Colorado Comparison Disorder: Summer 2024 Edition

"I ended up in tears on my bike today and I don't understand why"

Summer is in full swing in Durango—the trails are dusty, the rivers are back down to a trickle, and Lake Nighthorse has reached a tolerable swimming temperature. The Animas is chock full of small, colorful boats and groups of gangly adolescent geese, and bikers are woo-hooing down the jump trails in the Gulch. 

Unless you’re suffering from summer depression, ‘tis the season for increased play and for filling the long sunny days with fun. It’s also the season when Colorado Comparison Disorder—a common and under-acknowledged problem here in our great state—rears its MIPS-protected head.

I wrote one of my first blog posts on CCD back in October of last year. As I read back over my original post, I realized that while I’d done a good job describing the condition and its symptoms, I really left people hanging when it comes to coping with this unique condition. 

To recap my thoughts on the topic, Colorado Comparison Disorder is (a) something I 100% made up and (b) a condition that affects 4 in 5 Coloradans, with the remaining 1 in 5 being some sort of elite athlete like an Olympian or sponsored competitor. 

CCD can strike at any time. It affects all sorts of adventure athletes, like mountain bikers, boaters, skiers, runners, and climbers. 

Symptoms of CCD

If you're struggling with Colorado Comparison Disorder, you might notice the following:

• Negative thoughts or beliefs about yourself and your athletic performance. 
  
  
• Intense emotions, such as anger or anxiety, either while you’re engaged in an activity (like when you don’t clean that one move on your bike) or before you head out (getting extremely anxious about an upcoming adventure and having critical thoughts about yourself, or bailing entirely.)
  
  
• Following professional athletes on Strava and comparing your times to theirs, or obsessively tracking yourself and others on whatever app or device you use to record your activities. 
  
  
• Bailing on a group activity because you get in your head and decide you won’t be fast enough, strong enough, or tough enough to keep up. 
  
  
• Noticing you’ve stopped enjoying activities and instead view them as a chance to prove yourself. 
  
  
• Quitting a sport altogether because you’ll never be “the best.”

A short burst of CCD is pretty common, and while it might hurt, it passes relatively quickly. But when CCD becomes severe, it can lead to a pervasive sense of low-self worth, lack of motivation, and depression. Extreme CCD sufferers constantly compare themselves unfavorably to others, and experience a loss of joy and pleasure in play. 

Coping with CCD

If Colorado Comparison Disorder is running your life and messing with the things you love, you may need to put a plan in place to cope. Here are a few things to try: 

• Take a break from the apps
  It’s painfully easy to get hooked on the feeling of QOM-ing a section of trail. There’s that hit of dopamine that comes along with seeing your name at the top of the list. As I’m sure you know, the opposite can also be true—crushing disappointment and frustration when you aren’t performing. 
  
  App addiction takes you out of the present. Check this out for yourself. When you're hyper-focused on your stats, are you noticing the smell of the pines, or the sound of your feet on the dirt? Are you paying attention to your body and what it needs? Probably not. You don’t have to let go of Strava forever, but can you experiment with a few runs/rides without tracking? If the answer is no, could you at least notice what happens when you’re hyper-focused on your stats? 
  
  
• Go with a beginner 
  Remember when you first learned to ski? Was it fun? Joyful? Being a beginner at something can be liberating—you know you’re not good at the thing, and that’s ok because you’re learning, playing, and growing. Taking a beginner to the climbing crag or down the Animas might remind you of the fun and joy people discover when learning a new activity.  
  
  
• Work on your worth 
  Is your self-worth conditional? Is it based on achievement? Achievement-based self-worth is completely understandable given our culture, one that rewards “winning” at life. Sadly, this type of identity quickly becomes a trap because the self-worth gremlins are not satiated in the long term by achievement. 
  
  Here’s a secret: You have worth. Period. You don’t need to prove your value. This is a lesson that takes a long time to learn (still working on it in my 40s) but dang is it freeing when you start to realize you don’t have to earn points towards your merit as a human. 
  
  
• Engage with your values 
  Why do you do the things you do? What’s important to you about mountain biking, climbing, skiing, or boating? Try to identify values that aren’t connected to self-improvement. (Often, self-improvement based values are self-criticism and low self-worth in disguise.) 
  
  Do you have your best days skiing when you’re laughing with friends? If so, you might have a value of community. Do you take a deep breath and smile when you catch a view of the La Platas from Horse Gulch? You probably have a value of connection to nature and gratitude for the place you live. Remind yourself of your values before, during, and after you engage in an activity. 
  
  You'll probably still experience some bumpy emotions, as we all do when pursuing things we care about. But reminding yourself of your values can help you step back and have perspective when your CCD flares up. 
  
  
• Volunteer
  As you get clear on your values, you might begin to explore ways you can put those values into action in a way that is less individualized. I know I have a lot of unearned privilege and freedom as a mountain town lady, and my hope is that I can refocus my energy from time to time on community and caring versus on my own fun and play. This is an ongoing process for me, and one that I’m good at sometimes and bad at other times. 
  
  Volunteering connected to your favorite pastimes is a way to shift from an individual stance to a community-focused stance. Maybe that's coaching Devo, or digging dirt with Durango Trails, or taking the time to clean graffiti off of the boulders at Sailing Hawks. Sharing your time and passions is another way to get yourself out of the muck of CCD and help you reorient yourself towards something you love. 

Speaking of caring for the community, I hope I did a better job this round in sharing some tangible ways to cope with Colorado Comparison Disorder. While the name itself usually makes people chuckle in recognition, it's actually very painful to be in the depths of unfavorable comparison and low self-worth. 

Struggling to sort through CCD on your own? Therapy can help. Schedule a complimentary consultation call and we can chat about coping with Colorado Comparison Disorder.