“I Didn’t Feel Like the Body I Was in Belonged to Me:” Mary-Sophie Harvey Opens Up about Drugging Incident
When Mary-Sophie Harvey returned to Canada last week, the bruises were the first reminder. But even as they’ve started to fade and the swimmer has returned to training, a broader, scarier feeling of dissociation has followed her.
A successful World Championships in Hungary ended under frightening circumstances when Harvey reported being drugged on a night out with swimmers. Her physical wounds – widespread bruising, a rib sprain and a mild concussion – are healing, she’s still working on restoring her psyche.
“I had a good World Championships as well. It was one of my best meets in a while and I was really pleased with the performance I had,” Harvey said on a Zoom call with media Friday. “It was my first big international medal that I got there. I just remember opening the box back home and I didn’t feel like it belonged to me.
“I didn’t feel like the body I was in belonged to me. I was just going through the motions, and I think that’s the sad part about it. Because this wonderful meet I had was tarnished by this event.”
Part of the healing was what Harvey volunteered Friday. She announced the incident on social media Wednesday – also the day she tested positive for COVID-19 and had to isolate – and decided to speak up in an effort to alleviate for others some of the compounding shame she’s struggled with.
Details are scant, and the subject of an investigation referred by Swimming Canada’s to the nation’s SafeSport body. FINA, in a statement Thursday, said it is “deeply concerned about her well-being and “are in contact with Swimming Canada and the Local Organizing Committee” in Budapest. Harvey said she has not had contact with FINA, but Swimming Canada has made resources available to her.
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Harvey attended a gathering in Budapest on the final night of Worlds June 26 attended by swimmers from several nations. Harvey’s memories include several drinks at the restaurant, then window of four to six hours that she can’t recall.
“I can remember having a total of four drinks in the whole night, and I remember waking up in bed, the doctor and the team manager next to me,” she said. “I’ve heard bits by people to kind of piece the night together. Sadly, they were telling me stuff and it felt like they were telling me a story that I was the main character in, but I didn’t feel like I was in it.”
Among those details was that Harvey’s friends found her outside the restaurant on the street with no memory of how she got there. She was then carried to the hotel by friends.
Harvey was cleared to travel that day, after competition wrapped up. She did not file a police report in Hungary, she said, as she was leaving the country and the full gravity of what occurred did not sink in until she returned home.
Since her social media post, Harvey said she has, “heard from other swimmers that I was not the only one” who suspected they were drugged that night. She also has had people reach out to her conveying their solidarity, understanding her sense of regret.
“When I shared this, I had a lot of people coming up to me or writing to me about similar stories that happened to them and felt the same way I do,” she said. “Some of them, it’s been 20 years ago and they still feel ashamed about this. It breaks my heart knowing that so many people went through this and it’s something we don’t talk about, the resources for victims are lacking.”
Harvey had, as she alluded, an excellent Worlds. She finished eighth in the women’s 200 individual medley, her first major international final. She had been fourth in prelims and semifinals. She also swam on prelims of the Canadian 800 free relay, which won bronze. The 22-year-old, who had a breakout 2021 in the International Swimming League with Energy Standard, is preparing for the Commonwealth Games at the end of the month.
Harvey came forward with for several reasons. First is the issue of resources. She wasn’t sure what to do when she returned home and sought physical and mental help, beyond visiting a doctor – even then, it was the parent of a friend – and was “shocked by the lack of resources we have.” The delays meant she didn’t have a toxicology test done, the window to assess chemicals in her system having elapsed.
The second is to help cope with shame. Drugging in social settings isn’t uncommon. Harvey knows intuitively it’s not her fault, in the same way that she can easily tell others it’s not their fault. But taking her own advice, emotionally and psychologically, has been more difficult in the fog of trauma.
“I felt shame because I started to believe what everyone was saying, and I was like, maybe I’m just crazy. Maybe it was my fault,” she said. “I went into this cycle of, oh I should’ve been more careful. Even at home, I felt this judgement. But I started to talk to some of the people that were there and some of the people that saw me and it made me realize that I was not really crazy, and when I talked to some people, it kind of shed light on, I shouldn’t feel this way. This isn’t something victims should go through.”
The drugging also punctured the sense that something like this couldn’t happen to Harvey. She hopes her misfortune can help others take steps to avoid it.
“It can happen to anyone,” she said. “Even me, I thought I was safe – I was with friends and it wouldn’t happen. But it did. And I just never thought it would. I think it’s important to raise awareness toward that.”
I commend Ms. Harvey on her forthrightness in sharing her experience to support and heal herself, and others.