Joe Brolly has revealed that a counsellor once told him he was ‘a manipulator’ and left him in ‘floods of tears’.
The 1993 All-Ireland winner opened up about his mental health struggles and ‘frozen man syndrome’ in the latest episode of his Free State podcast with journalist Dion Fanning.
“I conquered all those traumas and made peace with the past by going to this very quiet psychotherapist who was recommended to me,” the former Derry GAA star explained.
“The only time slot he had available was 7am on a Friday so I pitched up there at 7am on Fridays for years.
“He was asking me questions about when I was young. He said that he wasn’t going to look at me when I was talking because I was turning things around to suit me. He said I was a manipulator and used to manipulating people in my circle.
“So he changed the position of the chairs. He had me facing the window so I couldn’t see him. On the fourth or fifth visit, I was speaking about some incident. He was shocked and made his shock clear.”
The now 55-year-old said that what he had disclosed “was something I’d never talked about, I’d never talked about it to my ex-wife”.
He noted that the therapist “was clearly shocked and it made me realise that these things weren’t OK”.
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The Dungiven native recalled that after these sessions he would go back to his car and prepare himself to go to court for his main job as a barrister.
“But I’d be sitting there in floods of tears,” he added.
“A friend of mine told me it’s called ‘frozen man syndrome’, where you’re frozen for 40, 45 years and then melt. Eventually, like a poltergeist leaving me, I started to relax and enjoy the world.”
Brolly, who recently became a new father for the sixth time to a baby girl with his wife Laurita Blewitt, described a lot of his past experiences before receiving therapy as a series of performances.
He has become one of Ireland’s most high-profile media commentators, appearing on RTE’s The Sunday Game for 20 years until 2019.
He also donated a kidney to his friend Shane Finnegan, in 2012, becoming an advocate for organ donation.
There has even been speculation that he could run for the office of President of Ireland.
21 April 1996; Derry’s Joe Brolly celebrates after scoring a goal during the Church & General National Football League Semi-Final match between Derry and Mayo at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Ray McManus/Sportsfile
Speaking on the podcast, he continued: “I didn’t calm down until three or four years after I gave the kidney. I was never calm, never composed, I might have seemed that way outwardly.
“Until my mid 40s, I was a world class escapist. People would say I’m a huge success but I had these feelings of inferiority, of not being good enough. I was convinced I would be unmasked as a fraud.
“Some people take to drink. For me, it was a different thing, to throw yourself hyperactively into the pursuit of glory. I’d be in court for some big trial or other and think ‘I’m not up to this’. I’d want to run away.”