During the latest edition of Lilian Garcia’s “Chasing Glory” podcast, Biana Belair commented on her struggle with bulimia and depression back in high school, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On how her struggle with bulimia began: “So in high school I was probably around 155, and I wanted to run fast, I wanted to get a scholarship, so it was drilled in me that if you lose weight, you’ll run faster. So I went on a diet, I did lose weight, but I got to a plateau and I couldn’t lose anymore weight, so I started throwing my food up, so I became bulimic. I became bulimic. And I lost weight and I actually ran faster which is crazy but I ended up getting hurt because I didn’t have the right nutrients and I wasn’t keeping the vitamins down, the nutrients, I’m getting hurt, but I already got my scholarship to South Carolina. So I went to South Carolina my freshman year and I decided I don’t want to do this anymore, I’m not going to do this anymore. I’m starting over, I’m starting fresh. I got what I wanted. The goal was to get a scholarship and I got it, so let’s start fresh, let’s not do this anymore.”
On continuing to struggle with bulimia in college: “In my mind I was telling myself I’m not going to do this anymore, I’m here, I’m going to try to start new, and I ended up having this obsession with food where I was now binge eating at night, I wasn’t eating in front of people but I would go and binge eat at night and I was gaining all this weight, and then I had the coaches tell me, ‘What happened to the Bianca from high school, we need the same Bianca from high school.’ So instead of seeking help and figuring out the healthy way to get back there, I went back to throwing my food up again. So now, I’m binge eating and throwing it up, binge eating and throwing it up. And of course, I’m not going to perform well doing that. Mentally I wasn’t there. I got depressed and I ended up being prescribed medication and things just didn’t work out there. But at that time, I felt like I was young, my first time being on my own, and I was blaming everyone else. It’s the coach’s fault, it’s the program’s fault, I’m not running fast because of this, but really I wasn’t running fast because of the things I was doing to myself.”
On becoming depressed after transferring to another college: “I transferred to Texas A&M and tried to do the same thing where I’m gonna start new, again, this time I stopped throwing my food up for the most part but then I stopped my medication cold turkey which you’re not supposed to do. You’re supposed to wean off of it. And I was taking it and my parents didn’t know, my friends didn’t know, I was just taking it and not telling anyone because I was embarrassed about it, I didn’t understand depression. Things were going OK at A&M until all of a sudden I just felt like I just was losing grip on everything and I couldn’t catch up and I didn’t know why and I started getting emotional and I started isolating myself and I was having these emotions that I didn’t understand, and I started trying to tell my parents and tell my friends but they didn’t understand because they didn’t know I was on medication and quit cold turkey and I didn’t understand what was happening to me. So it got to a point where I couldn’t even explain it, I was just out of it. And what happened was, from what they explained to me, you can’t stop your medication cold turkey because then you go into relapse, even worse than you were before.”
On being hospitalized after taking pills: “I felt like I wasn’t being heard, I was trying to tell people I needed help, I felt like nobody was listening. I’ve never really talked about this. I ended up taking a bunch of pills and my roommate took me to the emergency room, it wasn’t super life threatening bad but the fact that I did take that action, they sent me to a mental overnight hospital to try to get me together, try to get myself together, ended up spending a week there, getting therapy. And afterward, I had to make the decision if I wanted to go home or try to come back and finish out my semester. So I decided to try to finish out my semester, I did, not very well. And that’s when I made the decision to go back home, to Tennessee, and that’s when I feel like, I was forced to just, hey, you need to get help, and the only way is to go back home to your support system, and that was the last thing I wanted to do is go back home because, I felt like a failure.”
On going home to get herself back together: “I needed to go back home and be with my family, get myself together, and I stopped running track for a year, got myself together, took accountability of my own actions, got therapy, got counseling, and then I decided that I wanted to walk on the track team at the University of Tennessee, I did that, and earned a full scholarship again, and I finished out my track career and graduated from the University of Tennessee.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
