PADRAIG O’HORA HAS opened up on how attending counselling at least once a month is part of how he deals now with the ‘constant journey’ of managing his mental health.
The Mayo defender spoke last November about the ‘difficult time’ he’d experienced in 2021 when, for a period, it felt as if a cloud was hanging over him.
“Although I know what anxiety and depression looks like, and understand it, I’d never really felt it,” he said at the time. “I didn’t really know what I was feeling.”
Revisiting the issue at the launch of the Allianz National Football League, ahead of Mayo’s Division 1 opener against Galway this Saturday, O’Hora explained that it was a friend’s intervention back in 2021 that helped get him ‘back on track’.
“I think it’s a constant journey,” the All-Star nominee in 2021 said. “I definitely feel back on track but would feel that it’s a constant personal development thing that I need to be aware of, be conscious of, and that I need to check in with.
I haven’t stopped counselling. I don’t see why you would. I was always under the impression that you go to see a counsellor to get support when you need it, but the science kind of says, ‘Why wouldn’t you be preventative prior to issues arising?’
“I found it so beneficial when I needed it. I kind of kept that going. I feel like I’m in a good place but I do think it’s certainly a constant journey. It’s attached to your life as much as your general health is.”
Asked how much football features in his counselling conversations, father of two O’Hora said not much.
“Football is fairly irrelevant to it,” he said. “Football actually, I think, helps a lot with my mental health. Upon reflection, I’m a lot happier when I’m playing football than I am when I’m not. But it wouldn’t be a subject in too much of the conversation. It would be very much about life experience, personal stuff and kind of development.”
The Ballina man, who lined out in the 2021 All-Ireland final, is currently sidelined following ankle surgery and will miss the Castlebar clash with reigning Connacht champions Galway.
“I intend to get back as soon as I can,” he said. “I’m a day-by-day guy. I didn’t even request to find out when or where, just tell me what I am doing Tuesday, tell me what I’m doing Thursday and I’ll just proceed to do that.”
O’Hora said that, should he or any other Mayo player require assistance with any part of their mental health, there is plenty of support available within the panel.
“There is, we’ve got quite a good setup. We’ve got a fantastic setup actually, medically, and there’s always a sports psychologist involved. Whether people would utilise that purely for performance or for more personal stuff, I’m not quite sure.
“But I do know the door is certainly open to do both. And again, the benefits of camaraderie and the group are always helpful too. When you’re meeting with lads, it’s probably a good space to have a conversation and they’re also really good people to identify if you’re on or off.
“You can very easily pick up on somebody maybe having a tough day or a tough week. I think it’s of benefit to anybody really.”
O’Hora added that it was in a scenario similar to the one outlined above that brought his own problems to light, explaining that it was ‘about two or three months after things had started to get a little bit shakey’ that he took decisive action in 2021.
“I work in the mental health sector anyway, so you think I would probably know what to do, which I do, I give the advice to people and support people,” he said. “But when it is you, it is quite difficult. You hear the message that is always out there to speak to somebody – I don’t think people realise how difficult that step is.
“For me, I had kind of gathered that things weren’t right, after a number of weeks leading into months. I was meeting with a mate. We run a community group together. We do our meetings on the go, walking or something active. We were walking in the woods in Ballina. He just realised that something was slightly amiss and pressed me on it a little bit.
“I opened up to him and he was like, ‘You have to speak to somebody here, you know the craic, you know the advice’. I promised I would but, like most do, didn’t follow through on the promise. He knew the craic, so he kind of kept on top of me.
He asked me a couple of times after that, and then I did go and see my GP. Fortunately enough, I have a really good relationship with my GP, which made it a little bit easier.
“Once you speak up, once I sat down and said, ‘I don’t think I am right, I am not 100% sure what is wrong but I know I am not right’, and when we had a conversation, the weight was gone. You went from full of fear to somewhat empowered. Not in any way fixed or sorted or whatever you want to call it but definitely more empowered. So it just went from there really.”
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