Carlton WAG Monique Fontana speaks out about OCD battle after hospitalisation
Footy WAG Monique Fontana is bravely opening up about her long term battle with OCD, after the condition resulted in a two-week hospital stay while Carlton star boyfriend Patrick Cripps was at the club’s Perth hub.
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Footy WAG Monique Fontana has been battling a debilitating mental illness while partner Carlton co-captain Patrick Cripps has been in the AFL hub.
Ms Fontana, 25, has bravely revealed she suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder which resulted in her being hospitalised for two weeks, only returning to the couple’s Richmond home on Tuesday.
She has battled the illness since she was a teenager, intermittently seeking psychological help, but the intensity of the daily rituals she practices had become so overwhelming in recent months that she required psychiatric care.
“I wouldn’t leave the house. I started feeling just so tired and drained. Just no energy whatsoever. I would call Pat every day crying to him, saying ‘I don’t know what to do, I just, I don’t know what to do’,” she says.
Ms Fontana’s rituals included vomiting one meal a day and repeating particular sentences over and over in her head.
“I would have four dots in my head and the sentence for me would have to end on the last dot, so I would have to repeat that sentence until it ended on the last dot.”
She would also repeat, sometimes hundreds of times a day, “malignant cancer free” and “plane crash free”, believing by doing this she was protecting herself and her loved ones from danger.
“Malignant cancer free” stemmed from a time when she was a teenager and her sister had to undergo treatment for cancer, and “plane crash free” related to an experience when she was 18 and suffered a severe panic attack on a plane.
“I have to repeat that in my head multiple times. It’s reassuring, if I don’t do it I fear something bad’s going to happen to someone,” she says.
“I think they manifest as well, with the vomiting, that was a completely new one to me that had never happened (until recently). I’ve never worried about my weight or anything. And then with my OCD, my head told me I had to vomit that one meal a day.”
Ms Fontana says Cripps has been an incredible support and one of the only people she could confide in about her terrifying thoughts and rituals.
“He’s been awesome, he is obsessed with mental health now. He wants to actually do a post grad in psychology. He has been so supportive, he’s had the club involved from day one,” she says.
“When I’ve called him crying, he has been there for me, and he has just sat there and just listened to what I have to say. He’s taught me how to breathe properly. He sent me a little teddy bear when I was in hospital and I had to call him Moose and he said to hug Moose when I got sad.”
“He does a lot of mindfulness and meditation and he would do that with me as well, but obviously him not being here has been very, very difficult.”
Ms Fontana says while she is desperate to be reunited with Cripps, she was in no state to travel with the other partners to the hub three weeks ago.
“I had the option of going to the hub, but I just decided last minute because mentally, I wasn’t in the best space. I didn’t want to go to the hub and have to quarantine for two weeks by myself because I didn’t feel safe being by myself for those two weeks, which was a really hard decision to make,” she says.
“Pat was understanding he was like, ‘I think you just need to get yourself some support before you do anything for me’.”
Cripps has heaped praise on his partner of five years for tackling her mental illness and having the courage to share her story in the hope it will help others.
“I’m so proud of Mon for seeking help and speaking out so she didn’t feel alone. I’m more proud of her courage to share her story on mental health to help others have the power to talk and get help themselves if they are battling, so they don’t feel they are in it alone,” he says.
“I’ve seen a huge turn around in Mon from seeking help and although it was so challenging for her, I think it will be one of the best things she will ever do for herself. Covid is challenging for so many people in so many different ways, but I think what lessons it’s teaching us is family, friends, and most important your health is what’s important in life.”
Ms Fontana says she’s grateful to Cripps and the club for encouraging her to seek help, though she worries about how the AFL star is coping himself.
“He puts on such a brave face … he’s so strong, but I worry about him a lot. I think he feels the need to hold everyone together, he feels a lot of responsibility to make sure everyone’s happy.
“It’s a really beautiful quality of him but sometimes I worry that can wear him out a little bit, but he loves it. He’s got the responsibility of being captain of his team with Sam (Docherty), and also having issues with me mentally unwell, but he’s coped with it really well and the club has been awesome in supporting him as well.”
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