Alaimalo stung by anxiety, depression
Highlanders outside back Solomon Alaimalo has opened up on his struggles with mental health, revealing it was the reason behind his lack of playing time during the Super Rugby season.
Alaimalo joined the Highlanders from the Chiefs for the 2021 campaign after a shoulder injury kept him out of the back end of 2020, but appeared in only two matches for his new club.
The 25-year-old addressed his absence in a statement on social media yesterday and said he was struggling with depression and anxiety.
“Warning long post — I had a lot of messages throughout the season asking ‘why are you not playing?’ and some I ignored and some I just said my shoulder still wasn’t right,” he wrote.
“But truth is I really struggled this year with depression and anxiety for multiple reasons. I’ve been going in and out of it for a while now growing up but ever since my joining of professional footy it got worse.
“Always judging myself as a person off how I’d played, letting the game I love dictate my mood for the day and week until we’d get to play again constant cycle. This obviously carried on for a while and I think a lot of my coaches throughout the years can attest to this because it got to the point where no matter how well I played I’d be like ‘nah I didn’t play good enough’, this and that and my coaches would look at me like ‘sole your to hard on yourself ’ [sic] but if it was a bad game my thoughts were so bad that I’d start thinking I didn’t want to be around anymore.”
Alaimalo said he reached a tipping point this year and he would be set off by the smallest thing, and at times calling his fiancee from the car crying, or would go home from work “down buzzed as”.
His partner convinced him to speak to the team doctor and player development manager, and he subsequently started seeing a psychiatrist and having counselling.
“It took away the game I loved for months but I understood that what was important at the time was my mental well-being,” he said.
“[I’m] in a way better space now and I know this is just one hurdle that I will have to get over. Not going to be all sunshine and rainbows but I’m just glad I’ve got a better understanding. Not posting this for your sympathy either, I don’t want that.
“I just wanted to clear things up because personal reasons can mean a lot of things and that was what I wanted it to be worded as in the paper until I was ready to open up about it.”