Dylan Buckley was at the top of his AFL game. He was sick with anxiety before every match.

This is an edited extract from Honest Chat by Dylan Buckley (published by Penguin Random House Australia, RRP $35, available here.)

Ahh, AFL. Not exactly a relaxing job for someone prone to anxiety (though, at that point, I had no idea that’s what I had or what to call it). When you’re a top-level footy player, every single thing you do on the field is broadcast to the country and recorded for the rest of time. 

Every goal, mark, every time you touch the ball is recorded in the stats and goes into sporting history. You go into a game knowing that if you mess up, it’ll probably be in the papers the next day and out there, someone in the stands is definitely going to let you know how they feel about it. The level of scrutiny and judgement on the player is extraordinary. 

If they measured anxiety levels, I’m sure I would have walked away with a medal for that, eight years running.

While you're here, watch Ask Mia Anything | Mia & Anxiety. Story continues after video.

In retrospect, anxiety was probably the biggest negative factor on my footy career by far. I didn’t see it until my career finished, but my anxiety was pretty bad. Since I’ve been learning about mental health and consciously working to understand that part of myself, I’ve realised that my anxiety took all the joy out of footy for me once I started playing in the seniors. I just loved footy to bits, but I couldn’t enjoy it the way I had before I’d gone into the AFL.

Game days were the worst. In the lead up to every game I would hope that it’d be called off, or that I’d wake up the coach would go, ‘You know what, Dyl? You don’t have to play today. We’re going to hold you over in case of emergency.’

Anxiety made it impossible to function at peak performance. For me, anxiety was just as debilitating as a physical injury. Worse, really. I thought the times I was injured were the lowest points of my career, but in hindsight, they were when I felt happiest as a team player, because the pressure was off. If something in my body snapped or broke or tore, I’d be flooded with relief as I limped off field because I’d know that I had four weeks off from having to face game day again.

There were times I could get out of my head and the anxiety left me alone. That was where I played my best footy. I once kicked a bit of a miracle goal against the Bulldogs, probably because I didn’t have time to think about it. I was playing defence, way back on the field, not really in a position to be scoring goals. Some of the spectators probably thought I was having a pie in the stands I was that far back. But then the ball came bounding up. I saw it, grabbed it, gave a little spurt of speed up the boundary and banged the ball up. I don’t know how it worked logistically, but it sailed straight through the goalposts and into history. Definitely one of the good ones.

A Bulldogs fan leaned over the fence. I thought I was about to cop a spray, but he instead he thumped me on the back and yelled, ‘Onya!’ It was really weird. My teammates reckoned it was a sympathy clap because I so rarely got a kick. Most of the time, though, I was too anxious to react like that. Look, I know everyone gets anxious at times, it’s very prevalent in footballers, but mine was out of control. I remember stretching during warmups before a game, really going for it and hoping I would tear my hammy off the bone, because then I wouldn’t have to go out there. But then I’d go out and something would click and I’d play some of the best footy of my life.

Even though I was under the MCG lights surrounded by the roaring crowd, all of that slipped into the moment and I really became part of the game. But then I’d go into the rooms at half-time and the anxiety would crush me again. Alright, how can I get out of the next half? I don’t fucking want to be here. I could be playing incredibly well, kicking goals, but every break the panic kicked in and I’d start thinking about ways to get out of the game. The second I had a moment to worry, the anxiety just poleaxed me.

Which is pretty tragic, because I loved footy. The game itself is a lifelong passion and I love everything about it. I loved being part of the team. It was like hanging out with 40 of your best mates every day, getting paid to stay fit, go to the beach and play a game you love.

Literally, my work was playing a game. I was so fucking lucky and I loved every minute of it. Except for game day, when my mental state took all the joy out of it. Since then, I’ve learned what anxiety is and how it was affecting me, but at the time, I didn’t think my headspace was anything out of the ordinary. I’d just always felt that way, so I thought it was normal to feel so terrible.

Early in life, I was always nervous. I thought I was just scared or a ‘pussy’. I was embarrassed about how weak it made me playing footy and didn’t want to talk to anyone about it . . . ‘What do you mean you don’t want to be out on the field?’ I thought they would say. I wanted to enjoy footy and I wanted to excel. At the time, I would beat myself up for not competing with the other players, even though we trained the same amount.

And truth is, I trained as hard as I could – I didn’t fail for lack of effort or passion. My anxiety was so bad that it kicked my legs out from under me. I tried my guts out, but anxiety got in the way of me performing at my best.

It was bad even when I wasn’t playing on the big stage. I remember the last professional game I ever played. It was for the Giants, in the Twos, out in the suburbs of

Brisbane against local team, the Aspley Hornets. Realistically, it was the lowest-stakes game of professional footy possible in Australia. Ninety percent of fans wouldn’t even know it was happening – it wasn’t televised, there was nobody in the stands. I knew that this was my last game, that no one was watching, and in the big picture, the outcome of the game didn’t mean anything to either me personally or the team. And still, I felt like the anxiety would kill me.

I couldn’t even eat breakfast before the game. The whole way there I was hoping the bus would break down, or crash, or something would happen to erase the game from Earth before I had to lace up my boots. Just a stream of pure fucking anxiety attacks coming out of nowhere. This is so random? Why is this happening now? I asked myself.

I didn’t understand it. It’s still something I’m trying working on understanding. Because I loved footy. Everything about it. Except for the anxiety that swallowed me whenever I wasn’t burning up in the joy of the game in the moment.

It’s not something that got better over my career either, but worse as my footy was wrapping up and I saw delisting on the horizon. When footy finished, I thought it would go away, but it didn’t. Later, it showed up in other areas of my life, like podcasting – freaking out after releasing an episode, worried that something might be taken the wrong way.

Eventually, I started getting help from professionals on how to manage it, and started educating myself on anxiety and how it affects me. ‘Name it to tame it’ has worked for me – understanding what I have, its symptoms and how they affect me, all helps me manage my anxiety better these days, although it’s still a work in progress.

One of my biggest tips is getting my foundations right – the four pillars: health, fitness, diet and sleep. I check in with myself regularly on these, to help keep my life as balanced as possible. These four pillars underpin everything else in my life and keeping on top of them allows me to be the best person I can be – for myself and everyone I care about. If I can get these four things right all the time, does it stop me feeling anxious?

No, no guarantees, but it gives me the absolute best shot. Sometimes I think about the career I could’ve had if I’d had the techniques to help me better manage that anxiety, but I don’t have any real regrets. Because, while who knows how far I might have gone with footy, I’ve used it – the good and the bad – as motivation for the next phase. I may have missed the full opportunity because of my mental health, but I’m working to manage my anxiety to make sure I embrace my days ahead to the fullest possible extent. I’ve wasted enough time worrying about it.

Listen to No filter, On this episode,  Mia Freedman is joined by Dr Jodie Lowinger, the founder and Principal Clinical Psychologist of the Sydney Anxiety Clinic to talk about how anxiety presents itself, what causes it and what people who suffer from it can do to treat it. Story continues below.

To be honest, I still haven’t worked out how to fix it. It’s just one of those things I haven’t nailed, and maybe it’s okay if I never do. I’m trying to work towards a resolution, while knowing full well it’s probably not something that can or needs to be totally ‘fixed’. Anxiety sucks but also, it’s what makes me who I am. It’s my enemy and my best friend, because it makes me work how I do.

I’m a worrier – I take after my mum that way. Probably my dad too. But they were from a generation where mental health and self-care wasn’t really part of the everyday conversation. So, I’m lucky to have come up in an environment where awareness of anxiety and some better coping mechanisms are something I can access, that’s for sure. Many of those I learned through AFL, as you know, and some I continue to pick up through guests on my podcast and in various other ways, as you’re going to read about.

There are few things I can say that I know are absolutely true, but here’s one of them: You never regret a swim. No matter how cold the water is, no matter how much you don’t want to jump in, you never get out of the water regretting the experience.

Image: Supplied

This is an edited extract from Honest Chat by Dylan Buckley (published by Penguin Random House Australia, RRP $35)

Feature Image: Supplied