‘Post-Olympic Blues’: Jessie Diggins opens up about her eating disorder and life after skiing
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Jessie Diggins, who grew up in Stillwater, is the most decorated cross-country skier in U.S. history. The reigning two-time world champion and four-time Olympic medalist is preparing to retire at the end of the year. She’s perhaps best known for her legendary ability to dig deep into what she calls the “pain cave,” extracting every ounce of energy before literally collapsing at the end of a race.
She’s also become well-known as a mental health advocate who has been very open about her journey recovering from and managing a serious eating disorder. Diggins was interviewed this week by Jillian Lampert of The Emily Program, a Minnesota-based organization that provides eating disorder support and treatment. Below are edited highlights of the conversation.
On her experience at the Winter Olympics in her third and final Games. She won a Bronze medal, but she suffered painful bruised ribs in a hard crash during her first race, an injury that lingered for much of the competition
Honestly, I'm pretty tired, but at the same time, it was really exciting.
A lot of people talk about the ‘Post-Olympic Blues,’ and that is so real. You spend so much time building up to this one moment and how much hype comes around the Olympics. There's all this momentum, and then all of a sudden, like, it's over.
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It’s a really interesting space where I do talk about it a lot with my sports psychologists. We've had this huge high, and then you just come back down to normal.
On how she found joy amid the competitive stress of the Olympics
That was my primary goal. I really wanted to enjoy it with my family and friends, especially because the last Olympics was during COVID and we couldn't have anyone over there in Beijing with us.
This time around, getting to hug my mom and my dad right after the race, getting to give my partner a big kiss on the side of the trail before the race — that was so special, like I felt so unconditionally loved.
And I think that was a big thing for me, was really centering: I get to be here and I get to do this with my family and friends, and the right people are going to love you no matter what, if you win a medal, if you don't win a medal.
I had to keep recentering and refocusing in on that, because there were so many things that threatened to really steal the joy. I had a really hard crash 2 km into my entire Olympic experience, and I bruised my ribs. The 10km skate, that's a race I've been really excited for, and right now my body just isn't feeling the way I want it to feel, like it hurts.
On how she fostered her mental and physical health during the Olympics
To protect our physical health, we were like, ‘Man, it's so fun to be in the village, but it's really easy for illness to spread.’ And so we stayed in a hotel, and it was just our team in there. We also brought in our own chef to cook foods that were familiar to us. They were really careful about food safety, because I sort of infamously got food poisoning in the last Olympics right before the last race.
It also allowed us to have, from the mental side of things, a more relaxed atmosphere. We had really cozy rooms. I had all of these pictures and posters and drawings from friends and family and their kids.
It was a really big thing for my mental health, to just have all these visual reminders of, like, the right people love you for your effort and your heart, not based on medals.
On the new documentary ‘Threshold,’ in which Diggins shares the story of her relapse with an eating disorder during the 2023-24 World Cup season
I'm putting this out there because I know it's going to help people. I know it's going to help people get these critical conversations started. I know it's going to help people know they're not the only one.
It's also going to help coaches and parents and teammates understand, like, ‘OK, this is a look inside the brain of someone going through an eating disorder.’ And hopefully it helps people gain some compassion and some empathy for someone going through something so challenging.
It's been really beautiful to see the response from people. I was worried that people would see this movie about my eating disorder and assume that was all of me. Your eating disorder isn't who you are. It's this tiny facet of your being. It's something you went through. It's part of your story. You know, it's a chapter, or maybe two, of your book of life, but it's not the whole book. And so my eating disorder isn't the entirety of who I am.
On how the movie came to be, and what it was like filming it
It started out with the Brinkema brothers [the filmmakers] following the entire team the spring before that [2023-24] season. They were setting out to tell the story of the sport and especially how the American team came up as these underdogs, and then [they] started performing on the world stage while traveling constantly all winter and looking out for each other — kind of like a family.
As they got closer to the team, I started to get to know them more as well, and I decided to open up to them when I had my relapse that summer. I was like, “Hey look, you guys. I decided I want to tell people so that other people don't feel so alone in this.”
Because when I relapsed, my first feelings were, honestly, shame. I was so embarrassed.
Why am I struggling with this again? Where did this come from? I was confused. I was scared, I was hurting. And I realized, there are so many other people who are feeling that, too, who would maybe benefit from hearing, “You are allowed to ask for help more than once, you know. You get more than one emergency phone call.”
On telling the story of her eating disorder
Early on in my career, I didn't think I was going to tell the story of my eating disorder. I had no intention of telling the world, and I didn't know that was going to be the thing that I felt like I was really meant to do. And then, sometimes, when you find your calling, you're like, “Wow, this is it. This is what I feel like I was meant to do all along.”
So much of the work of healing from an eating disorder, no matter how it's portrayed, it often happens very incrementally and very slowly. At least, for me, it was slow. It was just through these talks where we're sifting through, like, “What is this really about? Is it about perfectionism? Is it about feeling overwhelmed? Is it that you're a ‘yes person’ and you can't say ‘no?’ Like, what is going on here? What really caused this relapse?”
It took months for me to figure out, in hindsight, why I relapsed over the summer. And then it took me a long time to realize, “Oh my gosh, I didn't even realize my eating disorder could morph and it could shift.” When I was younger, I was diagnosed with bulimia. And I thought that's my type, you know. That’s my thing. And I didn't realize that it could change.
On what she’s looking forward to when she retires from professional skiing later this month
I think the immediate future is going to look like a lot of rest. I might need to spend some time at home, curled up with a mug of tea, knitting a sweater.
I think it's just going to be really important to give myself space and time to just process, “Wow, I got to do my dream job for so many years.”
I'm retiring, not that it's no longer my dream job, but just the way I have to live to do this isn't the way I want to be anymore.
In the more long-term future, I'm so excited about public speaking. That's something where I love getting to tell my story in order to inspire people. It's exciting to me to think that I can do that just with my words and with my story and try to inspire people and make them really feel something really deeply.
That gives me a lot of joy and a lot of purpose and a lot of excitement to see what I can do.
On advice she’d give to coaches or parents or friends
I think a lot of really small things can make a really big difference. Please, don't talk about athletes' bodies. Talk about your strengths as an athlete. Talk about your strengths as a teammate. What you bring to the team? Your attitude, your focus, your technique.
Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. One of my pet peeves is when someone greets you and they're like, “Oh, you look good.” I really love it when people say something like, “Oh, you seem happy.”
On the future of cross country-skiing with climate change
Honestly, it is really concerning to me, which is why I'm really passionate about the work that I do for Protect our Winters.
We’ve had slushy conditions at all our recent championship events, and that's in February, you know. It is a little bit of a reality check. We need to keep working towards this.
The way I think about working on climate change isn't that different from the way I think about working towards recovery, which is like, this is a long-term thing.
I want to be thoughtful and intentional and try to make a difference, but in a way that allows me to keep showing up and keep trying to make a difference.
