As a kid, I was a sports fanatic.
I played basketball for many seasons, was an enthusiastic Little Athletics participant and joined in every PE class with gusto. I was always injuring my ankles, or hurting another part of my body, but it was never something I couldn’t bounce back from.
Until it was.
In one of my basketball games, I fell, or I was tripped, and although we weren’t to know it at the time, that became the beginning of the end for me. The timing of the first injury just happened to coincide with the onset of my chronic pain condition.
And there’s nothing to cut your sporting career short like a chronic pain condition that flares up every time you move.
My first ever official running race was the six kilometre Great Ocean Road, which my sister, Erin (left) ran as well (May 2021), Source: Supplied
By the time the condition came around, I was no stranger to pain in my feet. My basketball injury, which I had thought was a twisted or rolled ankle turned out to be a tiny stress fracture, which doctors had to re-break and rearrange. I thought that was the end of my moon boot, crutches, and no-PE-class time, but it turns out my genes had other plans.
It’s coming up to around 10 years since I first had pain symptoms. Diagnosis took many frustrating years, before I was given the name of what was happening to me by a neurologist who had heard about it in a lunch line at a conference: chronic pain. 
I fought so long to put a name to what I was experiencing I didn’t realise that answers didn’t come attached. I thought that if I just knew what was happening, I would be able to fix it. But knowing about something doesn’t mean answers.
Such a sports fan that I was, I even attended one of my high school sports days on crutches! (with my younger sister, Hannah in 2013). Source: Supplied
The hardest thing for me to navigate was my relationship with sports and exercise. From something that I would spend hours doing out of pure joy, to it causing pain every time I walked or stood.
I have worked my butt off to be where I am today with sports and exercise. It took me years and years (including three years of seeing a psychologist), to take teams sports down from the pedestal I had placed it on.
I can physically partake in team sports. I participated in multiple seasons of mixed netball and basketball throughout uni and even did a term or two of volleyball after school. But I’d come out of games in agony. I’d be exhausted and stressed about doing it again. I wouldn’t say no to the game or asked to be subbed because I felt like I would be letting my team down. I loved the game so much, I was willing to do whatever it took.
Although I didn’t know it at the time, I can now see that the encouragement of sport and exercise is so intertwined with fat phobia. And maybe that’s why I pushed myself: I thought that I must exercise, even though the pain would throw me off for days.
I was an (extremely) enthusiastic participant in all my sports days. This is me, aged 10, at my primary school sports day. (September 2007). Source: Supplied
The specialists I saw loved to tout swimming and cycling as the ultimate impact free sport, but no-one mentions how boring they are. I like swimming in the ocean—I mean not that much, but it’s fun when you’re with friends, or if I’m doing a lifesaving patrol—but doing laps in a pool is a mind-numbing exercise. Cycling is not actually as low impact as they would think, and it does tend to trigger a pain flare, especially in summer.
In July I finished my second ever official running race. It was incredibly difficult, and there was a lot of walking, but I ran across that damned finish line. I have been running on and off for about eight months now. I don’t actually enjoy it all that much, but it feels like I’ve found something I’ll put up with for now. I drag myself out of bed at 6:35am once a week to run in the dark. I feel vindicated afterwards. The race is sometimes harder to justify. This race threw me off for about four days afterwards, but I’ll probably do another one before the year is up. Hopefully with some more training this time.
Last September I started personal training. That, for me, has been the best decision. I was always so against it, mostly because personal trainers were expensive and I didn’t believe they would do anything for me—but my PT, Steve, is an actual legend. I go once a week, and he lets me do it barefoot. When he first took me on, after he’d done his research on my pain condition, he told me I didn’t have to wear shoes— and that was the best sports-related news I’d ever heard.
In year 12, I played in a volleyball team that competed at the Schools Cup. However, the game was quite hard on me, both physically and emotionally. Source: Supplied
I still do have days where I mourn not being able to participate fully in team sports. And sometimes I do think about going back.
I hope one day to run, and not walk, an entire five kilometres, but I also know that might not be possible, pain-wise. And I’m okay with that. I still want to dream big, but maybe my sports and exercise achievements will be smaller than they were when I was younger. I’m also okay with that.
Lauren Rosenberg (she/her) is a freelance editor, writer and creative person. If she's not travelling, you can find Lauren watching a police or medical procedural, op shopping, starting a new arts and craft project, or on the internet: Instagram () or her .
This article is an edited extract of an entry chosen from the 2021 SBS Emerging Writers' Competition.
