Molly Seidel is a top-rated American distance runner with a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics and the American record at the New York City Marathon. While competing at the highest levels of the sport, Seidel has also been candid about her mental health struggles.
Seidel has been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD) and eating disorders. After a career-defining run at the Tokyo Olympics that catapulted her to new levels of prominence in the running world, she dealt with relapse and was forced to confront the pressures that came with fame and a platform. Since then, Seidel has used her journey to de-stigmatize mental health for other athletes and demonstrate that struggle isn’t the opposite of healing—it’s an integral part of it.
Earlier this month, the 28-year-old Puma-sponsored pro led a New York Road Runners group run called “Open Run for an Open Mind” to share her story and connect with the running community. One of her primary messages was admitting that, while the past year has been challenging, she’s eager to embrace her role as an imperfect advocate for mental health in the running community if it helps others on their journeys.
“It’s been interesting to be seen as an advocate for mental health in sport, especially because a lot of it is stuff I’m actively going through,” says Seidel. “It’s been balancing being able to share the journey while also living it.”
Seidel has only raced once this year—she placed eighth at the Cowtown Half Marathon (1:13:08) in Fort Worth, Texas, in February—but is considered to be one of the top contenders at next February’s U.S. Olympic Trials Marathon and earn the chance to run in the 2024 Paris Olympics. She hasn’t entered a marathon since 2022, which she dropped out of at mile 16 with a hip injury.
“When an athlete embraces perfection, they can let go of what they are ‘supposed’ to be and accept things as they are. They can recognize their flaws as a natural part of being human, not as something wrong with them as an individual which can reduce negative self-talk and improve self-belief,” says Sarah Strong, a licensed clinical social worker and Boulder, Colorado-based therapist who specializes in working with athletes. “They can be more open to celebrating small successes and notice progress along the way to big goals and roll with setbacks when they happen.”
When she first started speaking up about mental health, Seidel encountered negative feedback and harsh comments online, telling her to stay in her lane as an athlete or to stop complaining. While the pushback still hurts, she’s made peace that anyone who challenges the status quo of athletes being portrayed as emotionless automatons is likely to get criticism.
“There are some things that I need to keep in my inner circle,” she admits. “Sharing some of the nitty-gritty details about things invites a high level of scrutiny and backlash, and I realized that OK, the world is not where I’d hoped it would be with being able to talk about mental health. Not everyone is going to be supportive and understanding, and that’s OK.”
Progress, Not Perfection
Mental health is a slippery thing, and working through diagnoses like OCD, ADHD, or an ED are rarely a neat and linear process. Recovery rarely follows the perfect narrative arc that social media and culture crave.
Seidel says things really came to a head after the Tokyo Olympics, and that while she went on a publicity tour of sorts after the race, privately, she was struggling with a major eating disorder relapse and considering going back into treatment.
“It was hard for me to admit, even to myself, that I was struggling,” says Seidel. “Because so much of the messaging around mental health is ‘oh she went through this once and now everything is fixed and everything is OK. I felt like I had to portray this image that everything is OK, even when it very much is not. And that made everything I was going through 10,000 times worse.”
Strong says that cultural expectations that mental health and recovery are linear journeys with definitive destinations can set people back or even prevent athletes from getting help they need in the first place.
“Unmet expectations can lead to negative self-talk and an unhelpful narrative that the athlete themselves is to blame which can exacerbate symptoms,” says Strong. “A sense of pressure or an effort to avoid that disappointment may lead an athlete to force themselves to return to activity or intensity earlier than they should which can jeopardize recovery.”
While there aren’t any definitive studies about the prevalence of relapse in eating disorders—which is difficult to study as many relapses are unreported—there is no definitive consensus about what constitutes a relapse either, which makes gathering data about relapses difficult. Some studies point to an approximate 33 percent rate of relapse. That means about a third of people who seek treatment for an eating disorder will experience a relapse at some point.
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