Mental Health Special: Ashling Thompson Talks

"It was the icing on the cake – for my career, and for my life in general. If you had said it to me a few years ago, I would have told you to go to the mad house; there was no way it was going to happen. It’s hard to put into words.”
For many athletes, summing up the feeling of lifting a trophy is a difficult thing to do. But for Ashling Thompson, raising the O’Duffy Cup as captain of the all-conquering Cork camogie side was the culmination of a journey far beyond your average sporting fairytale. A precocious talent, the Milford player was on the verge of breaking into the Cork senior side at just 18 when injuries sustained in a car accident sent her life down a very different path.
“I had just started my first year of college, and preparing to go back to the Cork squad in December,” she recalls. “The crash was in November, and I guess it was everything piling up at the same time. I had never carried an injury before, and you’re very young to go through something like that. I know some people will say they had an injury and they didn’t suffer depression, but they don’t even know. It’s hard to hit the nail on the head with it; you might be feeling down for a few days, and not even know that you’re depressed.”
Indeed, Ashling admits that, at the time, she wasn’t altogether sure of it herself.
“It wouldn’t have been a topic that I spoke about,” she says. “I didn’t really know, but I certainly recognised that I wasn’t myself. You don’t realise at the time, and then a couple of years later I realised I was never the same. I got involved with the wrong people, and totally went against anyone that tried to help; my family, my friends. I was basically doing my own thing.”
And while Ashling evades more probing questions about what exactly she got up to with the sort of elusiveness that gave Galway such headaches at Croke Park, she readily acknowledges that she was a slippery slope.
“I’d know something was wrong, but I felt I’d have to do it,” she says. “I felt I had to keep up a reputation; I wasn’t a goody two-shoes anymore. I was totally brainwashed.
I totally lost interest in my sports, I wasn’t even bothered going to training half the time. I’d rather be out acting the eejit and getting into trouble.”
Even with a dwindling interest, she never quit camogie. It was to prove her saving grace – though not before terrorising a few officials.
“The poor referees!” she laughs. “They got such a mouthful. To be honest, I was 50% thinking – well, 80% – of punching them in the face. That’s how angry of a person I was.”
The turning point arrived when her club made a change in coaching set-up, bringing in Frank Flannery (no, not that one). While friends, family and all others who’d shown concern for Ashliing had been dismissively pushed away, something with her new coach was different.
“I don’t know if it was because he was an outsider looking in or what,” she reflects. “I’d had a lot of ups and downs with managers and trainers, because they thought the way to discipline me was to take me off and stand me on the sidelines. Frank came in the first day, and said ‘I’ll have the defibrillator ready on the side for you’. Immediately, we were having a laugh and a joke.”
“He made the effort to get to know me,” she continues. “I found it really nice that he made the effort. He would tell me, ‘I don’t care if it’s nothing to do with the sport; if you’re ever in trouble, just give me a ring’. You never hear that from a coach. He was more like a best friend, and I knew I could trust him. That was the turning point.”
And Ashling says that a similar approach could well help others who find themselves in her situation.
“It’s very hard to give someone guidance when you’ve never been through the same thing. I had friends who literally didn’t know what to do. But if someone is involved in sports, ring their coach and explain; if a coach knew what they were going through, it would take a weight off their shoulders. Anyone who has come out the other side of something, give them a call and ask for guidance. And there’s plenty of organisations to give help; all it takes is a phone call.”
And though she might describe last month’s triumph as the icing on the cake, it’s not quite the end of the story. “Hopefully I’ll be back there next year,” Ashling smiles. “If Milford win the county championship, I might even be captain again!”