Dale Thomas says mental health battle was 30 years of s---
Former AFL star Dale Thomas has opened up about his battles with mental health, revealing he used to cry in his car before training amid enormous personal turmoil.
Confidential
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Dale Thomas says he sought counselling at the height of his AFL career to deal with “all this s--- I’d carried around for 30 years.”
Thomas, a competitor on Channel 10’s I’m A Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here, makes new revelations about his mental health struggle on the show tonight.
“I started seeing a counsellor,” the former Collingwood and Carlton champion said.
“Within about a month, I was able to go in go and express myself.
“It felt like the weight of the world was off my shoulders … all this s--- that I’d carried around for 30 years,” Thomas said.
“Every time something got worse it just stacked on and stacked on. (But) all of a sudden, I was able to communicate it, and it didn’t feel like an embarrassment.”
Thomas said when he told teammates about his battles — “especially the younger boys at the footy club” — he felt supported.
“The amount of kids that came to me, and said thank you so much. No-one judged (Thomas) one bit, and I was grateful.”
In Monday night’s episode of IAC, Thomas said there were times he cried in his car before training as he battled mental health issues.
A split from his partner meant he barely had the opportunity to see his daughter, Matilda.
“The lowest point was going through the split with the missus in pre-season, my daughter being sort of removed from my care and only being able to get there every second weekend at best at the start,” Thomas said.
“And then having to try and rock up to pre-season and at that point dealing with some issues about how I was feeling about myself and everything in life.
“Having to deal with that, while trying to be a professional athlete, at that point I didn’t really care. I was going to do the job but I hated it.
“There were times where I’d rock up to training and sit in the car in tears, then rock up and be court jester to try and hide it.
“I was liked for that but I knew I was being a fraud, so that ate away at me as well.
“I knew I was sad, I didn’t know what to do.”
Thomas sought professional help and credited Carlton for pointing him in the right direction during the toughest time of his life.
“I got back into a really good space and thankfully it was upwards and onwards from there,” he said.
“That was certainly the toughest 6-12 months of my life. There was just so much going on. You separate and then having to deal with going from seeing my daughter every day to not seeing her for weeks at a time …”
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Thomas announced his retirement from the game at the end of last season after being advised by the Blues he wouldn’t be offered a contract for 2020.
He played 258 career games and was part of Collingwood’s 2010 premiership team.