Ibtihaj Muhammad is the first Muslim-American woman to win a medal for the U.S. in the Olympics, but her climb to the top of the fencing world ain't been no crystal stair.

Muhammad opens up about her struggles with anxiety after making the U.S. team in her memoir Proud. Despite her bona fides, she would be consumed with anxiety before her fencing matches.

“As one of the top saber fencers in the world, I never doubted that I belonged among the best. But in 2014, I started suffering from performance anxiety,” she told Glamour. “At first, I had no idea what was happening. The morning of a competition, I’d wake up feeling lethargic and sleepy — overwhelmingly so — despite having had a good night’s rest. At game time. I’d onto the fencing strip and feel completely detached from reality.”

Muhammad eventually got help from a psychologist through the Olympic committee who gave her the tools to cope with her symptoms. She began to incorporate meditation and self-affirmations into her warm up routine.

“Every morning I’d spend 15 minutes in prayer and meditation, which helped me start my day from a calm, centered place. On competition days I’d take another 15 minutes to focus on my breathing and my thoughts,” Muhammad added. “I would repeat to myself over and over, 'I’m ready. I’m prepared. I’m strong. I’m capable. I’m a champion.' (I like to call them my Muhammad Ali mantras.) These mantras helped me visualize the future, to see myself scoring points and winning. I learned to use my mind to shape my reality.”

Another revelation Muhammad made in her book is the icy reception she received from her teammates. In an excerpt published by The Lily, she says her teammates would turn down her invitations to hang out and purposely leave her out of their outings.

“I realized these women had known each other longer, but I couldn’t help but wonder if their behavior was intentional,” she wrote. “They would routinely watch movies together in one of their hotel rooms but never invite me. When they made plans for dinner, I never got a call to tag along. And because we were only a team of four, being the one person left out when the other three gathered was all the more hurtful.”

Muhammad did not want to assume her teammates were bigoted, but found their actions telling.

“After combing through all of the possibilities, my head would ache and I was back to where I started,” she added. “In the end I decided that the women’s saber team simply wasn’t ready for change — an African American Muslim was too much difference all at once. I think my team viewed me as so different from themselves they didn’t know how to relate, and they weren’t willing to put in the effort to figure it out.”

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Ibtijaj Muhammad

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