- Diggins, 32, was a teen when she developed bulimia and sought treatment
- The gold medalist shared on Instagram that she had relapsed this summer
- Diggins said her eating disorder was brought on by stress, but she is doing better
Olympic cross-country skier Jessie Diggins has revealed that she had an eating disorder relapse 12 years into her recovery.
The 32-year-old Minnesota native was in her late teens when she started over-exercising and developed bulimia. She made herself throw up for the first time after graduating from high school in 2010.
Diggins has been candid about her eating disorder and her recovery after seeking treatment through the Emily Program, one of the nation’s leading eating disorder organizations.
‘After 12 really great years of health, I’ve been struggling with my eating disorder this summer,’ she shared in a Instagram video on Sunday.
‘I’m doing quite a lot better now thanks to my amazing care team, and I reached out to them for help right away,’ she continued. ‘But I think it’s important to share because this isn’t a picture-perfect recovery story.
‘It’s real and it’s raw and it’s messy, and that’s OK. I think sometimes we project that in order to be successful, you have to be perfect and struggle with nothing, and that’s just not real life. It’s OK if you need to lean on your support team, which is what I am doing right now.’
Diggins noted that her relapse didn’t have anything to do with her body image or training schedule, but rather it was a way to cope with mounting stress.
‘For me, this hasn’t been about food or body or training or skiing at all. It’s been about putting too much pressure on myself and feeling stretched too thin by all the projects that I’ve been taking on,’ she explained.
The gold medalist shared that she has been utilizing the different skills she has learned in her time with the Emily Program while focusing on her recovery.
‘So I want to say a huge thank you to all of the recovery support teams out there — not just my own — because the moment that I reached out for help, I felt a huge burden lifted off my shoulders,’ she said.
‘And so to anyone out there struggling with anything, whether or not that’s an eating disorder, I’m in this with you, and that’s why I know that you can do this. So please take the time to reach out to your support people for help because that was absolutely crucial for me, and, hopefully, it can help you as well.’
‘I also ask for your trust and respect and support as I work with my care team to put my well-being first. My health and happiness is the primary objective, and so that’s what we are working towards,’ she concluded.
Diggins’s post also featured a detailed written statement about her relapse and how her experience is different than when she was a teen.
‘When I was 18 years old and very sick, I didn’t know much about eating disorders or mental health in general. I felt a lot of shame, I was scared to ask for help, and I didn’t know how to separate the person I was from what my eating disorder was making me feel,’ she explained.
Diggins said that this time around she knew she ‘didn’t want to feel alone in this’ and ‘didn’t have to.’
‘I was honest and open with my husband, my therapist, my family, and my coaches, and they all responded in an empathetic, caring, and unconditionally supportive manner,’ she said.
‘While everyone’s eating disorder is different, for me the primary issue now has been about feeling a lack of control in my life, putting too much pressure on myself, and feeling stretched too thing by all the projects I’ve been taking on.’
Diggins elaborated on her feelings in an interview with People, saying she puts pressure on herself to be perfect.
‘A lot of different small stresses were stacking up,’ she explained.
‘It’s like if you’re going on a hike and someone adds a little rock to your backpack, it’s not a big deal, but if you keep adding and adding and adding rocks, suddenly that’s a lot to walk around with every day.
‘And it was just getting really heavy. And that was hard for me.’
The skier said that she realized her eating disorder had returned after noticing a change in her mood.
‘I just realized that I was sick and tired, and I realized that I didn’t feel as strongly about it as I should,’ she told the outlet.
‘And so when I realized that I was using my eating disorder to not have to feel things, then I realized, “Oh, it’s back. And this is a problem.”‘
She shared that it was ‘heartbreaking’ to have to tell her parents and her husband, Wade Poplawski, that she had relapsed, but they helped relieve some of the stress she was feeling.
When it comes to the future of her career, she is taking it ‘one step at a time’ and won’t continue racing if it’s not the ‘right thing’ for her.
‘That said, right now I have gotten to a much, much, much better place, and so I am training and planning to come to our team camp in the fall,’ she added.
‘I really would love to race because that is something that brings me a lot of joy and a lot of meaning.’
Diggins first went public with her eating disorder in 2018, the same year she and her teammate, Kikkan Randall, won gold at the PyeongChang Olympics.
She also wrote about her experience in her book, Brave Enough, which was published in 2020.
The athlete recalled how she would have a snack, such as a bowl of wheat grain cereal, and then force herself to go for a 45-minute run between training to burn it off.
She then started making herself throw up several times a day as her eating disorder progressed.
Diggins told People that she hoped that by sharing her story she would help others realize that an eating disorder ‘shouldn’t be something that is shameful.’
‘With social media, you get to tell your story in a way where a lot of people hear it so I’m in this really unique position, at this point in my life, where I can help people and I can make it okay to talk about things,’ she said.
