seen Patty since. She never called or visited. Once I had to quit I was non-existent to her. I couldn?t be the champion so she had no time for me. At the time I was unable to see what good things gymnastics had given me. All I could see was that Olympic dream being shattered over and over. What if I had found another coach? What if Patty had never come? Would things have turned out different? Would I have had my medal? These questions plagued me, sometimes to this day. My grades began to slip severely, although they had begun to slip after Patty begun coaching us, and I began to get in trouble in school. I was skipping, smoking, drugs and not doing my homework. I moved in with my dad although the trouble continued until I finally ran away for several days. When I got home and my dad and I talked things began to get better. But it was several years before I was completely out of trouble and before my grades began to improve. I no longer have contact with any of my teammates which sadden?s me. But I realize we had all begun to hate the sport which had been our bond. When I was about nineteen I started taking gymnastics again, this time for fun. I still had to wear an ankle brace. But I was training with one of my first coaches, John, who I had always been close to even when I was training under Patty. He had always disliked her and I found when I came back she no longer worked for the gym. I finally enjoyed gymnastics again. My eating disorders did not begin to get better until I was twenty. It?s hard not to blame it all on Patty. The bad mostly occurred once she started coaching. However after years of dwelling and blaming I realized I needed to move on. Gymnastics had been the focus of my life for so long I didn?t know what else I loved. I know had time to search. I also began coaching but in a very different way than Patty. I took the good stuff my coaches had given me and used Patty to remind me of how not to treat gymnasts. I cringed when I heard a fellow coach call a girl, ?Fatty,? and I had a talk with her and my boss. I don?t think coaches realize at times how easy it can be to push a gymnast, especially girls, into eating disorders. I learned how to be tough but in a good way, I was respected but still liked by my students. I have learned to love the sport again and to realize what good has and can come from it. The Olympic dream is still in the back of my mind but very far back and I no longer cry thinking about it. I was unable to watch the 2000 Olympics but I know 2004 will be a lot different.