Having to Re-Learn to Swim and Clear My Name: Tully Kearney's Story of Overcoming Adversity

[Music] [Music] no no no no that's him so how does how does this because obviously what we what people like myself would probably see from you is you obviously have these disabilities you know this is around 2016 time you now have the story and you know and you've always had your cerebral palsy unfortunately you've been dealt this tough hand but you're you're showing great adversity and you're showing that it's not a limitation because you're you're you've taken medals home for fun at the competitions and you're still active on social media you're still doing all these things you're okay I have to do things differently to able-bodied people but I'm still doing them there's no there's nothing stopping me here uh how does this affect personal life like for example are you do you require I'm trying to try to really work this in a way that shows the respect that the demands so if I say anything that's out of time please like don't take it offensively I'm not trying to cause offense but do you require additional care in certain aspects of your life still even though you have all these people would consider athletic achievements and you have these minor like you say the the great example is like people are saying your physical disabilities aren't as visual as uh physical amputees or things like that or short stature so to start with no um open to I think it was about 2017 where it was like the end of 2016 start 2017 where it got to the point it was really bad um and that's actually at that point I had to stop swimming I had to withdraw from Rio a week before supposed to fly out I lost my funding I lost my place at the national Center and I was in concert I had constant nerve pain um from shoulder issues I couldn't lift either arm above shoulder height I had very little use of my legs my core was really weak I basically had lost a lot of my function and I haven't just been caused by a compound of the dystonia and the yeah just a massive progression of Estonia um we had a coach she wasn't very nice um treated us extremely badly who eventually was fired for uh basically a lot of us reported him for basically abuse and he was fired for that um from that I have PTSD so like all this stressful stuff like with Estonia stress can make it a lot worse and Trigger it to get worse a lot quicker um I'd had a few Falls and I fell onto my shoulder and again trauma like some people developed Estonia from having a spine injury being at the car crash like sometimes trauma can cause it to react and for me um the stress and then falling onto my shoulder and getting a soft tissue injury is what caused the Stony to move to my shoulders um so I then had to basically relearn I wasn't even thinking about sport at that point I had to relearn how to move like how to get dressed how to basically function how to get myself to UNI like how to be able to sit for a lecture without crying in pain um it was rough like it was a really rough time it was really hard to deal with um going from a part-time we'll change it to a full-time wheelchair user not even be able to walk around and Tesco Express anymore like that that was kind of the most annoying thing is those little things that I could still do that was easy like I could run into Tesco Express and get a loaf of bread but now I have to get my chair out and it takes so much longer it takes so much more effort um and it was that was kind of the biggest thing at that point I wasn't really thinking I'm not going to swim again I was more of like what am I going to do with my life like I kind of fully identified that as an athlete and I was like well who am I now I can't swim um but I did have carers before but I didn't need them for as many things so like if I decided to walk around a shop I had to get someone to hold her like I was on crutches couldn't walk without crutches so I was had to get someone to obviously like push the shopping um and I was quite stubborn at that point I didn't want to use my chair every time I went to supermarket and I obviously needed to unless I was really tired and I had like help for folding washing and just general stuff but I could still cook myself quite easily like there were things that I didn't need help with um so it was only really like once or twice a week for a couple of hours and then it came to the point where I needed help pretty much every day to do a lot of stuff and um like things you wouldn't think about like even where I live now the bin store it is outside and there's a a lock pad so like for me having to press buttons and then turn sank really quickly is really difficult because it's the not only you've got a plan how are you going to do it I can't go from pressing a button to turning the little turny thing quick enough for the doors and the facts as well was obviously really high up and the bins are really high because they're like the industrial ones um so even things like that are like really challenging that I'd have never thought about when I could walk and I think other people wouldn't necessarily think of um but yeah so I kind of just really like I was lucky that I still had uni that had already started uni Manchester kind of threw myself into that had to move out of the swimming flat because I was in a British swimming flat uh moving to Halls which was a horrendous experience um and it was just like so loud that and when you when you struggle to sleep anyway from Pain and then you've got students up all hours of the night like yeah just don't sleep your pocket just doesn't help um and then I think as well like that was kind of the most eye-opening thing for me is that I was in denial a lot that I was struggling with depression and I just didn't want to accept it and then when I moved into halls there were seven of us in Halls and five out of seven of us were on antidepressants and that was like made me realize well actually this is quite a normal thing for people my age and most people haven't really been through all this stuff so um that kind of made me feel a bit better about it however having five people antidepressants probably wasn't the best planning of putting them all in the same flat because they would just sit there drinking alcohol which wasn't exactly the best thing to do so yeah I don't if you're if you're struggling about half don't just sit and drink alcohol it literally just makes things worse it does not help um yeah I I agree with that statement so um yeah soon like soon pulled myself out of that and I just don't drink anymore because I just well now I just don't I don't really care for anymore but I kind of like realized quickly that I need to stop because it's not it's not helping like there's no reason that I'm doing it I'm just doing it just to kill time basically um and um yeah so after about a year my mum was like well my mum had started earning Masters Swim Club in Birmingham and um I was still like pretty much heading home every weekend because my carers were in like midweeks so I would generally drive home to Birmingham every weekend just so my mom could look after me basically um and the one of my old swimming coaches had made a master Squad and a lot of the swimmers in it were parents and kids I used to swim with and like my mum had started swimming with them and she was like well why didn't you come along and at that point I was kind of like well I'd rather never try to swim again and like not know rather than get in and realize I can't swim because I was like I'd just be devastated all over again and if I can't swim but somehow she just knew that I to figure out a way like she didn't think I'd ever get back into swimming again but she just wanted me to know like you you know if I went on holiday and I wanted to like float in the pool or go in the beach like on in the sea on the beach she wanted me to know that I could do it yeah and she didn't want me to like Miss out and feel that I couldn't and you know even like if you go for a like family swim you just floating around you just want me to know that I could and um it comes it comes back to that you said there's nothing it's like you don't feel like you're in that different category like even if you're just in the water and you still feel like you're there but I think at this point as well it was the I didn't know how people were going to react I didn't know how to react to people that knew me before I didn't know how they were gonna have to me I just didn't really know what to do I didn't know whether I need to explain myself I didn't know whether I don't say anything like do I just not look at them do I avoid them do I never speak to anyone again that I knew before it was kind of like I just overthought everything and I was just like I don't know what to do um but I was really lucky that I eventually my mum eventually convinced me to go and I started in the London swim Lane so we had a coaching that was like literally figuring out what I could do what I couldn't do um and get me back into it and within a year I'd gone up so it was a four lane portal I'd started learning them to swim and within a year I was on the quickest Lane beating everyone how was that um that's that's an incredible story in itself just even even if you completely like just take that one aspect of I went from learn swimmingly into the fastest in a year again that's incredible on its own but how was those learn to swim lesson days when you're thinking I've got medals in this and I'm having to literally teach myself how to do the basics of this again how was that emotionally yeah I I was embarrassed like absolutely hated it like everyone knew me as a world champion and expected me to go to Rio and come at home with at least three gold medals and I didn't go I felt like a failure I felt like I let one down and I was also really embarrassed like the fact that I know people were obviously worried about me and like worried about what happened and stuff but and people don't mean to stare but it's also like everywhere you go where people know you they're like oh God what's happened to you and it's just like do I really have to explain it again like it was just and I suppose you have to do it like you don't just like you can't just do it once you have to every time you see somebody you have to almost relive it which is tough I think because I knew these people one way it was harder because they knew what was like before but in the other way it was easier because I felt like I could trust them and like within a couple of sessions I did feel much better but I just kind of thought like um I there wasn't anything about race International but I was just kind of thinking like this was the one thing that I thought I was going to do forever like when I retire I was always going to keep swimming because it's always been my thing and I used to spend 28 to 30 hours a week training so even when I was getting back in I was doing like maximum hour a week and I still had all these hours where I was just like I don't know what to do with myself um and obviously like I put loads of weight on because when you when you're training like 70k a week you can eat whatever you want well obviously it's so much like you literally like I think I was having like five meals a day at one point loads of snacks because I needed it because I was training a ridiculous amount and when you stop all exercise and then also you can't walk anymore you're in a wheelchair like full time because the swimming it's it's the one-to-one risk for work ratio isn't it because there's no impact so yeah you've chosen it at kilometers yeah so I used to do like nine nine two hour sessions a week in the pool sometimes ten and then like a good few hours is like two two hours twice a week in the gym sometimes three so it was like it was a lot of work and um yeah so going from that to starting again but so after I kind of got to the point where I could swim and I could fit into kind of a club environment I decided because I was still uh Manchester met they honored my sports scholarship so they pay for your city Manchester some fees so they pay for your fees and your training sessions so I literally all I had to pay for was my um ASA swim membership so that I could actually be like a registered member of the club and um obviously it was a massive weight lifted off I didn't have to pay for snc I got one-on-one snc and at first I was nervous starting with a new coach that hadn't worked with swimmers hadn't worked with uh disabled people honestly one of the best snc coaches I've ever had it was like he reached out to people who worked with power athletes he reached out um to like butcher in like because they had like an mmu sport had a connection with British power swimming obviously being in Manchester and um like did research online and was just really open to asking me and there was another athlete Hannah dartons who actually got me into Athletics um who's a paracyclist went to Rio and he worked with both was she the one on your story the other day I think I saw you too no no that was uh so that was another athlete but Hannah did actually get me into a frame running but um she she's a lovely girl honestly really really kind and he was just amazing with us like he sat down like we went through what we kind of can't do and just kind of boat we all learned together and he was just honestly amazing and I got physio supports the stuff that I wouldn't be able to afford because I wasn't on funding anymore I just got um and that made such a big difference and I started training with city of Manchester with Matt Walker who actually was a teammate of mine years ago um he has a toxic CP so it's kind of like a shaky type of CP um and he was an S7 uh it's from a world paralympic European Champion so obviously a great personal privacy coach and it took him a while because he'd known me as an S9 swimmer it did take quite a long time for him to realize my limitations like my new limitations and yeah that I because he was trying to get me to do leg kick and I literally would just be laying there and I now have no use of my legs in the pool so like unless my legs are touching something like the wall I can't feel them I don't know where they are and I can't move them so I'm quite lucky that I still get a bit of push off of the wall after a tumble turn on my feet to touch the wall but apart for that I can't use them I don't know where they are so like he was trying to get me to do leg kick and I was literally just floating there for like five minutes not moving and I looked around and I was like Matt can I stop now I'm like I'm not gonna move and eventually realize that yeah actually this isn't doing anything oh yeah that's the girl that can't feel their feet okay yeah and then once you realize like and because I still struggled a lot with nerve pain and shoulder pain there were sometimes I was just in too much pain and I just needed a break so um we started doing like a mushroom float so basically you grab your arms tuck up your knees put your head under like took your head under like you're a little mushroom and you just float and I used a pitch for the life of gods because I can hold my breath for quite a long time and he used to like sometimes he tap me on the head like he's still breathing it's um you know you notice the long term if your coach has to pull your head out and go you are still alive right yeah but like it was just like a really good reset like I was in loads of painting so I just literally go into my little mushroom flow in my own little world underwater which has obviously always been my happy place and it would just kind of reset and if it didn't work I'd get out if it did work then I could carry on and then if I struggled again and just do it again for a few minutes and then I'd carry on again and it just worked really well um and then I went ended up going to a trial so that was when I was reclassified again to an S5 yeah so that kind of shocked me because I knew that I was a lot more disabled than I was but actually having it written down in paper and going like it's kind of unheard of to drop full classifications in swimming or in any sport and to go from a nine to a five unfortunately there are people that cheat insulin not just I think in para para sport it's not as much drug cheats it's classification it's intentional misrepresentation unfortunately a big issue so when someone like me drops um Cascades like drops from an S9 to an S5 straight away yeah yeah there's athletes that are new for years that ignored me because they thought of shooting like some of them ignore me for years until they realized um so I lost a lot of friendships I honestly didn't I didn't really know how to approach it and how to approach people and I didn't feel like I should have to justify the fact that I've got a progressive conditions there's a magazine an American Magazine absolutely hate I think it's terrible called Swim swam online and they write articles about all like swimmers able-bodied and para in a way and they have a comment section that's on land so they write it in a way so it like they do it in a way that's going to make you react so they don't write all the facts they do it in a way that makes people angry so they're gonna write so it wasn't just me that got classified that time there were other athletes so it wasn't just aimed at me but there were so many comments saying oh she's cheating oh like oh how can she be an S5 she doesn't have muscle wastage well if you knew what dystonia was that my muscles were always switched on you would know why I don't have loads of muscle wastage but if you knew that I had a progressive condition you would know that I am actually more disabled now like if you watch the live stream of me swimming you would see how much I struggle and they were saying things like oh she's going to break all the world records straight away and all this stuff it took me three years to break the world records like it wasn't straight away yeah um and it was just that thing that I felt like everyone was staring at me thinking that was a cheat and I'm not a cheat like I wasn't cheating but it's so hard when it happens so frequently it's so hard to prove that you're not a cheat because people you are um but I ended up getting my classified and then at that meet I surprised everyone and I qualified Europeans in 2018 and that was kind of like oh okay this is um weird I didn't really know how I thought about it I didn't really want to be around Britain at that point because like the coach had been sacked a lot of the staff had changed but I was still worried that it was going to be I'm still Associated yeah you still have that association with them yeah and obviously with the PTSD again I was in denial about it at that time and I was like oh I'm fine like um because to start with I would Panic every time I drove towards Manchester every time I got into Manchester I'd panic and then it got to the point where I kind of got numb to it and I wasn't happy about being in Manchester but I could drive into Manchester without any symptoms um and then the first time I went to the pool I had a panic attack but then it got to the point where it was fine but it was city of Manchester we swam upstairs in the main level pool British women's underground so it's completely enclosed like you can't see it and um when I made the Europeans team I had to go train downstairs for a week as like kind of like we had like a mini holding Camp thing to get everyone that was going to be on European team together and that was like I really struggled like going downstairs again obviously the same but looked exactly the same but there were some people similar a lot of the same people mostly were new but I just couldn't cope with it like it was really difficult to cope with and that was kind of the first time I realized and actually accepted that I had PTSD um and yeah that was really difficult so I went to Europeans unfortunately I had to get reclassified again because dropping so many classifications meant that they wanted to make sure that I wasn't a g so I was re-classified it especially I assume all the noise doesn't help at that time as well because once you get reclassified and then everybody else starts going they're cheating I suppose they almost have to do it again to sort of prove themselves I was really nervous about going to Europeans and seeing people that hadn't seen since 2015 and I'm thinking that I'm a cheap like I was like I don't know how to react like what if someone else has a girl at me like I was just like I don't know what's going to happen like what if people can't be cheat like what if like I don't know I was just it was going around my head like I don't know what to expect I don't know what to do um and unfortunately the classifiers that I got Europeans didn't know what the Stony was didn't know how to test for it I didn't know how basically for me the more I try and move the more the stomach I get so the more I think about movement the harder it is for me to move and the worse my movement is so when I'm swimming really slowly I'm less dystonic than when I'm swimming at heart speeds so in the water test if you get me to only swim at low speeds I don't look that dystonic if you get me to swim at race Pace I'm way worse my control's a lot worse but at that point I hadn't really clicked in my mind that I should ask them to do quicker stuff so we did threshold which is like 50 beats below Max okay that threshold isn't really enough to show the full extent of my Estonia when I'm racing because obviously this is all about racing not about training it's actually classification and um then because we had so many S6 swimmers there's only three that can swim at a time for one country so I was put up to a six and it was really annoying I was put one Mark into an S6 category and they they've done things like they they said I had movement in my left ankle which I've got proof that I have no movement for my medical evidence so we were able to appeal on that grounds um but we didn't actually end up having to appeal because when they watched me race they picked it up straight away and brought me back into reclassification yeah the issue was that my main race was on day one the 200 freestyle and because to you have to be watching competition and they have to see you in a freestyle event but there were four other s6s and they were all quicker than me so they weren't gonna GB weren't going to pull out another six so that I could swim to try and get reclassified back down to ns5 yeah so I literally had to wait until day five to race they saw me um picked me up straight away and then I went um that like afternoon they put me into another test another water test and they literally made me swim about 2000 meters of Max swim like exhausted me just to see what happens when I swim at Max for a long time and obviously you're a European Champs right now so you're trying to save as much energy as possible and this is day five and my 53 the S5 53 star was a final only so I did all this stuff they put me back down to an S5 and the same day within a few hours I had to then raise the 53 final and obviously I was emotionally dreading I was exhausted I was feeling pretty defeated um by being put up 26 and um I raced and it wasn't a great time for me I came third so the next day I got in and it was 100 free star os5 and my first 50 . bear in mind this is defeat not to hand so the feet should be slower it was two and a half seconds quicker than what I did the day before and it would have won Gold by over a second but it was like I was so emotionally drained and stretched indeed um so it wasn't a great experience for me but I was like you know what at least the the thing that amazes me and I don't know if you pick it up and I I think the listeners probably pick it up because they they're a lot more like me than you in the fact that we're not superhuman uh we you were like I'm disappointed I got third and a final that's a medal and you're like ah but I knew that I could win that was the thing like when you know that you're quick enough to win and sync goes wrong but you're always going to beat yourself up for it and always gonna be like oh I should have won that but that is that is that mentality that I think really separates people from the elite because like you like this is 20 this is 2018 in 2016 you've committed to never swimming again and like you said you've just you've just accepted it and moved into halls and you're like okay I'm now going to be totally currently without swimming in that in two years you've gone actually sag that I am an incredible person and I love swimming I want to be the best swimmer and I want people to know me as the best swimmer and you're back on a European Championship volume within two years thank you for listening to 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