enakblog: Somtimes... You Get Injured

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Somtimes... You Get Injured

Welcome to the world of contact sports!

Injuries have always been a part of sports. Physically, we all come to terms with this fact. Even enjoy it a bit.

We learn to wear our bruises and crutches and braces as a symbol of resilience and strength, yes?

photo credit: Windy City Rollers

But... there's an injury that you might not have heard of. It can be uncomfortable to talk about.

You don't get any cool markings or tape to show off from this injury.

Your friends won't high five you for it...

And it's harder to explain when you need time off for it. But left unchecked, it could lead to further injury.... even put you out of your derby career...

I call it being "Mentally Injured."

Sometimes you just can't get your head right.

There's a variety of symptoms to the mental injury:

* Loss of motivation to go to practice

* Hitting a plateau in skill set

* Crabbiness at your team-mates

* Mid-jam panic attacks that you don't know what you're doing

* Misplaced passion in league politics

* Feelings of un-appreciation

* Frequent pity parties

* Excessive bitching

If you suffer 3 or more of these symptoms, you dear friend, may have a DMI. Derby Mental Injury.

Less is known about the DMI than the physical; but make no mistake, it can be a silent epidemic. It's extremely contagious.

And it can take equally long to heal as the very worst of physical injuries, gone untreated.

Don't worry, there's a cure!

The 3 R's:

1) REST!

2) REFLECT!

3) REIGNITE!

When you get stuck in a rut, it's just like being stuck behind a heavily defensive 3 wall.

At first you try to just keep your feet moving, run around it any way you can. Look for a hole to open up, and blast through.

And when that works, it's beautiful!

But sometimes you need to take a step back and really look at what's going on, take a second to catch your breath; and then come at it with a fresher perspective.

But Bonnie, you may be thinking, I don't have all this time to take off! I've gotta make my attendance!

To which I would answer:

Do you?

Not if you've got a DMI. Is another overstimulating practice and/or bout what you really need right now, if you're crabby, unfocused and going cuckoo?

I've missed a bout when I was perfectly healthy physically, just needed some time off for mental injury. Just did it last weekend, actually!

Note the shoes... (photo credit Sir Clicks A Lot! LADD)

As women, we have to be able to evaluate ourselves at times. You don't always need a doctor's note to know what's best for you.

I know that you wouldn't still be reading this if you weren't, essentially, a passionate beast, in your own right.

So... there's a good chance you don't actually know how to tell yourself "no" yet. To which I can only say...

I understand.

Just wish someone had told me about DMI earlier on. So I pass it along, for your consideration.