Mental & Emotional Health

On Sunday, I had the opportunity to volunteer with Special Olympics of Oregon for their Regional Swim Meet, and it was not only a fun experience, it made me more aware that even in my darkest times, I’ve got life pretty easy. There were two swimmers who really touched me on Sunday, and I’ve been thinking about them quite a bit since then.

Special Olympics athletes are a wide array of sportsmen & women: I helped swimmers
* of all ages (4 to 71!),
* of both sexes (it seemed to be pretty equally distributed),
* of all abilities (from developmental swimmers who participated in 10m walks across the shallow end to swimmers who swim on their high school swim teams to those who have been to the World Games) and
* of all mental capacities (from swimmers who initiated and then lead entire conversations with me and other volunteers to swimmers who had a hard time forming even basic words).

By 1pm, I thought the highlight of my day was Justin; a young man who was participating in the developmental swimming events. After getting his flotation belt on him (and laughing with him as we realized that it was really cold from being in the pool previously) his coach and I helped him into the pool. Although he was non-speaking, he was obviously nervous. Justin was to swim in lane 3 - the lane furthest from the wall – and getting him down to the right area was almost a 10-minute event. Once in the pool, I spent five minutes on my knees at the edge of the pool encouraging him to move towards me. He used the wall, and it took 10-times longer than it would have taken a fully mentally developed person, but the intense feeling of pride I had in him when he made it to the third piece of blue tape was better than anything I had felt in a long time. The second time Justin got into the pool, he was obviously more comfortable and moved down to his lane in no time. After he collected his awards, I was excited to find him and tell him how proud of him I was. It was really an amazing feeling.

Soon after spending my time with Justin, I met Sarah. Sarah was in two of my escort rows (I spent the day escorting the swimmers from the bullpen to the starting blocks) early in the afternoon and was a quiet girl worried about her diabetes. She told me about her low blood sugar level and how she had dealt with it at a previous swim meet and was worried that it would happen again. I encouraged her to try one lap and if she felt poorly that she should get out. She ended up winning a medal for that race and came back to swim again. After two races, she had a bit of a break before her relay race and so she sat near me and we chatted. Sarah is not only diabetic (two shots of insulin in the morning and evening), she’s a leukemia survivor (five years of remission) and she has a pretty severe mental disability. Once Sarah warmed up to me, she didn’t stop talking. I so much enjoyed talking to her that I was sad she left and I didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. I am hoping to see her at the state meet and be able to talk to her more.

Volunteering is good for the soul, and volunteering with Special Olympics definitely made my soul feel better, and now I have something absolutely positive to think about every time I let myself get down.

mental & emotional health, discussion autism, Special Olympics of Oregon, swimming, swim meet