Lisa Aitken: Squash star on dealing with disappointment

Not winning a medal at the Commonwealth Games was by far the lowest point of my career.

For weeks after Birmingham I was angry. I was essentially grieving.

There was this sense of loss; for the Games, for a medal that never happened, for the time spent building to that moment.

There's a post-Games blues feeling you always get. But this was deeper. It was driven by anger. I was making life awful for my coach. I was going into the gym and throwing weights around.

I was angry at absolutely everything and everyone - and it's those moments that are the most difficult. I think it stemmed from having had a true sense of belief, for the first time in my career.

Before my two previous Commonwealth Games I did not expect to get a medal, but this time I did. I still believe I was good enough.

Belief is a complicated emotion, because it empowers you but can also make disappointments so much worse. In a way, when you don't achieve what you truly believe you're capable of, you feel like you've betrayed yourself.

It's led me to think that an abundance of athletes go to the Commonwealth Games yet the majority come away without a medal.

How is everybody else doing? Does everybody else have a support system in place? Are they getting angry on court and smashing their rackets?

Because all you see is success. All you see are medal winners.

On social media, it's all about celebrating those who have achieved. I don't want pity, or for people who have achieved not to be celebrated, but I do think we need to have more conversations about the reality of elite sport.

'When athletes lose, they're hiding'

People often talk about channelling these negative emotions. The narrative is that losing is part of sport, so just roll with the punches and get on with it.

That's fine - but we need to speak about it more. Athletes need to be comfortable being vulnerable enough to say "Hey, I lost, and I feel awful".

Everybody can't wait to celebrate and showcase their success. But when they've lost, they're hiding. They're not saying anything about how they're feeling. They're not putting up any pictures.

They're not putting up any kind of reflections, because there's a sense of embarrassment or a deeper vulnerability that they're just not willing to share.

If we don't show the bad stuff as well as the good, we're failing to prepare the next generation.

As a kid choosing to play squash as a career, nobody ever said: "By the way, it's going to be brutal. It's going to be awful.

"You're going to be so low at times, you won't know how to get out of bed. You're going to have no money at times, you won't know how you're going to feed yourself.

"You're going to go on court thinking 'If I don't win this, I can't afford to go to the next tournament'. You're going to have sleepless nights crying."

Everyone tells you it's a luxury, it's a privilege. And it is those things, too. But growing up there was nobody on social media telling me about how bad it could really get.

That goes for people who do win medals, too. Because as time goes by, the attention and the glory fades. They need support as well.

I don't want to be doom and gloom, because that's not who I am. I don't really like to focus on the negatives.

But I want to show other athletes and young people how tough it can be, and that it's OK to feel low. It's OK to be vulnerable about your losses and normalise those conversations and emotions.

It can't just be: 'I've won, let's get this on social media. Let's show the world how great I am'.

Be recognised for the bad stuff as well, because we're human. The bad stuff doesn't need to be called the bad stuff. It's just part of life.

Lisa Aitken was speaking to BBC Sport Scotland's Thomas Duncan

• Four lives get fatally intertwined: Watch Steven Moffat's devilish thriller starring David Tennant, Dolly Wells, Lydia West and Stanley Tucci

• Do George Clooney and Julia Roberts like rom-coms? They open their hearts to Ali Plumb...