Camille Martens: Surviving Sport, Red Flags & Becoming the Sports Parent Your Child Needs

That's a lot to take on.

As a newly minted teenager at the age of 13 years old, you had to grow up very quickly.

What impact do you think that had on you?

You know, I think at this stage I can reflect and understand, uh, the difficulty that I caused my parents [laughs] and the heart-wrenching decisions.

I felt very much ready to take that on.

I felt very mature and, um, clear about what I wanted, and I think in some ways that made it easier for them, but I definitely put them in a very difficult situation.

And I knew my parents believed in healthy environments and that they wanted me to be happy, and they could definitely sense that some of the environments that I was in were not healthy.

Um, but my need to protect the people in those environments was really strong because I knew that that's the only way or believed that that was the only way I could, could reach what I was reaching for.

So...

Can you expand on that, that they perhaps had an inkling that you were in some environments that weren't healthy, but you had to protect those environments? What did that unhealthy environment look like or feel like?

Well, I think, I mean, it's an Eastern Eur- sp- y- Eastern European sport, um, dominated in a history of having been a fear-based and sort of manipulation of, of children in a lot of ways.

And I don't think it's always intentional.

I think a lot of the coaches that I worked with had never seen other opportunities or perspectives or, you know, ways of doing it differently.

And so they were doing what they knew how to do and doing it the best that they could.

Um, however, there were definitely a lot of fear-based environments.

Uh, that was a stage where weight control was really big in our sport, so being weighed frequently, a lot of commentary on a lot of different bodies, uh, a lot of mocking, a lot of A lot of fear.

And I, I generally tried to respond to all of that with s- a part of me that's always been ingrained is a almost an overactive growth mindset.

This is my opportunity to be strong.

I mean, I watched The Karate Kid and had decided that no matter what would be asked of me, I would be the one who would do it, and I would do four more.

[laughs] And so it was just the, the mindset that I went in with, and I really didn't want to ever share any of the difficulties, any of the pressure from, you know, the larger body of the federation or, um, judges or individual coaches that I was working with at the time because I wanted to make sure that I still had access to everything.

And I sensed, I think, on some level also the political im- importance of being liked and received.

And so I wanted, I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to be received, and I wanted, um, to be able to continue to have access to my dreams.

What you're describing sounds like other environments in other sports where athletes who become very successful, they almost compartmentalize and they say, "Look, I can be the one to overcome this circumstance." And for you, obviously it worked out, and the other athletes it has worked out, but there is likely a cost to pla- pay later on because that gets pushed to the side or buried beneath.

Did you have that same experience, a- and what was that cost, if there was one?

Very much.