Shadows Behind the Medals

Chapter 2: The Price of Belonging

The first invoice came tucked inside a newsletter.

Folded between pictures of smiling athletes and a cheerful recap of the last fun run, it listed the new “recommended contributions” for the quarter. Twenty euro for training. Fifteen for the Christmas party. Another ten for the annual raffle. Optional, they said — but Josephine treated it like gospel.

She didn’t tell me at first. I only found out when I saw her counting coins in the kitchen, scraping together change meant for bread and milk. She waved it off with a smile.

“It’s not that much,” she said. “They need the support.”

What she meant was: I need them to need me.

She had never asked for much — not during the darkest times, not even after the fire. But now, the cost of being included came with quiet sacrifices. Meals skipped. Clothes not replaced. Small indulgences — a cinema trip, a takeaway — erased without a word.

She wore the club hoodie like a second skin. But behind the badge, I saw the strain. The way her shoulders hunched more often. The way she flinched when another fundraising sheet was passed around. Nobody forced her. But everyone else was doing it. And in a world where “team” meant everything, standing out wasn’t an option.

By spring, the bills began to compete with her dignity. She stopped taking lifts from me and started walking longer distances. “It’s good exercise,” she insisted, even when it rained. I offered to help with the fees. She refused.

“It wouldn’t feel right,” she whispered.

But what did feel right, I wondered, about giving everything you had just to be accepted?

It was a Saturday in June when the club rolled out its biggest fundraiser of the year — the SuperValu bag-packing weekend in Wicklow.

Everyone was expected to show up. “A great team-building exercise,” they called it. Josephine had circled the date on her calendar weeks in advance, nervous and eager in equal parts. It wasn’t about the money to her — not really. It was about being seen, being counted, being praised.

We took the early bus that morning. She wore her club polo shirt, freshly ironed, and carried a half-eaten sandwich wrapped in tinfoil. There wouldn’t be time for lunch.

Inside the supermarket, the coaches handed out assigned shifts like drill sergeants. Four-hour blocks, barely any breaks. Josephine was paired with a new volunteer — cheerful, young, and oblivious. She smiled through the entire shift. So did Josephine. But I saw it — the way she rocked ever so slightly when her knees started to ache. The way she winced when someone asked why she was “allowed” to stand there if she wasn’t a “real” staff member.

They gave her a lanyard. No food. No break. No thanks.

At the end of the day, they took a photo of the group outside the shop. “Great team effort!” read the caption on Facebook. Josephine wasn’t smiling in that one. She was too tired.

The next day, she went back for another shift. And the next weekend. And the next. Because the club said they “depended” on her. Because belonging, once again, came with a price.

That night she counted the coins in her purse again. Not her money. The club’s. Her bus fare barely covered. No lunch.

“They gave me a badge,” she said, holding it up like a medal. “Said I was the most dedicated one.”

And she was.

Dedicated. Exhausted. Broke.

As the weeks went by, Josephine became more and more withdrawn, her energy drained by the constant cycle of fundraisers, training, and events. But the worst part — the part I couldn’t ignore — was the way she began skipping meals.

At first, I thought it was just a rough week. She didn’t come over for dinner one night, then another. Each time, she’d make up some excuse. “I already ate,” she’d say, or, “I’ve got something in the fridge at home.” But I knew the truth. Her fridge was often empty except for a few cans of soup and the leftover club stickers she didn’t know what to do with.

One evening, I caught her in the kitchen, rummaging through my cupboards like she was hunting for something she couldn’t quite name. I handed her a plate of spaghetti I’d just made, but she pushed it away.

“I’m fine,” she said, offering a tight smile. But I could see it. Her ribs more pronounced. The dark circles under her eyes. The way her hands trembled when she reached for a glass of water.

“Josephine,” I said, my voice a little sharper than usual. “You’re not fine. You’re starving yourself. For what? So the club can say you’re ‘dedicated’? So they can take another photo and post it on Facebook?”

She recoiled slightly at my words, like I had struck her. She folded her arms tightly, her eyes flicking downward.

“You don’t understand,” she whispered. “They need us. The club. If I don’t help, if I don’t give everything... then I won’t belong anymore. I’ll be a failure.”

I could feel the weight of her words, the desperation in her voice. But it wasn’t just about food. It was about control. The club had somehow convinced her that her value was measured in what she could give. That her worth was directly tieed to how much of herself she sacrificed for them.

And I hated that it was happening right in front of me. I hated that I couldn’t make her see how much she was losing — not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. She was slipping away, and I was helpless to stop it.

It came after the big regional games — the ones everyone had been hyping up for months. Josephine had trained relentlessly, but the pressure weighed heavily on her. The competition was fierce. There were athletes from all over the country, some of them faster, stronger, and better prepared. And when Josephine didn’t win, when she came in last in her event, it was as if the world had shifted underneath her.

I was waiting by the sidelines, watching her as she made her way back from the track, shoulders slumped. Her face was a mixture of exhaustion and something else — a kind of quiet defeat that she hadn’t shown before.

When she finally reached me, she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. I could see it in her eyes. The shame. The exhaustion. The feeling that she hadn’t given enough, that somehow, despite everything, it wasn’t enough to earn the praise they demanded. The praise that came only when you gave everything and more.

“Josephine…” I started, my voice soft, knowing she needed something different now. Not encouragement, not another round of "You’ll get them next time." She needed understanding.

But she wasn’t ready for it. Instead, she snapped, her voice cracking, her face flushed with the mix of frustration and unshed tears.

“Why are you always looking at me like that?” she asked, her voice shaky. “Why can’t you just be proud? I’m doing everything I can. I’m giving it all, and it still doesn’t matter! They just keep pushing, and they keep taking, and I keep giving, and it’s never enough.”

I could feel the tension in her voice, the breaking point approaching. She’d never let me see it before — the cracks beneath her tough exterior. But now it was all spilling out, and I wasn’t sure how to stop it.

I reached out, my hand on her arm, trying to steady her. “You don’t have to keep proving yourself to them, Jo. Not like this. Not at the expense of your health. Of your happiness. You’re enough. You always were.”

She shook her head violently. “No! I’m not enough. Not without them. I need to be here. I need this. If I don’t do this, if I don’t keep giving... then what am I?”

The rawness of her pain stung, but it was the truth she couldn’t say that hit me hardest. She had lost herself. The girl I knew, the one who found comfort in our quiet moments and long talks, was fading into someone who believed her value was defined by how much she sacrificed.

Tears welled up in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall. Instead, she turned her back to me, wiping her face quickly with the back of her hand.

“I have to go,” she said quietly, not waiting for me to respond. She walked away, each step heavy with defeat, the distance between us growing with every footfall.

The glossy public image of Special Olympics Ireland often stood in stark contrast to what I witnessed behind closed doors. While the athletes smiled for the cameras and the media praised every event, the reality behind the scenes—from headquarters all the way down to local club level—was at times a real eye-opener. There were moments of genuine inspiration, yes, but also moments of quiet disillusionment. The deeper I looked, the more I saw a system driven not just by sport or inclusion, but by control, politics, and financial strain.

Josephine, like many others, got caught in that system. What began as a space for belonging slowly turned into something that shaped nearly every aspect of her life—from her meals to her friendships. By 2016, visits between us had dwindled, not out of choice, but because the club’s demands—spoken and unspoken—seemed to overshadow everything else. There were club fees to pay, events that were mandatory, and a growing sense that stepping outside the club’s boundaries—even just to visit an old friend—was frowned upon. I watched her, once full of independence and balance, begin skipping meals just to stay part of a club that should have been supporting her, not consuming her.

And then there was Alising Beacon. A two-time World Games athlete, respected and admired. But when the pandemic hit and she faced not one, but two hip replacements, the support vanished. She came home from the hospital with nothing more than a few sheets of printed instructions. No physiotherapist. No proper follow-up. Just another athlete, left to rehabilitate alone in a broken healthcare system, while the club that had once paraded her successes quietly stepped back.

These were the cracks beneath the surface. The stories the cameras never caught. The behind-the-scenes of Special Olympics Ireland—at both the HQ and local levels—was not just an organization, but a structure that sometimes forgot the very people it claimed to serve.