Speaker 1: Hey, slight changers. This summer, Pushkin is going to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: Our friends across the Pushkin network are sharing all sorts
Speaker 1: of stories about one of the world's biggest sporting events.
Speaker 1: They're talking to a coach who counsels all the Olympic coaches.
Speaker 1: They're diving deep into the latest sports science, and they're
Speaker 1: sharing the origin story of brands like Puma and Adidas.
Speaker 1: Here at a slight change of plans. For the next
Speaker 1: few weeks, we're going to be hearing from three Olympic
Speaker 1: swimmers about how they handled some fascinating life transitions. I
Speaker 1: really think you'll love this series. I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: it Pushkin.
Speaker 2: I remember sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire
Speaker 2: way to practice and just knowing that I was gonna go,
Speaker 2: and that I was about to jump into a freezing
Speaker 2: cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
Speaker 2: with how I did.
Speaker 1: Swimmer Missy Franklin won four Olympic gold medals as a teenager,
Speaker 1: but as she trained for her second Olympics, she found
Speaker 1: herself unexpectedly struggling with so much to defend. The pool
Speaker 1: suddenly felt like a pressure cooker.
Speaker 2: This is not just a swim mate. This is who
Speaker 2: I am. And if I don't do this, why am
Speaker 2: I here? What is my worth? I have none if
Speaker 2: I can't do this and do it well.
Speaker 1: On today's episode, when the loss of an identity threatens
Speaker 1: your self worth, I'm maya Shunker and this is a
Speaker 1: slight change of plans, a show about who we are
Speaker 1: and who we become in the face of a big change.
Speaker 1: At just seventeen years old, Missy Franklin was laser focused
Speaker 1: on qualifying for the twenty twelve Olympics in London. This
Speaker 1: dream was years in the making. From the time Missy
Speaker 1: was a little kid, swimming had been at the center
Speaker 1: of her life.
Speaker 2: I got into the water because my mom never learned
Speaker 2: how to swim, and she didn't want to pass that
Speaker 2: fear down on to me, and she signed us up
Speaker 2: for a mommy and me class at our local YMCA
Speaker 2: when I was six months old, and I was that
Speaker 2: baby that was getting dunked under and coming back up,
Speaker 2: just laughing and loving every second of it. And so
Speaker 2: even though to some it seems crazy to be training
Speaker 2: for an Olympics at seventeen, to me, I was just
Speaker 2: doing what I loved every single day, and there was
Speaker 2: hard work, but I never saw anything I did as
Speaker 2: sacrifice because it was my goal and it was my dream.
Speaker 2: I wasn't concerned about other people's expectations. I wasn't concerned
Speaker 2: about what other people wanted me to achieve. I had
Speaker 2: my own dreams, my own goals, and I was focused
Speaker 2: on those. So in twenty twelve, that's just what I
Speaker 2: was working towards every single day.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that you never thought of your commitment as
Speaker 1: sacrifice because you loved it so much. Share a bit
Speaker 1: more about what that commitment looked like. What was your
Speaker 1: everyday life like in the lead up to twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: We'd practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, so that means swimming twice,
Speaker 2: once in the morning, once in the afternoon, each for
Speaker 2: about two hours, and then we'd have single swim sessions
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. But I don't think people
Speaker 2: can sometimes totally comprehend the fact that it is a
Speaker 2: twenty four to seven job because everything needs to be
Speaker 2: supported by everything you're doing outside of that space as well.
Speaker 2: So it's your sleep, it's your nutrition, it's your recovery.
Speaker 2: And then also I was seventeen years old, right, So
Speaker 2: I was going to high school.
Speaker 3: I was still in school every.
Speaker 2: Single day, and then traveling and doing different promos for
Speaker 2: the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and NBC and
Speaker 2: traveling for different meats preparing leading up to that summer.
Speaker 2: But it sounds like a lot. It was also all
Speaker 2: that I knew, So to me, that was just life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me a bit more about where your head
Speaker 1: was at as you were you were prepping for London,
Speaker 1: and it's wow, like maybe these big dreams of mine
Speaker 1: can actually come true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think heading into London, my goal truly
Speaker 2: was to make the team, like that was really all
Speaker 2: that I had set on myself. And if you talk
Speaker 2: to any swimmer, they will tell you that Olympic trials
Speaker 2: is infinitely more intense and more pressure filled than the
Speaker 2: actual Olympics themselves, because once you made the team, you
Speaker 2: made it right, you're an Olympian, Like you get to
Speaker 2: be an Olympian for the rest of your life. But
Speaker 2: our races come down to hundreds of a second, and
Speaker 2: so there's no room for or mistake, there's no room
Speaker 2: for air. You might get sick, you might get injured,
Speaker 2: like if you have a bad sleep the night before, Like,
Speaker 2: there's so many variables that could impact these singular eight
Speaker 2: days that you have to make an Olympic team.
Speaker 1: You had mentioned to me that you didn't feel the pressure,
Speaker 1: the weight of other people's expectations at this stage, and
Speaker 1: so was that partly why you were able to be
Speaker 1: cool and collected during those trials.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of it was just the.
Speaker 2: Fact that I was seventeen and I was naive, and
Speaker 2: that just absolutely played to my advantage of again, I
Speaker 2: was just out there doing what I loved.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, Missy, your performance in those games was
Speaker 1: just absolutely unreal. Do you mind sharing your accomplishments?
Speaker 2: So after Olympic trials, I had qualified for my first
Speaker 2: Olympic Games and seven events, and then actually arriving in London,
Speaker 2: being in the village and getting to walk onto the
Speaker 2: Olympic pool deck for the first time, all of it
Speaker 2: was just so surreal. I ended up walking away from
Speaker 2: those games with four gold medals, one bronze, and two
Speaker 2: world records.
Speaker 1: So astonishing to hear those words like I know that,
Speaker 1: I know that, but just to like hear that is insane.
Speaker 1: It's like oh yeah, I forgot about the bronze ones
Speaker 1: as well, and like the world records And is there
Speaker 1: any specific memory you have from those games and your celebrations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, And it has nothing to do
Speaker 2: with a single one of those medals. The night that
Speaker 2: I had won my first gold medal, I was still
Speaker 2: writing such a high from that whole evening and just
Speaker 2: everything that came with it. And we were at the
Speaker 2: warm up pool in the village and I checked my
Speaker 2: phone and I had a tweet from Justin Bieber, and
Speaker 2: I lost my mind. Like if you can just imagine
Speaker 2: like seventeen year old Missy like running circles around the
Speaker 2: pool in the middle of the Olympic village, just like
Speaker 2: screaming like a little girl that she'd gotten a tweet
Speaker 2: from Justin Bieber. Like it just was like the perfect
Speaker 2: example of again.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was so happy to be there.
Speaker 2: I couldn't believe I was accomplishing those things, but I
Speaker 2: was also just a seventeen year old girl.
Speaker 1: Wow. So I want to talk about the aftermath of
Speaker 1: your success, because sometimes we don't pay enough attention to
Speaker 1: what follows these massive, epic, life changing wins. You know,
Speaker 1: you come back to the US and your four time
Speaker 1: gold medalist, Missy Franklin. You immediately go back to training
Speaker 1: and preparing for now the twenty sixteen Olympic Games. And
Speaker 1: as you started to train for those, you began to
Speaker 1: face some new challenges. Do you mind telling me a
Speaker 1: bit about those?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's funnily enough.
Speaker 2: What a lot of people don't understand is that as
Speaker 2: soon as an Olympic Games is so, we might take
Speaker 2: a couple of weeks off, but the next summer for
Speaker 2: US is World Championships, and so we get right back
Speaker 2: into training because we have a really serious meet again
Speaker 2: next summer. And so I remember particularly coming back from
Speaker 2: London and thinking that I wanted to prove that I
Speaker 2: wasn't just a one hit wonder. That I wanted to
Speaker 2: go to Worlds in twenty thirteen and have an unbelievable
Speaker 2: performance almost to back London up in a way, to
Speaker 2: kind of prove that I can do this again. And
Speaker 2: so I worked so hard that year, which was my
Speaker 2: senior year of high school, ended up going to Worlds.
Speaker 2: I won six gold medals at World Championships, and it
Speaker 2: was just like again a dream experience. And then I
Speaker 2: went to college so I swam for two years at
Speaker 2: the University of California, Berkeley, and then I turned professional
Speaker 2: in twenty fifteen leading up to the twenty sixteen Olympic
Speaker 2: Games in Rio, and I would say that that was
Speaker 2: when they really changed for me. I was at that
Speaker 2: point twenty years old, so I was still very young,
Speaker 2: but I was.
Speaker 3: No longer naive. I was no longer a rookie.
Speaker 2: It's so hard getting to the top, but it's even
Speaker 2: harder staying there. And now I did have those expectations
Speaker 2: and that pressure, and then you add new sponsors on
Speaker 2: top of that, and swimming now becoming my job as
Speaker 2: opposed to just something that I love and enjoy. And
Speaker 2: I think that for me is what completely changed my mindset,
Speaker 2: and I lost all sense of balance during that time.
Speaker 2: I think I got in the mindset for Rio that
Speaker 2: in order for me to be the best I'd ever been,
Speaker 2: I needed to just commit and devote myself fully to
Speaker 2: my sport.
Speaker 3: I think for some athletes.
Speaker 2: It works to completely devote themselves to their sport and
Speaker 2: to not have balance in their life, just to be
Speaker 2: they live and they breathe their sport, and that is
Speaker 2: what works for them. I learned in that period that
Speaker 2: that is not something that worked for me. When swimming
Speaker 2: became my whole world, it also became my whole identity,
Speaker 2: and so bad practices, bad races I began equating with
Speaker 2: bad sense of self and self worth and self esteem,
Speaker 2: and so it was such a hard time for me.
Speaker 3: I was very, very lonely, and.
Speaker 2: I started to feel the world's pressure on me as
Speaker 2: well that not only was I expected to make the team,
Speaker 2: but I was expected to go back to Rio and
Speaker 2: have an even better performance there than I did in London.
Speaker 1: What was it now like day to day as your training?
Speaker 2: It was so hard for me, Maya, because there were
Speaker 2: days that I was so confused because I had never
Speaker 2: felt like this before. So there were mornings where my
Speaker 2: alarm would go off at four forty five. I'd be
Speaker 2: getting up on my way to practice, but I remember
Speaker 2: sitting behind the wheel just crying the entire way to
Speaker 2: practice and just knowing that I was going to go
Speaker 2: and that I was about to jump into a freezing
Speaker 2: cold pool and swim for two hours and be disappointed
Speaker 2: with how I did. But I was going to do
Speaker 2: it anyway because I felt like I had no choice.
Speaker 1: I've read that when people had asked young Missy, like
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Missy, what advice do you have for
Speaker 1: people who don't want to go to practice or are
Speaker 1: struggling with their motivation, you would cheepishly be like, I've
Speaker 1: never really had that problem. Yeah, I just love going
Speaker 1: to the pool, and I actually don't face those motivational
Speaker 1: challenges because this is the thing that I'm so passionate about.
Speaker 2: It was so funny to me that I was put
Speaker 2: in those situations, and I would always feel so horrible
Speaker 2: when I would have young athletes come up and ask
Speaker 2: what to do in periods of plateau or when they
Speaker 2: weren't feeling motivated.
Speaker 3: And I would have nothing to say.
Speaker 2: I had truly just always been so happy and enjoyed
Speaker 2: the sports so much. And the amount of other swimmers
Speaker 2: that would come up to me after they had gotten
Speaker 2: to know me that told me we thought it was
Speaker 2: an act, Like we thought that it was all for
Speaker 2: the media, that it was all like that you just
Speaker 2: love like we didn't believe that someone could actually love
Speaker 2: this sport that much. And now that we know you,
Speaker 2: we see that it's real and it's authentic and you
Speaker 2: actually love swimming as much as you say you do
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 3: And that completely disappeared. Leading up to Rio.
Speaker 2: I think I became so focused on the expectation and
Speaker 2: I put so much pressure on myself that swimming very
Speaker 2: very quickly became not fun for me.
Speaker 1: What was what was happening to your mental health around
Speaker 1: this time?
Speaker 2: So I don't think I really realized what was happening
Speaker 2: because I had never experienced anything like this, and so
Speaker 2: it was months and months and months before I think
Speaker 2: it finally hit me that this is something bigger, like
Speaker 2: something much deeper is going on here that I don't
Speaker 2: know how to name, I don't know how to diagnose.
Speaker 2: All I know is that I am deeply, deeply unhappy
Speaker 2: and feel very alone and very sad. And so it
Speaker 2: wasn't until I think around March or April of twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: so that is I mean, months before, months before Olympic trials,
Speaker 2: where I finally called a meeting with my swim coach
Speaker 2: and my strength and conditioning coach and I just looked
Speaker 2: at them and I said, something is wrong, like something
Speaker 2: is very wrong. And I had been trying to push
Speaker 2: through it. I had been trying to pretend that it
Speaker 2: wasn't there. And that's why I'm not a fan of
Speaker 2: the phrase fake it till you make it, because I
Speaker 2: think that can lead to tendencies of repressing things as
Speaker 2: opposed to truly addressing them. And I was trying to
Speaker 2: fake it at practice. I was trying to fake it
Speaker 2: at competitions that I was confident, that I was calm,
Speaker 2: that everything was going to be okay, but my mind knew,
Speaker 2: and if your mind knows, your body knows. And I
Speaker 2: was just fighting it constantly, and the exhaustion was unlike
Speaker 2: anything I had ever felt before in my life, and
Speaker 2: of course that was inhibiting my performance. And so I
Speaker 2: sat down with them and they immediately got me into
Speaker 2: a primary care doctor, to a sports psychologist, and I
Speaker 2: got immediately diagnosed with depression, insomnia, anxiety, and an eating
Speaker 2: disorder as well, which was something that I knew I
Speaker 2: had been battling for several months, but to actually put
Speaker 2: a name to it, I think was really really tough,
Speaker 2: and it was so overwhelming, Maya, to get all of
Speaker 2: that at one time, and to think that I literally
Speaker 2: had months when people were expecting me to be the
Speaker 2: best I had ever been, and I had never felt
Speaker 2: further from that.
Speaker 1: I wonder was there ever a script that was playing
Speaker 1: in your mind or a certain kind of rumination pattern
Speaker 1: that you felt yourself falling into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that rumination and that pattern
Speaker 2: was just negative self talk. It kind of dawned on
Speaker 2: me that I hadn't said something kind to myself in months,
Speaker 2: that I hadn't said something encouraging to myself. And for
Speaker 2: those that know me, I am the most positive, optimistic
Speaker 2: person that you will ever meet. And that person was gone.
Speaker 2: And it's so crazy to think that she fully disappeared
Speaker 2: before I even realized she was fading.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was just such a stark contrast. And I think
Speaker 2: it's that double edged sword of the elite athlete mentality
Speaker 2: of you just keep going and you just figure it out,
Speaker 2: like we're just we have that mindset to keep pushing
Speaker 2: and to keep moving forward.
Speaker 3: But when that comes to mental health.
Speaker 2: I think that that can be so damaging because if
Speaker 2: you're pushing through that and not addressing it, it's only
Speaker 2: going to get harder to deal with as time goes on.
Speaker 2: Because in my case, the problems were just getting more severe.
Speaker 1: And what kinds of things would you say to yourself.
Speaker 2: I think my berating of myself really came down to
Speaker 2: not believing I had any worth outside of what I
Speaker 2: could do in a pool. So if I wasn't capable
Speaker 2: of breaking world records and winning gold medals, why was
Speaker 2: I here? You know, what other purpose did I serve
Speaker 2: other than to do what I was put on this
Speaker 2: earth to do, which in my mind was to swim
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 3: That was it.
Speaker 2: That's all I had ever known since I was so young,
Speaker 2: and all I had ever known was that success. So
Speaker 2: I think it really just came down to not understanding
Speaker 2: or not knowing what my worth was.
Speaker 3: If it wasn't in the pool.
Speaker 1: What do you think gave rise to the eating disorder
Speaker 1: in particular? Tell me a bit more about that.
Speaker 2: So, I think, with my self worth being the lowest
Speaker 2: it had ever been in and again, feeling so out
Speaker 2: of control, I turned to the one thing I felt
Speaker 2: like I could control, which was my nutrition and my body.
Speaker 2: And so, of course it's a tough scenario as an
Speaker 2: adolescent female to be in anyway, right, being in a
Speaker 2: swimsuit in front of so many people and trying to
Speaker 2: deal with that. And I think when I was younger
Speaker 2: and growing up, I really had this respect for my
Speaker 2: body that I couldn't do what I did in the
Speaker 2: water without my body, without my broad shoulders, without being
Speaker 2: six ' to two, without having size twelve feet. It
Speaker 2: allowed me to accomplish the things that I accomplished, but
Speaker 2: then when I stopped accomplishing those, it was like, well,
Speaker 2: then what is this body worth. It's not helping me,
Speaker 2: it's not aiding me, So it doesn't have to be
Speaker 2: like this. So I got so restrictive in my intake calorically,
Speaker 2: and I think it had a huge impact on my performance.
Speaker 3: And here I am training.
Speaker 2: Two to four hours a day, eating barely enough calories.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how I was doing it.
Speaker 2: And so all those diagnoses were just so hard because
Speaker 2: we didn't have time to go to the foundation and
Speaker 2: systemically fix the problem, like we were trying to put
Speaker 2: a band aid over a gaping wound that needed staples.
Speaker 1: You're a few months away from needing to compete in Rio,
Speaker 1: and not just compete, defend your titles, defend your your ranking,
Speaker 1: your reputation in the world of swimming. What did that
Speaker 1: version of bandating look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So, well, the other piece of all of this is
Speaker 2: that I actually did sustain a physical injury in April,
Speaker 2: So I injured my shoulder in April, and again that
Speaker 2: was something that we didn't have time to fix. And
Speaker 2: so at that point, I'm just distraught, like I'm now
Speaker 2: emotionally and physically so far away from where I need
Speaker 2: to be. So my band aid solution was immediately getting
Speaker 2: in with the sports psychologist, a nutritionist, and a physical therapist,
Speaker 2: and those three were there to just do what they could.
Speaker 2: Before Olympic trials, we had, you know, eight to twelve
Speaker 2: weeks of time to work with to try and get
Speaker 2: me in the best position possible. And I think we
Speaker 2: all knew going into it that I was nowhere near
Speaker 2: one hundred percent, but I was at the percentage I
Speaker 2: was at, and that was all that I was going
Speaker 2: to have to give. And I remember going into Olympic
Speaker 2: Trials just being absolutely terrified.
Speaker 1: Did you find yourself having to do some of these hacky,
Speaker 1: fake it till you make it type strategies just to
Speaker 1: get by during that time?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: And what did that look like?
Speaker 2: It was just the big old miss you smile. And
Speaker 2: it was the first time in my life that it
Speaker 2: wasn't genuine but I was trying to put that smile
Speaker 2: on for everyone else. I was trying to be that happy,
Speaker 2: bubbly seventeen year old that they all remembered and were
Speaker 2: expecting me to be, even though I had probably never
Speaker 2: felt further from her in my life.
Speaker 3: And I just didn't want to let people down.
Speaker 2: And so I remember going into trials not out of
Speaker 2: joy or excitement and love for the sport, but just
Speaker 2: being absolutely terrified that I wasn't going to do what
Speaker 2: was expected of me.
Speaker 1: And how did the trials go?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so definitely off to a rocky start for trials
Speaker 2: for Rio. I failed to make the team in the
Speaker 2: event that I was the reigning Olympic champion in from
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, and not even that, I mean I got seventh,
Speaker 2: so there's only eight people in a heat, so I
Speaker 2: almost got dead.
Speaker 3: Last in my heat.
Speaker 2: And I remember going back to my hotel room that
Speaker 2: night and sobbing, like just absolu, like I felt embarrassed,
Speaker 2: like I felt ashamed. I was just holding so much,
Speaker 2: and I kind of just gave myself talk in the
Speaker 2: hotel room of you know, you can pack up and
Speaker 2: leave right now, like you can get on a flight
Speaker 2: and you can go home, but you will never forgive
Speaker 2: yourself like you can do that. Or you can go
Speaker 2: out and you can finish this swim meet, and it
Speaker 2: may continue to be embarrassing. You may not make this
Speaker 2: Olympic team. You may be more heartbroken and disappointed than
Speaker 2: you've ever been, but it would be nothing compared to
Speaker 2: if you didn't try.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. Despite a disappointing performance at the twenty sixteen
Speaker 1: Olympic Trials, Missy still qualified to compete for the US.
Speaker 1: She would swim in three events in Rio. The night
Speaker 1: before her first event, Missy and her teammates celebrated at
Speaker 1: the opening ceremony, but when she returned back to her
Speaker 1: room in the Olympic village, she was hit with an
Speaker 1: overwhelming sense of dread.
Speaker 2: I remember calling my parents the night before the meat started,
Speaker 2: and I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.
Speaker 2: I remember my dad, in particular, just repeating over and
Speaker 2: over again. He was like, honey, it is just a
Speaker 2: swim meat. It is just a swim meat. And I, like,
Speaker 2: I just couldn't like comprehend what he was saying. And
Speaker 2: I knew what he was trying to do, but in
Speaker 2: my mind, like it was so much more than that.
Speaker 1: What I'm hearing from you is that your dad's telling you, Missy,
Speaker 1: this is just a swim meet, and you're thinking, no,
Speaker 1: this is my opportunity to defend my existence on the
Speaker 1: planet Earth.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Yes, I'm like, this is not just a swim mate.
Speaker 2: This is who I am. And if I don't do this,
Speaker 2: why am I here?
Speaker 3: What is my worth?
Speaker 2: I have none if I can't do this and do
Speaker 2: it well. And so the next eight days were so tough.
Speaker 2: I didn't make the top eight in any of my
Speaker 2: individual events. I swam on the morning prelims relay of
Speaker 2: the eight hundred freestyle relay, and my time was not
Speaker 2: fast enough to put me on the finals relay.
Speaker 3: But the way that.
Speaker 2: Swimming works is if you are a prelim swimmer on
Speaker 2: a relay, even if you aren't in the group of
Speaker 2: four that wins the medal in finals, you still get
Speaker 2: that medal. So I still won a gold medal because
Speaker 2: my amazing teammates were able to bring home the golds
Speaker 2: in the eight hundred freestyle relay in Rio. I watched
Speaker 2: them do it in a beam bag chair on TV
Speaker 2: from the village, and that was how I won my
Speaker 2: fifth gold medal. That whole competition for me, truly was
Speaker 2: just survival.
Speaker 1: I've looked back at footage and I've read interviews from
Speaker 1: that time, and Missy, I feel like you could hold
Speaker 1: a master class in the art of graciousness in face
Speaker 1: of defeat and failure and lost. It was so inspiring
Speaker 1: for me to see how you engaged with your teammates,
Speaker 1: with the press, with everyone that week. I mean, like
Speaker 1: we all aspire as human beings to act like that
Speaker 1: when we lose.
Speaker 3: That means so much to me.
Speaker 2: Truly, that is the highest compliment I can I could
Speaker 2: ever ask to receive, and that was what I decided
Speaker 2: to do there is I realized very quickly that I
Speaker 2: was not going to be an inspiration like I was
Speaker 2: in London by winning gold medals and breaking world records.
Speaker 2: I had always talked about the kind of person I
Speaker 2: wanted to be in defeat, and now was my chance
Speaker 2: to prove it and.
Speaker 3: To actually be that person.
Speaker 2: And if there was anything I could walk away being
Speaker 2: proud of from those eight days, I wanted it to
Speaker 2: be how I handled myself outside of the pool.
Speaker 1: So you wrap up a very challenging week in Rio
Speaker 1: and you fly home. What were the days and weeks
Speaker 1: like after?
Speaker 3: I mean, it's hard to put into words.
Speaker 2: I was feeling so many different emotions and just ultimately
Speaker 2: just sadness and disappointment. We got home, and we landed
Speaker 2: back in the US and back in Colorado, and we
Speaker 2: were driving home and as we pulled into my neighborhood
Speaker 2: and pulled up to my house, all the kids of
Speaker 2: the neighborhood were standing there with signs and they had
Speaker 2: made cut out hearts and they had all written ways
Speaker 2: that I had inspired them in Rio, and they had
Speaker 2: put them all over my yard. And I remember just
Speaker 2: like completely breaking down in that moment and realizing who
Speaker 2: you are and what you do outside of the competition
Speaker 2: space can actually have a significantly bigger impact than what
Speaker 2: you do inside of it. And I think that was
Speaker 2: step one of the healing process, because I don't think
Speaker 2: I believed that at the time of myself, but just
Speaker 2: to know that other people did, and to be surrounded
Speaker 2: by that much love and grace and compassion was just like,
Speaker 2: was so beautiful and so moving. I went back to
Speaker 2: college I immediately got bilateral shoulder surgery and then started
Speaker 2: working with a therapist, immediately started meeting once a week,
Speaker 2: super regular in person. I wanted it to be true
Speaker 2: therapy and not just sports psychology, because I knew that
Speaker 2: my issues kind of stemmed deeper than just sports, and
Speaker 2: how it had rooted into every aspect of my life.
Speaker 1: And by the way, what an important realization to thank you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that reflects something like even symbolically, which
Speaker 1: is so important, which is given again that your identity
Speaker 1: had been so tether to being a swimmer. What that
Speaker 1: tells me is that you were interested in treating not
Speaker 1: just Missy the athlete for the sake of improved performance,
Speaker 1: but Missy the person.
Speaker 3: That's a beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever looked at it that way,
Speaker 2: but I did understand that it was Missy the person
Speaker 2: that was the most broken. And so it was a long,
Speaker 2: long process. I, emotionally and mentally, over time, was able
Speaker 2: to heal and learn and grow and get into a
Speaker 2: place where, maybe for the first time in my life,
Speaker 2: I understood that what I could do in a pool
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with who I am as a
Speaker 2: person and my self worth and my value and what
Speaker 2: I have to offer, and I began to see myself
Speaker 2: as more than just the swimmer and everything that came
Speaker 2: along with that. And it was so incredibly freeing and
Speaker 2: powerful to experience that. And then I dreamed of this amazing, epic,
Speaker 2: incredible comeback, and unfortunately the physical injuries just wouldn't let
Speaker 2: it it happen. Getting to that place from the mental
Speaker 2: standpoint and then physically not being able to continue to
Speaker 2: compete when I felt like I was ready, like I
Speaker 2: could and like I wanted to was devastating.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can feel the intoxication of an epic comeback
Speaker 1: and what a satisfying narrative that would be. How did
Speaker 1: you handle the disappointment of because what I'm hearing from
Speaker 1: you is that you put in all the mental labor
Speaker 1: to get yourself back to a healthier place, but your
Speaker 1: body wasn't cooperating right, Your shoulder injury was not improving,
Speaker 1: And so how did you handle that frustration.
Speaker 3: As an elite athlete?
Speaker 2: And I just think as a person, I mean, you
Speaker 2: don't even have to be an athlete when your body
Speaker 2: is inhibiting you from doing something you feel trapped, you
Speaker 2: feel angry, you feel frustrated, because in my mind, there
Speaker 2: was nothing from a physical standpoint that I couldn't push through.
Speaker 2: And I tried so hard and I did everything possible.
Speaker 2: And it was a conversation that I had with my
Speaker 2: now husband at the time, and he said, honey, I
Speaker 2: want you to be able to throw our kids up
Speaker 2: in the air one day without pain. Like That's what
Speaker 2: he was thinking of, and he knew those were my
Speaker 2: priorities as well. I truly just came to that realization
Speaker 2: that even if I went through everything that my surgeons
Speaker 2: were suggesting, I didn't think I was going to be
Speaker 2: at the place I needed to be to compete at
Speaker 2: my best and represent my country in a way that
Speaker 2: I was truly proud of. Because I knew that if
Speaker 2: I continued to go down this road, which was going
Speaker 2: to be more surgeries, more recoveries, more intensity, with an
Speaker 2: Olympics right around the corner, that I was going to
Speaker 2: start to lose that mental and emotional.
Speaker 3: State that I had worked so hard to gain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and catch me up on life today. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have so many identities that you carry. You're a wife,
Speaker 1: you're a mother, you're a podcaster, you're an advocate. What
Speaker 1: is your relationship with swimming like today?
Speaker 2: So I do have a beautiful relationship with swimming now,
Speaker 2: which I'm very thankful for. I still work heavily with
Speaker 2: the USA Swimming Foundation, which is the philanthropic side of
Speaker 2: USA Swimming. So giving back to the sport is incredibly
Speaker 2: important to me because it gave me so much, and
Speaker 2: so being able to give back working with the Foundation
Speaker 2: providing free and low costs from lessons to communities that
Speaker 2: need is just a huge piece of what I do
Speaker 2: to stay involved in the sport. I also recently started
Speaker 2: a podcast with my Olympic teammate Katie Hoff, and we
Speaker 2: are so thankful to be involved in the sport in
Speaker 2: that way and to have these amazing conversations with not
Speaker 2: just swimmers but athletes about the true, vulnerable moments of
Speaker 2: what it is that we do and what we've learned
Speaker 2: from it, and how we can share that with one
Speaker 2: another to help each other grow. So that's been a
Speaker 2: beautiful way to stay involved. And my coach would always
Speaker 2: say that swimming is the only sport that will save
Speaker 2: your life and that you can do for the rest
Speaker 2: of your life. I just know it's just like a
Speaker 2: very old friend. Even if I go a while without
Speaker 2: talking to it, I know that the second I get
Speaker 2: back in, it's going to be like no time at.
Speaker 3: All has passed.
Speaker 1: Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you want to
Speaker 1: hear more conversations about what goes on inside the minds
Speaker 1: of elite athletes, Missy has a podcast of her own
Speaker 1: called Unfiltered Waters. We'll link to it in the show notes,
Speaker 1: and next week join me for my conversation with Paralympic
Speaker 1: gold medalist and US Navy veteran Brad Snyder. After a
Speaker 1: bomb left him blind, Brad found healing in the swimming pool.
Speaker 4: Getting into the pool was the first time I felt
Speaker 4: like I could wrap my arms around normal. This was me.
Speaker 4: I was free, and I felt there's a future here
Speaker 4: and I'm going to find my way and it was
Speaker 4: the beginning of a real, incredible journey.
Speaker 1: As always, we'd be so grateful if you can follow
Speaker 1: this show wherever you listen to podcasts and help spread
Speaker 1: the word, whether it's leaving a review or telling a
Speaker 1: friend about an episode you loved. It helps us keep
Speaker 1: making this show for you. Thanks so much, and I'll
Speaker 1: see you next week. A Slight Change of Plans is created, written,
Speaker 1: and executive produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change
Speaker 1: family includes our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate
Speaker 1: Parkinson Morgan, our senior producer Trisha Bobita, and our engineer
Speaker 1: Erica Huang. Luis Scara wrote our delightful theme song and
Speaker 1: Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of
Speaker 1: Plans is a production of Pushkin Industries, so a big
Speaker 1: thanks to everyone there, and of course a very special
Speaker 1: thanks to Jimmy Leek. You can follow A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plans on Instagram at doctor Maya Schunker. See you
Speaker 1: next week.