Anxiety Performance: Is Rumination At The Root Of Female Athletes' Distress?

“Some say the pinnacle of success is when you lose interest in money, compliments and publicity.” Todd Snider

If you believe the recent Democratic Party convention this is the best time in history to be a woman. “Joy”, “equity”, “entitlement” and “breaking glass ceilings” were all the rage as speaker after speaker (who two months ago wanted her fired) fawned over Kamala Harris and the possibilities of women taking over the power structure. Confront your fears of Trump, and thus defeat them!

Grave women anchors like Dana Bash on CNN talked about how the DEMs were now the party of low-testosterone men like Pete Buttigieg who fetishize their guilt at every turn. Ascendent women are trampling them in their race to the top. (The same women who can’t define a woman anymore.) VP nominee Tim Walz was lauded for distributing tampons to his high school students, however they identified. 

Contrasting this rosy portrait of chromosome conquest were the stories of vulnerability from the recent Paris Olympics where even the women who won medals spoke about the anxiety crushing them. They described cracking Like porcelain under the price exacted by fame. “People said I’d never make it” was a constant refrain. Their careers seem defined by their critics who took joy from their failings.

Prominent among them was gymnast Simone Biles who described the abuse she’d suffered from a male trainer and on social media as the greatest female gymnast in history. Even as she added more golds to her mantle she’d seemed unable to find peace in her accomplishments. Due to mental blocks, she’d had to step away from the sport for a time to get her head straight. She had a lot of company from fellow competitors who described sexual harassment and intimidation on social media for their unhappiness. (Hence the constant mental health commercials on the TV broadcasts.)

After one race in the U.S.track finals, two of the three American women on the podium, including winner Sha’Carri Richardson, eschewed thanks to instead rage against evil forces aligned against them. The Netflix series Sprinters showed the psychological struggle endured by women runners from the U.S. and Jamaica. Their angst was in contrast to gold medalist Noah Lyles who gloried in his celebrity and defied his critics. Only 36-year-old Jamaica veteran Shelly Ann Fraser-Price  seemed content with her work.

This refrain of insecurity was echoed by tennis legend Naomi Osaka. “Unfortunately, I’ve always suffered from perfectionism, and I doubt myself a lot,” she told reporters in Toronto recently. Osaka withdrew from tennis to have a baby and get her priorities aligned. “I learned… I am willing to do whatever it takes to get to where I feel I deserve to be.” 

Deserve is another constant refrain. The notion that reaching the top of the athletic pinnacle is not enough to satisfy their longing for meaning. Fellow American tennis star Amanda Anisimova similarly pulled back from her career for a time, and is happy to see Osaka be “as vulnerable as she is so honest, it’s something very special.” 

Vulnerable is a word that came up with Canadian tennis star Bianca Andreescu. She echoed the narrative, describing her fall from U.S. Open champion to injured both physically and emotionally in a freefall from success. "There was a time when I lost my joy in tennis. But I found it again," Andreescu wrote in The Players Tribune. "And I learned that I will always love tennis deep in my heart, no matter what. It has given me so much.”

Do women athletes in today’s age still face the same hurdles as Billie Jean King and the fearless pioneers of women’s pro sport? Has the freedom promised by feminism simply redoubled the self-demands young women face in the time of Kamala? Has DEI, with its fraudulent advancements, robbed them of deserved glory? Why does Christian basketball star Caitlyn Clark seem grounded when so many around her are lost?

Or is constantly exploring the depression faced by these highly motivated women athletes counter-productive? Current research shows that rumination, the pathological obsession of pain turning over in your head, only serves to make those problems grow. For women athletes trained to confront challenges this often is destructive. It becomes a vicious cycle.

While some therapists still encourage going deeper to examine your pain, many top behavioural therapists now try to break that habit of rumination. Simply whispering “Get out of here” three times to yourself can dispel the relentless cycle of anxiety.

Of course, listening to the cult-like Democrats such as Michelle Obama the fault still lies with men like Trump. Heaven forbid anyone challenge their pain narratives. Unless there is a political advantage they hammer the same dated 1990s tropes of male oppression. Which is why Trump, the arch villain, was a punching board for so many convention speakers. The unrepentant #OrangeManBad of their nightmares glories in his alpha male status, refusing to ruminate over the Left’s obsessions. 

Both candidates for the presidency will argue their case this fall. Looking forward versus dwelling on the past. But looking to sports may offer a recipe for bringing people together, not tearing them apart. 

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.