Niall Breslin

WHEN my legs went from underneath me and my breath stopped coming, just minutes before we were due to go live on The Voice, I knew this was panic at its worst. Yet in the midst of the madness, something became clear. If I got through this, the secret I had guarded for years could not remain secret for much longer.’

This startling passage opens Niall Breslin’s first book, Me And My Mate Jeffrey, in which the musician candidly lifts the lid on his mental health battle. It’s a book that he hopes will highlight the area of mental health – and lead to changes in how it is approached, particularly for young people.

‘Panic attacks, eating disorders… you name it and 25-30 per cent of our population has it. It’s the most common illness in the country and we don’t talk about it,’ he says. ‘This is not an autobiography, I would never write one. It’s not a self-help book either because I am not a qualified psychologist to be going around divvying out information on such a complex subject.

‘The book is basically to highlight how mental health has called the shots in my life, ruined a lot of relationships and destroyed a lot of careers because I never coped or dealt with it.’

Watching the confident musician, presenter and former professional rugby player on television, it is almost impossible to think of him floundering backstage, in the grip of anxiety – yet that’s exactly what happened to him ahead of his first live Voice of Ireland.

‘It doesn’t seem as dramatic to me now,’ he says. ‘But at the time it was the worst panic attack I have ever had. I’m spiritual, I’m not religious, and I remember praying to my grandparents. I just kept thinking that I didn’t want my team to see me like this. I was on auto-pilot on stage in front of half a million people watching at home.

‘I remember the spotlight was put on me and it was like acid, the hottest thing boiling on my skin. I don’t know how but I just kept singing songs in my head and I got through it. I don’t remember a minute of the show, who sang or what happened. [I just remember] walking into my dressing room, into the toilet and breaking down. That was the turning point. I decided that I was going to do everything in my power to change things. That night I went back to the hotel and Jeffrey was invented.’

The Jeffrey in the title is the human embodiment of the anxiety that has controlled Bressie’s life as far back as a 15-year-old teenager in Mullingar. He suffered from daily panic attacks and as a result he suffered from insomnia and his hair started to fall out. He told no one what was going on. At the age of 16, he intentionally broke his own arm just so he could see a doctor, who he hoped would listen to his fears.

All through his formative years Bressie buried his anxiety, fearful of what his peers and society would make of him. He bounced from school to school, became alienated from classmates, suffering in silence behind his bedroom door.

‘I was never a target for bullies because of my size,’ he says. ‘Bullying is so complex, the person doing the bullying has often been exposed to something they shouldn’t have as well. Some schools I have worked in still refuse to believe that their school has a problem. This is ridiculous because every single school in the country has emotional problems whether that is through bullying, anxiety or depression.’

With brutal honesty Bressie writes about how his relationship with his mother and f ather was almost destroyed by his struggling mental health. And while writing the book was partially cathartic, handing it over to his parents to read was a difficult proposition.

‘The hardest part of this whole process was my family having to read it,’ he said. ‘Even though Mum and Dad would know the vast majority of it by now, it was extremely difficult handing them over the book.

‘The one thing I said to them was that there is a bigger picture here – I would have loved to have had someone talking like this when I was 15. I have never for a second felt ashamed. I don’t feel it as a weakness, I see it as a serious strength. But writing it and handing it to my mum was very difficult.

‘She sent me a text when she finished reading it. When I read that message it was probably the best part of this whole process. [The text] is between me and her but it was just a profoundly incredible thing that made it worthwhile. She got it. She knows that I’m probably the most mentally strong person she knows. But I think any mother would be lying if she said that was an easy read for her.’

The book is painfully open and honest. It details how, strangled by guilt and anguish, he systematically destroyed what should have been the best years of his life. When he secured a sports scholarship to UCD and made the Leinster academy, he began taking prescription drugs like Valium in order to fit in. He would then force himself to train excessively in the hope that exhaustion would allow him to break a cycle of insomnia. Partly due to his own experience, he believes the problem of abusing prescription medication is a huge one.

PEOPLE have to get their head around the likes of Xanax and Valium,’ he says. ‘ They are the most abused drugs in this country. We see addiction as hard drugs like heroin and cocaine but the reality is that an awful lot of the serious addictions are caused by self-prescribed drugs. These benzodiazepines have a vicious ability to sneak up on you because you don’t know you are reliant on them.

‘You become addicted to the fact that you can deal with social situations with your crippling anxiety once you take these drugs. But you are stoned. I always had one or two in my wallet and the reality is you go into a lot of people’s medicines cabinet you are going to find them. I was self-medicating without any help from doctors and those tablets led on to my ultimate addiction to sleeping tablets. Three or four years into abusing sleeping pills and taking three or four a night, you know you have a serious problem.’

Bressie is only too aware that there are more serious ramifications that can occur from abusing prescription medication and he is keen to drive home the importance of finding a good GP. ‘ The problem is that the research shows that by abusing sleeping pills I have probably opened myself up by nearly 40 per cent to dementia,’ he says. ‘There are these long-term issues that you aren’t aware of at the time because you don’t care. You are sleep-deprived and you can’t eat, yet you still have to go out and pretend that you can play rugby.

‘The key to seeking recovery and wellness is developing a strong relationship with your GP – they are the gatekeeper to your health, physical and mental. If they are not doing for you what you think they should be then look for a better one.

‘The last thing I’m going to do is pretend that I am a qualified psychologist but people with empathy,