There are versions of Hailey Van Lith that belong to people who have never met her.

Van Lith first became aware of the distance between who she was and who people believed her to be when she got to college.

“I feel like a lot of times, how I am perceived on the court—people can be intimidated or even nervous to start conversations with me,” Van Lith said. “But I’m actually very introverted off the court.”

She can laugh at it now. It was harder when she was younger.

“Of course, when I was younger, I cared a lot about what people thought about me,” Van Lith admitted. “Sometimes, the way I play, it can be negatively perceived. And at first, I used to get really upset when I would hear through the grapevine that this girl didn’t like me or they thought I was mean or something.”

When you’re young, you don’t always realize that identity is something you define, not something handed back to you through the eyes of others.

It’s difficult not to wonder whether strangers can see something in you that you cannot.

For Van Lith, questions like that were unfolding alongside a basketball career that gave more and more people permission to have an opinion.

Eventually, she stopped trying to answer all of those questions.

“You get over it. You learn that there’s nothing you can do about that. At the end of the day, as long as you know who you are, that’s all that matters.” Even now, Van Lith hesitated to call those outside perceptions misconceptions because doing so would still mean deciding that her version of herself is the only one allowed to exist.

“I believe that people’s truths are people’s truths,” she said. “If they really think that of me, that’s their truth. I had to release control of that.”

Not correct or convince. Release.

“I know how I carry myself every day. Some of them aren’t even bad misconceptions. They’re just still not how I view myself, and that’s okay.”

There was a time when being misunderstood made her question herself. Now, strangely, she is grateful for it.

“I feel like people that really know me and are part of my life every day have a very similar perception of me, and it’s similar to how I perceive myself, so, I’m good with that.”

Then she paused.

“At the end of the day, it’s caused me to self-reflect and grow a lot as a human. So, I’m grateful for the misconceptions because they’ve honestly pushed me to get to know myself better.”

And getting to know herself has required Van Lith to confront another truth: There is no single Hailey to know.

“I feel like there’s versions of me that exist over and over again.”

Because knowing yourself is not about finding one permanent answer to the question of who you are—the answer is allowed to change.

“Sometimes my sense of self changes, and I have to get used to that new version of myself. Me in high school, me in college, me as a pro. They’re all different Hailey’s.”

Different environments have asked different things of her. Different stages of life have exposed things she did not know about herself before. She has grown out of beliefs, habits and versions of herself that once felt permanent.

“It’s okay to embrace that and let the old one go and be present with the new version of me.”

Van Lith has learned not to confuse changing with losing herself. She is simply meeting herself again and again and again.

That process became more complicated when the parts of herself she was trying to understand were not visible at all.

“Going into college, I didn’t really even know what mental health was.”

She did not have a breakthrough waiting for her. There was no moment when she immediately understood what was happening inside of her. At first, there were only feelings without names.

“I didn’t know that I was experiencing it. I didn’t know that I was struggling with my mental health. I didn’t know there was a label for that, or a description of what I was going through.”

Sometimes the body and mind begin asking for help before a person has learned the language to answer them. For Van Lith, eventually it became too much to hold alone.

“It became something I couldn’t contain on my own anymore.”

So, she started talking. Not as an advocate, but as someone who needed help.

“Once I started going to people that were in my circle and expressing how I was feeling, I learned what depression was, and that you could go see a therapist, or you can do things to help yourself.”

And eventually, Van Lith spoke about some of that experience publicly. People heard her while others heard themselves. But something unexpected happened when Van Lith made people feel less alone. They began asking her how to stop feeling that way.

“I will say it’s not necessarily something that I’ve ever felt like I’m equipped to help other people with, because it’s a full life journey for me.”

There was no victory speech in the way Van Lith talked about mental health. No insistence that the woman speaking now has defeated everything the younger version of herself struggled to name.

“It is just something that I have to embrace head on every day.”

Publicly surviving something can create the expectation that you have conquered it. People see the courage it takes to speak and assume courage must mean completion.

Van Lith knew differently.

“When you’re constantly trying to go through it yourself, sometimes you feel like an amateur when other people ask me for advice or help.”

When people began reaching out after she shared her experience, their trust meant something to her. It also frightened her.

“I honestly never feel like I’m healed or like it’s something I’ve conquered,” she said. “So, it was pressure where I felt like, if I tell them this, am I an imposter because I still can’t get over it every day?”

Van Lith eventually stopped believing she needed an answer.

“You don’t have to be an expert on something to be a space for people to feel safe or feel like they can relate to you.”

So, she listens.

That is what her advocacy looks like now.

“Instead of necessarily giving advice when people want to talk to me about it, I just listen,” and let them know that their experience is worthy of speaking about, rather than telling them what they should do.”

To have someone believe the thing you are carrying is real. To say it aloud without immediately being handed a solution.

“I think that fosters a great environment for community.”

For Van Lith, community did not come from becoming an expert in healing. It came from being willing to admit she is still healing, too.

There is a thread running through the girl who once went home thinking about whether someone believed she was mean. Through the college student who knew something was happening inside of her but did not yet know what to call it. Through the woman who learned that telling the truth about struggling did not mean she suddenly had all the answers. Through the professional athlete now learning another version of herself.

None of those versions need to be erased for another one to exist. They were simply the person she needed to be at the moment she was given. And someday, this version of Hailey Van Lith will become an old one, too.

She will know things that she does not know now. She will have changed her mind about something. Outgrown something. Found something. Lost something. Healed something or learned that healing it was never as simple as she once hoped.

She will meet herself again.

There is no fear in that admission—there is freedom.

Because after years of people telling Van Lith who they believe she is, she no longer seems particularly interested in finding one perfect definition of herself to give them instead.

She knows herself.

And knowing herself means knowing she is allowed to become someone she has never been before.

“Enjoy it,” Van Lith said. “Enjoy the process, have fun, and just be as present as possible.”

Tomorrow will bring another moment.

Eventually, another version.

She will meet her when she gets there.

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