Niall Breslin - Carrying the hopes of a nation

cowpat · August 4, 2021, 10:33am

That article is 5 years old. A lot can happen in 5 years. He must be making sweet FA out of The Blizzards though. Nada. Insta vids filming house renovations can fuck off though.

ChairmanDan · October 23, 2021, 10:17am

Very frank and honest piece from Mattie Williams in the Paper of Record today about how he let Bressie down when he was a young player at Leinster.

Biff_Egan · October 23, 2021, 10:54am

Bressie is bringing his “Where is my mind” show to Dolan’s Limerick in February 2022.

Bandage · January 31, 2022, 11:10pm

Transitioning into sleep consultancy, according to Twitter. Apparently suffered with crippling insomnia for years, which added to anxiety issues. Wants to use platform to build understanding of sleep & its importance in our lives. Fair play to him.

Arthur · January 31, 2022, 11:26pm

Hope he’s listened to the Joe Rogan podcast on it. It’s meant to excellent by all accounts

Tank · January 31, 2022, 11:28pm

I was just thinking, as I oftentimes do, that Brezzie’s art was a huge missed opportunity. A lot of artists suffer from mental health issues and channel it into their work. Brezzie suffered worse than any of them and spent his life banging out happy pop songs about “trust me I’m a doctor” and such bollocks. It’s very sad that he didn’t know how to express himself.

Thomas_Brady · January 31, 2022, 11:28pm

It’s fantastic.

Biff_Egan · January 31, 2022, 11:45pm

Rory Stories has stolen a march on the mental health stuff. Bressie needs to pivot.

Special_Olympiakos · February 1, 2022, 1:37am

He’s has no problem expressing himself if the cheque is late you can bet

Juhniallio · February 1, 2022, 7:05am

Surely ‘Art’ will be his next successful pivot. He’ll pay some lad in ncad to bash out a few pictures then spend a while naming all the issues he has in them. 20 grand a pop.

Bandage · February 1, 2022, 7:47am

Main issues likely to be a slap head & buck teeth.

Julio_Geordio · February 1, 2022, 7:50am

NFT’s

TheUlteriorMotive · February 1, 2022, 9:46am

Your Mental Health is Your Wealth

It’s also Bressie’s.

Little_Lord_Fauntleroy · February 1, 2022, 9:59am

tazdedub · February 1, 2022, 10:04am

Got to keep expanding, ya cant be caught stand still.

Locke · April 11, 2022, 8:33pm

There’s a want in this guy

Special_Olympiakos · April 11, 2022, 8:39pm

You think the cunt would hurry up and get really needy by announcing he’s gonna swim it to highlight carry on at Dublin airport.

KinvarasPassion · April 11, 2022, 9:04pm

Put Jeffrey on the boat and let Bressie take the plane, have a race to fuck.

carryharry · April 21, 2022, 9:46am

Bressie on with Pat Kenny here to have a whinge about the commodification of the “ Wellness Industry “.

This fucker has some neck

farmerinthecity · April 21, 2022, 9:56am

TreatyStones:

Here’s a news story from 2013:

TreatyStones:

Bressie has opened up online about his mental health issues.

In a heartfelt blog post the singer admitted that he has struggled with General Anxiety Order.

He says he first started showing symptoms a few years ago and nearly fell out of his chair when he was diagnosed.

His first panic attack came while filming an episode of the Voice, apparently, which he says understandably wasn’t the ideal place for it.

The former gaelic football and rugby player say he was able to get a hold on the condition by taking up long-distance running.

*The 32 year old hopes that by opening up, he can encourage more people to seek help for mental health problems. *

He said he encourages anyone from the bottom of his heart to speak about it. Get it out there. The more people that do this the less stigma attached to the condition.

If people become cynical and negative towards you, he says they don’t deserve your friendship.

How does this stack up with the claims in the article?

TreatyStones:

Voice star Bressie has revealed being on the hit RTE show left him with crippling anxiety.

The 32-year-old singer said the fame that came with the success of the first series left him having palpitations.

He spoke out on RTE Radio One’s John Murray Show with hopes of encouraging others in the same situation to get help.

Bressie said: “It was relatively recently and I’m quite open about it. It’s something that for too long has been stigmatised in this country. People assume anxiety and stress are the same.

“But anxiety is all-consuming – it takes over your life and it doesn’t pick its victims. Often people will say, ‘But everything is going well,’ but that doesn’t make a difference really.”

Bressie added he first felt the symptoms when he became the hottest new property in Ireland as a coach on The Voice.

He said: “For me it was when the show started I think. I started realising I had lost a bit of my anonymity and it just came on.

“With anxiety there are massive issues with sleeping. You have palpitations in situations especially if you are doing live television.

“And I said to myself, ‘That’s the kind of person I am, I’ve got to learn to control it’.”

Bressie said it was getting back into physical exercise that helped him manage his condition as he had missed it since he gave up his rugby playing to make a go of his first band The Blizzards.

He said: “Other people don’t learn to control it and they take up the wrong way and go down the wrong route with it.

“But that was one of the main reasons I got into the triathlon training. I felt that was a really good thing because I missed that physical challenge I had when I played rugby.

“That’s a big void in my life so I started doing triathlons and it really helped. But then again once I came out and talked about it I started realising that everybody I know is going through this but they are hiding it.

“And I think it is ridiculous that you have to hide something like this.”

Bressie said that although he didn’t take medication, he had been considering it.

And even though he didn’t experience full on panic attacks he could never settle and relax.

He explained: “I went to the point where I was considering it but I figured I had to kind of manage it.

“ I didn’t get full on panic attacks – whereas I have friends who wouldn’t be able to breathe.

“I wouldn’t get that, I would just get palpitations.

“And I could never sit down and turn on the TV and watch it. I could never relax.

“People who would have known me before would realise that was not me at all.”

Yet in 2016, as the Mental Health Gravy train was leaving the station, this anxiety had morphed into the below:

TreatyStones:

He specifically says in his 2013 articles that he never suffered from a panic attack, that he just got anxious after the first series of the voice.

He also specifically says it was a new “condition” and "People who would have known me before would realise that was not me at all.”

Yet now this has morphed into his teenage years being ruined by “Crippling insomnia, harrowing panic attacks and incomprehensible self-harm dictated my life, all disguised behind a mask of normality that polarised the general lazy stereotype or label we associate with those with a mental health illness."

TreatyStones:

Read the above, and now read this passage from his speech to Oireachtas:

Some days I would sit in my classroom on the verge of fainting as I hyperventilated and fought for air while my teachers continued to teach the class, oblivious to the fact that one of their students was in the midst of a living nightmare. I spent so many of my school days praying that some of our teachers may talk about this, or just say something so I didn’t feel so isolated and terrified. They never did.

@Rocko

My expose on Bressie

Worth putting this here.