Alexia s.

If you’re reading this, I know what it’s like to stay quiet. To feel like if people really saw everything you’ve been through, they’d treat you differently.

For so long, I carried that fear — the fear of being seen as less.

I had trouble trusting people. I opened up, and it hurt.

Older teammates made me feel small, coaches made me doubt myself, and I started believing I didn’t belong.

Swimming, which was once my escape, became the thing that broke me.

Then came 2023 — the hardest year of my life.

I lost control. I let down people I cared about, but mostly, I let down myself.

The more I tried to make things better, the worse they got.

I was focused on everyone and everything else, trying to prove I was enough, until I completely lost who I was.

When I visited ASU that October, it felt like a breath of air after drowning for years.

For one weekend, I felt hope again. I felt safe.

But after leaving, everything crashed harder than before.

I had a trip the week after, I thought, what could go wrong in three days?

But it was a nightmare — screaming, fear, the kind you don’t forget.

Seventeen-year-old me stood there, feeling small and powerless.

And it brought back everything twelve-year-old me and fifteen-year-old me had been through — being doubted, hurt, and told I wasn’t enough.

It took everything to get through that.

But I did — because of the few people who truly saw me when I couldn’t see myself.

The ones who answered my calls, who listened when I cried, who reminded me I mattered.

Now, in 2025, I’m here. At ASU. Living the dream I once only counted the days for.

And I’m still learning to open up.

It’s hard, but I’m starting to trust again — slowly, carefully, and honestly.

Because not everyone wants to hurt you. Some people really do want to stay.

And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that healing isn’t about forgetting — it’s about forgiving yourself for surviving.

Every version of me — the scared twelve-year-old, the lost seventeen-year-old, the broken 2023 me — led me here.

To peace. To purpose. To a place where I finally feel safe again.

So if you’re reading this and you feel like you’re drowning, please remember — it gets better.

You’ll find your place. You’ll find your people.

And one day, you’ll find yourself again, too.

To the girl who thought she’d never make it out of the dark - you did.

Alexia S.., Arizona State University

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