Laura Veldhof

I wanted to tell my story on how lacrosse impacted my life while I was struggling. Lacrosse was always there for me and had my back. My freshman year I had a really bad year mentally, and I was always talking with my counselor and she introduced me to lacrosse just to try it out. I Immediately fell In love. My sophomore year I had the surprise of a lifetime: my father came back into my life after ten years. I struggled so much, and that’s when I started taking lacrosse more seriously. It truly helped me grow not only as a player, but as a person as well. It became my safe space. I am now planning to play college lacrosse because it has made me so joyful and has become my outlet ever since I started playing lacrosse. I started my freshman year at this brand new school, which has a very different environment compared to my middle school. The first semester of school went by smoothly, but then by the second semester I was having a really hard time as I had to face the person who had hurt me in the past. Around that time I joined lacrosse, and it helped me keep my thoughts away, and therapy helped as well. Then I found out therapy wasn’t the best fit for me. During my sophomore year, I was dealing with my dad coming into my life and it wasn’t how others would think. It definitely was beneficial for me, but it was truly so hard for me to welcome this stranger back into my life. I started taking lacrosse more seriously, and it helped me stay away from home and get better at something I truly love to do. In addition that same year, my  sophomore summer came and my grandpa passed away. We had to fly to Mexico that summer, and I was struggling significantly. To help me through this very different period I started playing travel lacrosse; it really helped me and it was my outlet going into my junior year. Until I had eventually developed an eating disorder which had affected me both physically and mentally. It got to its worst my junior year. For me it was a never ending cycle of terrible situations that kept happening to me. Nowadays I always look back to lacrosse as my savior because it was a stress reliever and I am  grateful for this sport!