By admin
Trigger warning: The following article mentions experiences with suicide and depression.
Deja Young-Craddock is spending time away from track and field after three medals and two Paralympic Games, but there’s only one thing she’s thinking about moving forward: her happiness. It feels similar to a breakup, she told POPSUGAR, because you’re no longer in love and it isn’t as effortless as it used to be. “It was almost like I was in a healthy relationship. I’d give, and then [track] would give right back to me,” she explained. “Then at one point, I was the only one giving. It was not giving back.”
Young-Craddock isn’t quite ready to announce her retirement, so she’s calling this a “break,” and it’s a breather she knew she needed around May of this year. “I went to a track meet in Arizona. Didn’t do so hot, wasn’t feeling so hot. I came home, and it was one of those things where I came to a realization. I was like, ‘Oh my goodness. I don’t want to do this anymore. This is not fun for me anymore,'” the 25-year-old said. “I stayed in bed for a whole week. . . . I couldn’t stop crying, just couldn’t really do anything.”
Young-Craddock said she’s glad to have finished out the 2021 season strong, winning a bronze in the T47 100m sprint at the Tokyo Paralympics after a season she wasn’t thrilled with. “We just came off one of the hardest years of our lives,” she said, “and I was able to still compete on the biggest stage of my career and medal.” Now, it’s time for her to see who she is outside of her sport, and she’s ready to dive right in.
Track was there for her through it all. In 2016, Young-Craddock attempted suicide and was admitted to a mental institution. She said she had to take a certain number of therapy sessions in order to be cleared to compete, and once she was, she raced in the 2016 Paralympic team trials, where she made it to the Rio Paralympics and went on to win two gold medals. Those golds made her feel like returning to the sport following such trauma was worth it, she recalled. Just a few months post Games, she was in an injury-causing car accident that, again, tested her strength. (As she expressed in a recent as-told-to piece for ESPN, “2016 was not my year.”) She overcame that, too.
