Why Support Matters When You're Injured (But Why So Many Athletes Don’t Ask for It)
- ella moody
- Nov 5
- 4 min read
picture of my teammates on Colorado State Athletics
This week, I wanted to deepen/ look at my topic from a different angle. I already knew mental health plays a huge role in injury recovery, because I’ve lived it and seen the effects on athletes who get injured. But I started thinking: If support helps athletes recover, why do so many athletes go through injuries feeling alone?
I think most people outside of sports assume recovery is just physical. Like, you tear something, then you go away for a year or so (depending on what you tear), you do PT, you heal smoothly, and then you come back. But that’s not actually how it goes, although I wish it did. Recovering from an injury affects your mind, your identity, your relationships, and your confidence just as much as it affects your body.
Social Support Helps the Body Heal
The first article I looked at this week was by Ozbay and others (2007). They talk about how social support literally changes the way our brain deals with stress. Support helps regulate hormones like cortisol and oxytocin, which can affect how our bodies heal. Basically, it was saying that support is not just “emotional encouragement”, it’s part of your actual physical recovery.
They say that “positive social support of high quality can enhance resilience to stress” (Ozbay et al., 2007). This stood out to me because I’ve seen the difference in my own life over the last two years.
When I was injured at the University of Denver last year, I felt like I was so alone. I didn’t feel seen, heard, or supported. My stress was insanely high all the time, and so was my pain. I remember most the days I was at DU, I didn’t even feel like myself. But when I transferred to CSU and actually had teammates and coaches who were there for me, everything changed for me. Even though I still had a lot more surgeries and setbacks in my rehab, I didn’t feel like I was drowning in it because I wasn’t alone anymore. I had so much support, either at soccer while I did my rehab on the side or coming to my house after my surgeries. That's how I know support really does change things.
But Sports Culture Teaches Us to Hide Pain
The second article, by Sheehan and others (2024), showed me the other side of this topic. Athletes are basically trained to be tough, no matter the situation, which is good and bad. Toughness is good because it helps you push through hard situations, especially all the things you have to do to be a successful D1 athlete (fitness tests, balancing missing school for traveling, some injuries, and not having that much of a social life). However, it can also make you ignore real pain mentally and physically, and stay quiet when you need help the most.
They found that many athletes try to “ignore symptoms or push through pain” during recovery (Sheehan et al., 2024). And I know that is true because I did that for so long.
There were many times during my years of playing soccer when I was scared to speak up because I didn’t want to look weak or lose playing time. I also didn’t want to be “the injured one again" Or a "mental midget" (yes, my teammates and I were called this by a coach before).
I have learned that pretending everything is fine doesn’t make you magically fine. It just makes the injury and the mental part of it worse during it and has lasting effects after.
And now here I am, about to have my fifth knee surgery. I can’t pretend and say that I didn’t ignore things when I shouldn’t have.
So the problem isn’t whether support matters because I think anyone can say it does in every aspect of life. The actual problem is the culture that makes athletes feel like they can’t ask for it. That means recovery isn’t just physical, but it’s also about changing the environment that athletes are in to recover correctly.
Coaches and their attitude towards players and their mental health matter. Teammates and how they feel and support each other matter. How we talk about pain matters. Creating a safe environment for all is the most important thing we need to do. And sometimes, the strongest thing you can do is say, “I’m not okay right now.”
New Questions
How can coaches create a culture where honesty is seen as strength, not weakness?
How can teammates check on each other in meaningful ways and not surface-level support?
Sources
Ozbay, F., Johnson, D. C., Dimoulas, E., Morgan, C. A., III, Charney, D., & Southwick, S. (2007). Social support and resilience to stress: From neurobiology to clinical practice. Psychiatry (Edgmont), 4(5), 35–40. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2921311/
Sheehan, N., Summersby, R., Bleakley, C., Caulfield, B., Matthews, M., Klempel, N., & Holden, S. (2024). Adolescents’ experience with sports-related pain and injury: A systematic review of qualitative research. Physical Therapy in Sport, 68, 7–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ptsp.2024.05.003
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