She won gold in the U.S. National Championships. She earned bronze in the 2014 Winter Olympics. She became idolized in the figure skating community and was dubbed by the media as an “ice princess.” But every accomplishment only made Gracie Gold’s failures feel more devastating. Eventually, her obsession with perfection led to a massive burnout—which is just what she needed to eventually find peace.

A double-edged sword

Gracie Gold, 29, was told she was talented from an early age. She traveled the world to compete, broke records, and stood on countless podiums. But with every win, the pressure increased.

“I valued my self-worth on my productivity… and how could I please others,” Gold explains. “It doesn’t matter what I want to skate to. What am I going to look good skating to? What do other people think I should skate to? It didn’t really start with ‘I.’ It was more, ‘What can I do for other people?’” The decisions were being made for her—all she had to do was perform, perfectly, 100% of the time. 

The weight of these expectations was isolating, trapping Gold in what she describes as a snow globe. She felt as if she was stuck behind the glass, watching the world move on around her, while she was frozen in place. 

Breaking down, bouncing back 

After the 2016 World Championships, where she suffered the “most soul-crushing defeat of all time,” Gold’s mental and physical health plummeted. She went from striving for perfection to losing interest in her career, friendships, and personal identity. “I felt that there wasn’t a place for me in a rink, in a gym,” she says. “I didn’t even know if I had a place in life anymore.” 

When an official called her out on her loss of self-respect, it sparked what Gold calls “a nuclear meltdown.” The suicidal ideation began, and she started lashing out at those close to her. This led Gold, at 22 years old, to be offered a spot at The Meadows, a mental health treatment facility. Her plan, she admits, was to take her own life if the treatment didn’t work.

Luckily, she began to find her way back to herself. “For the first time in my life, I felt seen and I felt heard.” Meeting the other people at the facility helped her understand that not everyone held her to impossible standards; some didn’t care at all about her past, her accomplishments, and, ultimately, her failures. This, Gold explains, was healing in its own way, leading her to accept that “it’s okay if some things are just okay.”

Redefining success

Gold’s experience at the treatment facility led her to self-acceptance. She dropped the facade of “Grace Kelly Barbie doll Ice Princess,” the girl everyone—especially her old self—expected her to be. Instead, she could truly be herself.

With this newfound power, she returned to the ice, competing in the 2020 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. And in 2024, she wrote a New York Times bestselling autobiography titled Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It Out. 

Despite all the medals and accolades Gold has received, she still says her biggest accomplishment was finally meeting her true self. 

We interviewed Gracie Gold for Perception Box Stories Untangled, a Big Think interview series created in partnership with Unlikely Collaborators. As a creative non-profit organization, they’re on a mission to help people challenge their perceptions and expand their thinking. Often that growth can start with just a single unlikely question that makes you rethink your convictions and adjust your vantage point. Watch Gold’s full interview above, and visit Perception Box to see more in this series.

GRACIE GOLD: I felt very uncomfortable in ice rinks for a very long time. And that's as someone who's spent their whole life in an ice rink. I had sort of that burned-out gifted kid syndrome going on. When skating started to not go as well, I didn't know if that's what I wanted to do anymore. I felt emotionally and mentally checked out.

I describe it as a snow globe—I can see the rest of the world, but I can't hear it. I can't be part of it. And I feel people tapping on the glass, shaking it, saying, “Gracie, wake up.” I just stood there in the snow globe, unable to reach what I felt like was the rest of the world. I was frozen. I just felt frozen. And how I perceived myself, which was this out-of-shape, worthless loser.

Even as a toddler, I was always very intense. Perfectionism is this double-edged sword, where it has a lot of gifts that can be used for good, or, if they're reflected inward, can just destroy you. I was always told that I was really talented. But to me, I started to internalize that as anything short of the highest functioning all the time felt like a disappointment. I wanted things to be perfect. I wanted things to be in the 99th percentile, and everything had to be there all the time. My perfectionism became crippling.

I guess in some ways it was the impossible goal of trying to please everybody all the time. My whole existence was trying to be this most perfect version and really what everyone else wanted. I became this skating superstar and was on the top of podiums, traveling the world, and all over headlines. I found myself all the way at the Olympics in Sochi, Russia.

I valued my self-worth on my productivity and what I could do for others—how could I please others? It didn't matter what I wanted to skate to. What was I going to look good skating to? What do other people think I should skate to? It didn’t really start with “I.” It was more about what I could do for other people. Looking back, I can see my favorite way to cope with that was by managing how little I ate and how much I exercised. It gave me this delusion of control and gave me confidence when I was lacking in other areas.

In the world of skating, it matters what you do. But it's also an aesthetic sport, so it matters what you look like. I had struggled previously with over-exercising and undereating. It really started after the World Championships, with what I perceived at the time to be the most soul-crushing defeat of all time, and I really had trouble rallying from that loss. It was the first time in my life I felt like I couldn't get back to myself.

Which was this need to be perfect. And you have the Barbie and the Grace Kelly, and I just was this chronic loser that couldn't do anything right. My relationship with both food and exercise had really hit quite a low point. I felt that I didn't have a grip on it at all. In my depressive episode, it had swung the other way to binge eating and really not working out. I felt that there wasn't a place for me in a rink, in a gym. I didn't even know if I had a place in life anymore.

The meltdown happened because I felt that I had just really lost my grip on everything—from my home life to my friendships to my career. One of the officials told me that they were just so sad to see me out there like that, and I just had lost all self-respect for myself. And something within that triggered me to have what I've called a nuclear meltdown. At that point, I almost was too depressed and too apathetic to really even feel anxiety. What did I care about anything?

With the suicidal ideation I was struggling with, it’s not that I had a plan or anything, but I thought there is a solution to all my problems. I told people exactly what I thought of them and for how long I had thought of them like that. For better or worse, it was so shocking that it landed me in a treatment facility and ultimately saved my life.

I thought, oh, I shouldn't be here, I don't belong here. But of course, the fact that I was willing to just sign up and go to a treatment facility because if I didn't like it, I could kill myself is probably indicative that I definitely should have been there. It changed my life, it saved my life. For the first time in a long time, I felt seen and I felt heard. And that was a really powerful experience.

I assume that everything that I'm doing is wrong all the time, and that everything has to be perfect to make up for the fact that it's me. So to deliver myself—who I was as a person and what I’d done with my life—to this group of people and just simply have them not really care was really healing. It altered my perception that not everybody lives in this state of fight or flight when it comes to the details and perfectionism, and that it's OK if some things are just OK.

My whole existence was trying to be this most perfect version and really what everyone else wanted. So I actually had to meet myself and find myself and had to understand who I was because I was constantly looking at myself through the lens of others. I was finally living in my own body and in my own mind for a change.

I had finally ruined the perception, broken the facade of this perfect Grace Kelly, Barbie doll, ice princess. I had fully shattered that whole facade, and I was ready to be myself and come clean about my life and what I was struggling with. After that, I could go anywhere and do anything and be anyone. I finally just broke that glass that I had been hiding behind for quite a long time.