The mental side of footy had Josh King on his knees, anxiety caused Alec MacDonald to get severe stomach pains during games, and depression took a hold of Will Warbrick after he tried to bottle it up for a year.<\/p>\n
These are just some of the stories NRL players are dealing with, and it\u2019s why the Melbourne Storm has launched its inaugural mental health round to \u201ctackle tough together\u201d.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the first initiative of its kind in rugby league in Melbourne and will take centre stage on June 21 when the Storm host the Raiders in round 16 at AAMI Park. <\/p>\n
Storm old boys will march to the ground to raise mental health awareness, mental health checks will be available for fans, and pins will be sold with all proceeds donated to Beyond Blue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know that when it comes to men\u2019s sport and men in general, we\u2019re tough on the field. But for us, the importance of this round is saying that we\u2019re tackling tough together,\u201d Storm chief executive Justin Rodski said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is about saying that tough isn\u2019t just what you see on the rugby league field; real strength is checking in on your mates and speaking up if you need to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want men to feel comfortable to talk about when they\u2019re going through challenging periods in their life, we want men to be proud of being vulnerable around feeling down at times in their life and to then be able to share that with each other to ensure we can work through this together.<\/p>\n
\u201cFootballers appear tough on the field, but we don\u2019t want them to think that their toughness means they can\u2019t talk about what\u2019s going on in their life.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can help to encourage men \u2013 and women around men \u2013 to have the conversation to speak up, talk about their feelings, be vulnerable and see that as a sign of strength, I think that\u2019s going to be a great start for everyone in life.\u201d<\/p>\n
KING\u2019S PLEA<\/b><\/p>\n
Josh King, 31, has been bashing blokes in the middle of the field since he made his NRL debut with the Knights in 2016.<\/p>\n
And while winning has become the norm at the Storm since he joined them in 2022, life was much tougher for the Hunter local who lost 20 of his first 21 matches and was part of a team that collected the wooden spoon in each of his first two seasons.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m happy to go get smashed every day of the week, but the mental side of it really had me at my knees for a little while there,\u201d King said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think at one stage in your life, you\u2019re going to go through a time where you\u2019re struggling mentally a bit and end up in a dark place.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI probably had that in the early stages of my career in rugby league in Newcastle when we weren\u2019t winning too many games and I was only a new fella that probably got thrown in there early and copped a fair bit of criticism in a place where I didn\u2019t really know if I even wanted to play footy professionally at that point in time. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where it first started for me in trying to recognise that I was a little bit detached from what I was doing and a little bit unhappy in life, and then trying to be able to put things in place to help that and get yourself back on the right track.\u201d<\/p>\n
King said it was \u201cdaunting\u201d for a young man who wasn\u2019t used to having his life in the spotlight. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou can go to work Monday to Friday and you\u2019re not criticised too heavily, but when your work\u2019s posted all over social media and all over TV, it\u2019s hard not to be criticised,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been big on social media, but it seems to just find you sometimes with the negativity on those platforms. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s easy sometimes to get caught in a spiral trap of going down a negative path or into a dark hole and it\u2019s hard to catch yourself, but luckily enough for me I was able to recognise that I was unhappy in what I was doing in my life and started to make some changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI got off social media and that cut out a lot of that negativity. I started practising gratitude in a few different things, going to school, hospital visits, and that really put life into perspective. <\/p>\n
\u201cI started seeing a psychologist and was able to have some really great chats with him. And probably some of the best chats I had with him was when I was actually going well again and I could see the difference between when I was unhappy and when I was in a really good place. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have our own battles and our own journeys, but just being able to have that support network around you is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n
STAR OFF THE FIELD<\/b><\/p>\n
King is one of the many NRL stars who backs up his talk, with the veteran prop giving back to the Melbourne community as a Starlight Children\u2019s Foundation ambassador.<\/p>\n
The Storm recently raised more than $100,000 to support seriously ill children and their families, with King\u2019s work starting back in Newcastle where he helped out at the John Hunter Children\u2019s Hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cNewcastle being such a rugby league dominant community, you go up there and you see a lot of people who really love rugby league and love the Knights,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn Melbourne, it\u2019s a little bit different. Not everyone follows rugby league or follows the Storm, but I think that\u2019s one of the best things about going up there is they don\u2019t really care who you are or what you do.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put on that shirt, they see you as someone famous in a respect. And to be able to go into that environment and help, put a smile on their face, take their mind off whatever they\u2019re going through just for even five minutes, that\u2019s a job well done for us.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I think early on for me that it was a little bit selfish in a way. It is all about the kids going up there, but the amount of perspective they were able to give me on my own life was eye-opening.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m worried about going out there and having a bad game of footy, but yet they\u2019re up there fighting for their life and able to still have a smile on their face while they do it. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you look at the families, I can\u2019t imagine what some of those families and parents have to go through with their infant children going through the struggles they do. But they still are able to turn up each day and have a smile on their face and be really positive for their young one. <\/p>\n
\u201cI just sit in awe of those people and their ability to be so resilient and so positive in the face of so much negativity and terrible circumstances. I take so much away from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
LEARNING PROCESS<\/b><\/p>\n
Alec MacDonald is in his fifth year at the Storm and is proud to be part of a club willing to \u201cmake mental health more mainstream\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve come through a period where I was never under the impression it was frowned upon,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that\u2019s the stigma, but when I first started playing high-level rugby league, it forced me to start working on this stuff because it just put me in such a high-pressure environment where things like anxiety showed up more than if I wasn\u2019t a professional athlete.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m actually thankful for that because a few tough times around footy caused me to seek out means of working on my mental health and talking to people and being more proactive with the stuff which I\u2019m hoping will set me up for life with a good foundation and good strategies going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n
MacDonald has grown up in an era where social media is life to some people, but he hasn\u2019t let it dictate his existence with the forward setting up a routine where he\u2019ll delete everything for a few weeks and then check in after a while just to catch up. <\/p>\n
His experiences on the field have led to a major change away from footy that could see him one day helping others deal with their issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to not even know what anxiety was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI used to get stomach pains on the field. I\u2019d go to the dietitian and was trying to figure out what was wrong. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then what I ultimately came to was that I was getting so nervous that I was going into fight or flight mode which stops your stomach from processing food.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was causing the stuff so I decided I\u2019ve got to tackle this so that way my stomach isn\u2019t hurting and I can play better.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then as I went down that road, I realised it was helping with general life because if you\u2019re in fight or flight mode then you\u2019re not recovering.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started reading about it, doing self-help books, stuff like that. I actually study psychology now, so it kind of sparked that passion a little bit because I saw the benefits I was getting for it personally and how powerful I found it. <\/p>\n
\u201cAt first it was almost like I can help myself get better by doing this, but then I thought how cool would it be to also potentially help others as well. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m still doing it now and I\u2019m not sure if I\u2019ll end up going down the psychologist\u2019s road, but I never would have thought I\u2019d be doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n
BRICK BY BRICK<\/b><\/p>\n
Storm winger Will Warbrick has bravely shared his experiences with depression in the past and has urged others to tackle it head on. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen the best of it and the worst of it,\u201d he explained having grown up around people who just cracked on and bottled things up. <\/p>\n
\u201cI know people that struggled with it, so it\u2019s a serious topic and I think it\u2019s good that people and clubs with a platform are trying to shine more light on it so it gets the attention it needs. <\/p>\n
\u201cBecause some things need the attention if we\u2019re going to try and make things better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m pretty vulnerable about it. I\u2019ve been diagnosed with severe depression before and that was something I was diagnosed with at a pretty young age. <\/p>\n
\u201cI got the help I needed and I started seeing counsellors and speaking to psychologists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warbrick\u2019s message to people is to seek help and to not go through the tough times alone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was something I had bottled up for probably 6-12 months, and it got the best of me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI was pretty young so I had no clue what I was going through, nor what mental health and all these words were. They were just all words to me, and I couldn\u2019t quite understand the feelings I was feeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually had to go see a doctor and speak up. That\u2019s when I was educated in a way about this stuff. And only then I was able to get the help I needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was one of those things you try to tackle on your own, but that\u2019s not the way to do it. You need to be able to ask for help, but you can only ask for help when you recognise you need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Melbourne Storm\u2019s Mental Health Round is delivered in partnership with AIA Australia, supported by Beyond Blue with all involved encouraged to Tackle Tough Together on Sunday 21 June at AAMI Park.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mental side of footy had Josh King on his knees, anxiety caused Alec MacDonald to get severe…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":855097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[36],"tags":[210,196838,349098,14012,517,76885,7925,67,132,68,349097],"class_list":["post-866328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-josh-king","tag-justin-rodski","tag-mental","tag-mental-health","tag-nrl","tag-storm","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-warbrick"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116747521665846499","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866328","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}