u/Flyingmubu

I’m currently 50 days post injury and 15 days post-op from ACL + meniscus surgery, and honestly I feel like I’m starting to get bitter and I really don’t want that to happen.

Normally I’m a very active person and sports have always been one of the biggest mental outlets in my life. I usually train 5–7 times a week, so losing my normal routine, movement, my sport and entire sport season has affected me mentally way more than I expected.

I know people usually don’t mean harm, but I feel like nobody around me has any situational awareness anymore. Since my injury and surgery, I’ve noticed how many friends immediately turn every conversation back to themselves.

For example:

I opened up about gaining weight after losing my mobility and someone immediately started talking about their own diet and weight loss.

I have talked about sleeping horribly after surgery and someone complained about getting “only” 7 hours of sleep.

A friend keeps sending me messages about how they “can barely walk” because of muscle soreness while I’m literally relearning how to walk after knee surgery.

And the worst part is that I KNOW they probably don’t mean it maliciously. But right now it just makes me irrationally angry. I feel like I would never behave like that toward someone recovering from surgery or losing an entire sports season.

I’m also struggling mentally with:

-sudden loss of independence
-weight gain
-poor sleep
-isolation
-fear of returning to my sport
-feeling like nobody truly understands how mentally exhausting ACL rehab is

Did anyone else become extremely sensitive to other people’s complaining during early ACL recovery? How did you stop yourself from becoming resentful or emotionally exhausted by everyone around you?

I think I’m mostly just looking for peer support from people who actually understand this process. I’ve honestly started wondering whether I just have bad friends or if this is normal and I’m expecting too much from people. Even my own sport team has gone mostly silent.