Nicole Owens, Dublin GAA player and two-time All-Ireland winner, has opened up about her mental health issues once again, revealing she ended up in A&E after having a breakdown caused by anxiety. The GAA star has previously spoken about her long-term battle with depression as well as her struggle in accepting her sexuality and coming out as gay. 

Owens is once again discussing her own fight with mental illness as well as her coming to terms with her sexuality as part of Aware’s Resilience Series. She confessed that when she was younger she desperately wanted to fit in and be the same as everyone else as she was an “insecure shy teenage” who struggled with social anxiety.

She explained that her sexuality played a big role in these feelings of wanting to fade into the background admitting that she felt as though she was hiding a large part of herself not only from family and friends but even herself. Owens said that her main focus was on fitting in saying; “To me, being gay was something that would have made me stand out, and when I was 16 that was my idea of hell.”

These feelings of fear and needing to hide integral parts of herself followed the GAA star right through her teenage and young adult years before coming to a head in her third year at university. She recalled one event where she called her mother from college and she was brought back home which was the first time she had ever discussed how she was actually feeling with anyone. Owens said that although being prescribed antidepressants help substantially she soon realised they would not solve the problems she was facing alone and she “hadn’t really addressed some of the underlying things or the patterns of thought or the negative inside voice that [she] had.”

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After the stress of work, relationships and football added to the already heavy burden Nicole was carrying, her mother noticed the swift decline in her daughter’s health and brought her to the emergency room to seek help for Owens’ debilitatingly high anxiety levels. 

Following the visit to A&E, Nicole Owens took time off from work and football and started attending therapy. She now goes to a therapist who uses a mix of both Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Compassionate Therapy which provides her with coping skills for when she is going through a rough time. These new tools came to good use when Nicole tore her ACL, rendering the dedicated athlete unable to play GAA for several months.

Despite everything she has gone through Owens has a new sense of positivity and optimism about the future. Speaking as part of the Resilience Series, the GAA star explained that following the work she has done with her therapist she is able to look at situations “slightly more objectively” and said that although her injury caused her to miss around nine months of the sport she loved she was equipped to cope with the tough situation.