My Story
My name is Emily Phelan, I am a 32-year-old female athlete living in London, and I play Ladies Gaelic Football.
Sport has always been a huge part of my life, but my journey with it hasn't always been straightforward. I've experienced anxiety and depression throughout my sporting career, and for a long time I didn't really have the language or the tools to understand what was happening in my own head.
I didn't understand why pressure felt like too much sometimes. I didn't understand why my confidence could swing so much. I didn't understand why certain moments affected me so much more then others. I just knew I loved the sport, but I was also struggling in it.
A Difficult Phase
Number 18 is me on league final day. I remember feeling happy for my team, but I couldn't fully feel it for myself because I was so caught up in my own performance. I wasn't in a good place mentally, and that showed on the pitch.
But what I understand now, looking back, is that it wasn't just performance anxiety. I was dealing with undiagnosed anxiety and depression at the time, and that naturally spilled over into my sport.
What That Felt Like
I just knew that everything felt heavier than it should have, not just games, but life in general. There were days I struggled to get out of bed, times I would feel really low for no clear reason, and moments where I experienced panic attacks that I didn't fully understand at the time.
And one of those panic attacks actually happened that day, when I should have been happy and celebrating with my teammates. Instead, I was completely overwhelmed in my own head. My mind was constantly busy. I didn't really know how to separate what was going on internally from how I was performing externally and the celebrations going on around me afterwards.
I was overthinking, second-guessing myself, and never really fully present in the moment. And afterwards, I remember replaying everything in my head over and over, feeling really disconnected from what had just happened, like I wasn't even fully in it in the first place.
A Different Headspace
And then there's me a year later on the exact same league final day. Same pitch. Same occasion. But a completely different headspace.
We actually lost the final that day, but my experience of it was completely different.
I was calm. I was present. And I felt content within myself, regardless of the result. I could take the game for what it was, without it defining how I felt about myself afterwards.
Why This Platform Exists
That didn't happen overnight. It took a lot of work on my mental health, a lot of learning, and a lot of uncomfortable reflection about how I was thinking, feeling, and showing up in both life and sport.
The road between those two versions of me was long. And it wasn't linear. But it was worth it.