‘It’s Okay to Not Be Okay’: ESPN Personality’s Journey From Vegetative State to God’s Healing

Published: July 8, 2026

By Mallory Mattingly

Former Paralympic swimmer and ESPN personality Victoria Arlen experienced unimaginable trauma as a child but finally found peace after turning to God.

In 2006, at just 11 years old, Arlen’s life was abruptly upended when she developed two rare, overlapping autoimmune and neurological conditions: Transverse Myelitis and Acute Disseminated Encephalomyelitis. The sudden, aggressive swelling in her brain and spinal cord quickly stripped away her ability to speak, eat and move, ultimately causing her to slip into a vegetative state.

For nearly four years, she remained “locked in” her own body — completely conscious and aware of her surroundings, yet entirely unable to communicate with the outside world as doctors wrote her off as a lost cause. Miraculously, she recovered, but life was far from easy afterwards.

In a conversation on the “Jesus Calling” podcast, Arlen shared how she found the sun even in that dark time.

“After everything that had happened, I didn’t know if I could ever be happy again,” Arlen said. “I didn’t know how much trauma had hardened me. I was just trying to figure out the world in a wheelchair and get back to my life and try to just find my place in this world. And then, I was expected to be this hero. And so for a really long time, I struggled with that.”

“I think that played a huge role in why my mental health got as bad as it did, because I wasn’t allowed to have a bad day,” she continued. “To everyone, I was this hero. I was this miracle, like, ‘You have so much going for you.’ So it never felt like there was a space for me to say, ‘Hey, I’m not okay. This isn’t good. I’m not good. I am anxious. I am sad.'”

Arlen had to “hide behind the smile” and be the hero to everyone but herself. She got to a point in her mental health where she thought suicide was the answer.

View this post on Instagram

“I was essentially saving everyone else, but not saving myself in the process. And so when the ‘it’s okay to not be okay’ was presented to me, that was life-changing, because I could finally say, ‘I’m not okay. I want to be, but I also can’t keep going like this,'” she refkected.

At this time in her life, Arlen was seeing a therapist who challenged her to get up early and watch the sunrise. No phones, no music, no distractions — just her, the sun and the Lord.

“I’m on the beach and I’m just sitting on a rock — it was one of those things that I looked at the sunrise and all of this, and it was just calm in my head, calm in heart. It was such a revelation — of all the different things I had done, it was possible to get to a point where the sunrise would mean something again,” she explained.

“I think we all sometimes need that reminder that oneness does exist, that peace does exist,” she continued. “You just might have to dig your heels in a little bit deeper and get muddy before you find it. I never thought happiness was attainable or presence would be attainable or peace would be obtainable, and I just accepted that.

The ESPN personality added: “And then when I broke down, that was the beginning of that breakthrough in which God orchestrated so many things, to essentially help me get to that path where, Oh, I get that peace that surpasses understanding.”

Through her hidden struggles with trauma and the heavy burden of being viewed as a miracle, Arlen ultimately found healing and peace by embracing her vulnerability and reconnecting with her faith.

Questions or comments? Please write to us here.

Add Movieguide® as preferred on Google