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McKayla Maroney is opening up about the trauma she’s endured.
Recalling her time at the Karolyi Ranch, which served as the USA women’s gymnastics main training center for years before the Nassar trial, Maroney said the facility had a toxic environment that created a “perfect breeding ground for Larry Nassar to sneak in.”
“Our coaches were so focused on us being skinny and us being the best to get the gold medal for their own ego,” she said.
Maroney initially revealed herabuse in an October 2017 Twitter post, writing then that it lasted until she left the sport in 2016.
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Looking back at the investigation into Nassar and subsequent trial, Maroney toldEllethat it made her relive her trauma “over and over and over.”
“To have people say I can’t move forward with my life, because I have to do all this stuff first, was really hard for me,” she said. “I just wanted to become someone else.”
According to Maroney, the trauma eventually led her to develop an eating disorder — something that she spent recent years overcoming.
“I already had that obsessive control thing, so it just switched from gymnastics to food,” Maroney recalled. “I forgot I had ever even been successful at gymnastics, because I went from being great to feeling like, ‘Oh my God, I’m ugly, I’m gaining weight, I’m suffering with food, and I just went through all this abuse.’ "
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Maroney said her struggles with food came to a head when her father, Mike Maroney,died at the age of 59 in 2019. Describing the grief as “an ocean of sadness that I couldn’t get out of,” the Olympic gold medalist recalled starving herself for 10 days in order to be “skinny enough” for the funeral.
“Clearly I’ve been through a lot,” Maroney toldEllein the profile.
These days, Maroney is finding comfort in songwriting and making music. “I want to be looked at as someone who just keeps going, because that’s what we have to do in this life,” she added. “For so long, I was surviving. Now I feel I’m actually living.”
Nassar, 58, is currentlyserving a de factolife sentenceon charges of child pornography and sexual misconduct.
RELATED VIDEO: McKayla Maroney Alleges USA Gymnastics Tried to Silence Her Abuse Story
If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 connected to a certified crisis counselor.
If you or someone you know is battling an eating disorder, please contact the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) at 1-800-931-2237 or go to NationalEatingDisorders.org.
source: people.com
