Resilience Is Key
- Professional figure skater Amber Glenn, who is aiming for the 2026 Olympics, battled anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder after early success as a U.S. junior champion. Now, she advocates for mental health in sports, sharing how support, self-care, and resilience helped her recover and return to skating.
- It’s really important to keep tabs on your mental health and, if necessary, seek treatment. This doesn’t necessarily mean traditional therapy, because while it may be really helpful (even life-changing) for some, that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.
- If you are facing mental health struggles, make an appointment with your doctor or mental health professional today. In the meantime, here is SurvivorNet’s guide of resources to get you started. There is never any shame in asking for help. No one should suffer alone.
- Overcoming adversity can seem daunting, but having a plan can make it feel achievable. It’s important to remember that setting goals and breaking them into smaller steps is key. When going through a difficult time try setting a goal, making a plan, relying on others, and using positive self-talk.
- Resilience is an important trait to have in the face of adversity, like mental health struggles.. SurvivorNet spotlighted this important cancer-fighting trait in the film “Resilience,” streaming on SurvivorNet. It follows the lives of three athletes who are living with a health challenge yet overcame adversity.
The 26-year-old from Texas experienced early success that hinted at a bright future in skating, but her journey was interrupted when she was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and an eating disorder. With the support of her family and friends and the determination to seek help, she began the path toward recovery with determination to get back to her beloved sport, a journey she recently spoke with People about
Read MoreMore recently, Glenn also suffered an anxiety attack that affected her breathing. Thankfully, she credits her parents, younger sister, and coach Damon Allen for helping bring her “back to earth.”View this post on Instagram
Offering some insight into how she felt coming forward with her sexuality, she said, “There’s hateful people out there, and you never know if one of those hateful people is gonna be a judge.”
Glenn, who works to stay steady through both her triumphs and challenges, says, “My story is one of resilience and getting to live my life … not perfectly, but as me.”
Speaking to WAVY-TV 10’s Aesia Toliver, in an effort to spread awareness for mental health in sports, Glenn said, “I really hope to continue to try and make this a healthier and safer place for young athletes, because these are people that are growing, not just as athletes, but as humans.
“So I really hope that we can make figure skating more nurturing for them.”
View this post on Instagram
A few months back, Glenn also shared her excitement leading up to the 2026 Winter Olympics.
She told TODAY.com, “I’m feeling everything. Excitement. I’m nervous. Every little girl in skating dreams of being at the Olympics … and it wasn’t really a reality for me for many years. And now, it is.
“I’m so excited to hopefully be in Milan with some of my best friends.”
Expert Resources On Mental Health
- Mental Health: Understanding the Three Wellsprings of Vitality
- SN & You Presents Mental Health: Coping With Emotions
- Mental Health: Coping With Feelings of Anger
- How to Help Your Loved Ones Dealing With Loneliness, Anxiety, & Cancer
- Mental Health: A Guided Breathing Exercise to Help Manage Anxiety
- A Guided Meditation for the SurvivorNet Community
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Raising awareness with Child Mind Institute in 2024, Glenn offered advice to anyone struggling like she did, explaining, “Ask people for tools, for resources. You can do it. You can make it. I promise you.
“I mean, 10 years ago, I was at my lowest, and I didn’t think I had a future, and now I’m here doing what I love. It’s possible. I promise you. Mental health fitness is important. Please visit ChildMind.”
Glenn explained how mental health fitness combines healthy lifestyle habits—like sleep, exercise, and diet—with skills that support emotional well-being, such as recognizing feelings, coping with stress, and practicing mindfulness.
She explained, “These are things that can be really hard, especially at a young age. I know for me it really was. But we know that building physical activity allows children to have a better outlook by building self-confidence, managing anxiety, depression, increasing self-esteem, and cognitive skills.
“Some of the ways that I stay physically and mentally fit is, especially when I’m stressed … I love to go for nice long walks with my dog. I love to just enjoy myself skating, not necessarily training, but just enjoying it, listening to music or even dancing.”
Glenn continued, “I’m not a great dancer, but I enjoy it and I’m just listening to music. It’s just one of my favorite things. I also will do breathing techniques, trying to ground myself in my feet, in my shoulders, in my chest.
“It just really helps, especially when leading into intense championship events.”
Resilience Through Adversity
We truly admire Amber Glenn’s determination overcoming and working through her mental health struggles, which is why we’d like to point out how SurvivorNet specializes in covering the lives of people who overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. It’s looking at the positive side of things that helps them maintain their resilience.
WATCH: Defining and Building Resilience
Dr. Zuri Murrell, an oncologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, previously spoke to SurvivorNet about the role of a positive outlook on survival rates, saying, “I’m pretty good at telling what kind of patient are going to still have this attitude and probably going to live the longest, even with bad, bad disease. And those are patients who, they have gratitude in life.”
Resilience is an important trait, but not the easiest to build. The ultimate goal is not to avoid tough times, but to be able to bounce back from them. And yet, when they are faced with an overwhelming, life-changing situation, how do people shift their view? How do they learn to see the problem as temporary, rather than permanent, and figure out a solution?
It’s complicated, because building resilience is more about your mental and emotional fortitude than anything else. According to the American Psychological Association, “the resources and skills associated with more positive adaptation (i.e., greater resilience) can be cultivated and practiced.” In other words, resilience is not something you’re born with, which should be encouraging. Instead, after every challenge in your life, you build more and more resilience to those hard times.
You can build resilience the way you build muscle – through patience and steady exercise of the skill. Here are some lessons taken from Fischer, Runkel, and Soller, all who have spoke with SurvivorNet in earlier interviews.
- Be willing to learn. If one way doesn’t work, find a different way. If an obstacle lands in your way, build a path around it or over it. In Resilience, one of the athletes says, “You always have to be learning. Otherwise, life gets stagnant.” The more you learn, the more you grow and growth is a sign of resilience.
- Spend time with people who inspire you. Our world is filled with people who overcome challenges, and their success can energize you to overcome your own. Think about famous people who have faced adversity and did not give up Stephen King actually threw his manuscript, Carrie, in the trash because it had been rejected by publishers so many times. His wife encouraged him to keep sending it out, and he finally sold it in 1974 launching a massively successful career as a novelist. Take the time to read and learn about the lives of Helen Keller, Jackie Robinson, Bethany Hamilton, Nelson Mandela, and others.
- Allow yourself to grieve. Don’t push away or dismiss your frustration and sadness. Ben Fischer says that life can be filled with lots of crying, but “Those cries make us stronger.”
- Be flexible. Abandon the idea that there is only one solution or that you must stick to your original plan. The best solution or plan is the one that eventually works. You may need to change your original plan as the circumstances change.
- Lean in to your community. Your friends, colleagues, and family are invaluable, and when you’re feeling stressed or overwhelmed by a problem, their support can carry you. The Harvard Study of Adult Development is the longest study of human well-being. Many news outlets have covered its results, which show that maintaining strong, healthy relationships helped people live longer lives. Psychiatrist and author Dr. Samantha Boardman tells SurvivorNet that connecting with and contributing to the lives of other people are two of “the three wellsprings of vitality” (the third is feeling positively challenged).
How to Turn Stress into Strength
If you’ve been through a difficult health challenge or any type of adversity throughout your live, Dr. Boardman told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview that one way to get your mental health back in check after a diagnosis is to try to play up your strengths.
“I sometimes will ask patients, tell me about yourself when you were at your best,” she explained. “Using that story, trying to figure out what strengths come to mind. Is it patience? Is it appreciation of beauty? It is perseverance? [Then we can] use those strengths in constructive ways to navigate their cancer journey.”
Dr. Boardman says another way to approach harnessing the strength you already have is by tapping into your values. This could be family, close friendships, spirituality, or commitment to a healthy lifestyle.
Reminding yourself of what your values are and how you are living accordingly is another way to unleash that inner strength.
Lastly, patients shouldn’t underestimate the value of simply opening up, Dr. Boardman says. This could mean speaking to a close family member or friend, or it could mean seeking support in other ways by finding a therapist that meets your needs or looking into joining a support group.
Having negative feelings throughout a health struggle is to be expected, however, doctors will tell you that people who find a way to work through the emotions and stay positive tend to have better outcomes.
Mental Health: The Basics
The term mental health refers to both our emotional and psychological well-being. Our mental health can affect how we think, feel, and behave. Certain triggers like stress, traumatic events, or change in your physical health can affect mental health. That’s why it’s important to keep tabs on your mental health, which could mean seeking treatment for some. This doesn’t necessarily mean traditional therapy because while it may be really helpful (even life-changing) for some, that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.
Problems with mood and overall mental well-being can be attributed to several factors. For some people it’ss genetic, while others may be experiencing a response to some sort of stressor or past trauma.
Learning To Cope With Mental Health Struggles
“I think flexibility is really a core of how to manage it,” Dr. Samantha Boardman, a New York-based psychiatrist and author, tells SurvivorNet. “Are your coping strategies that you’re using now, are they helpful in the way that they were in the past?”
Dr. Boardman suggests working to recognize any negative thoughts that may be making the process of cancer treatment more difficult, and trying to dismantle those to be more “realistically optimistic.”
Related: Responding to Stress: How to Cope With Complex & Changing Emotions
In order to keep your mental health in check, it’s important to be aware of signs, which can be subtle, that there is something affecting your mind. These signs include:
- A change in eating or sleeping habits
- Losing interest in people or usual activities
- Experiencing little or no energy
- Numb and/or hopeless feelings
- Turning to drinking or drugs more than usual
- Non-typical angry, upset, or on-edge feelings
- Yelling/fighting with loved ones
- Experiencing mood swings
- Intrusive thoughts
- Trouble getting through daily tasks
These symptoms can be wide-ranging and vary a great deal from person to person. Everyone experiences grief differently, for example. However, if you are feeling unusually sad, on-edge, or like you’re no longer interested in activities you used to love, know that there are many treatment options available and many different healthy ways to help you cope.
Finding the Right Option for Mental Health Needs
Whether it is life-balance, a loss of a loved one, or a change in life brought on by a cancer diagnosis, “grief comes in waves,” says Dr. Scott Irwin, a psychiatrist and Director of Supportive Care Services at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
“They’re grieving the change in their life, the future they had imagined is now different,” he told SurvivorNet in a previous interview. Some days can be tougher than others, but Dr. Irwin says talk therapy can be really helpful, so it’s important to reach out to your doctor, to a therapist, or to support groups in your community if you are struggling.
Dealing With Grief Related to Health Problems
Treatment options for people struggling with mental health really run the gamut. While some people may benefit from seeking the help of a psychologist and getting on medication, others see great improvement by simply implementing some lifestyle changes, such as prioritizing exercise and cutting back on alcohol.
Those struggling should know that they are not alone, about one in five American adults has experienced some sort of mental health issue, according to mentalhealth.gov. However, what worked to help someone else cope may not necessarily help you, as treatment must be individualized.
To maintain a positive mindset and address mental health struggles you may be having, treatment may include:
- Seeking professional help from a psychiatrist or therapist
- Learning healthy coping skills
- Medication such as antidepressants
- Adding more physical activity to your routine
- Adjusting your sleep schedule
- Connecting with others via support groups
- Mindfulness and meditation
How to Be Realistically Optimistic: Coping With Mental Health Long-Term
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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