Little under a decade after a 12-week suspension ruled Alan Quinlan out of a British & Lions tour of South Africa, the former Munster man has been reflecting on a period that brought a lifetime's worth of anxiety to the surface.
"That was my end of the world moment," Quinlan explained on Newstalk, "I was emotionally broken after that."
"You're entitled to feel sad and upset, but the wrong thing to do is to bottle it up.
"It was creating a really dark cloud in my mind, and I just didn't see any way out."
Suffering in silence, the depth of Quinlan's devastation brought him to a point where the separation between "feeling suicidal and having the impulse to act on it" became hazy.
"I was getting into the danger zone of thinking about acting on it," Quinlan stated.
I couldn't inspire myself, I didn't see my own value which is very strange, and I'm still trying to figure it out
With remarkable openness and honesty, Alan Quinlan explained how the ramifications of his actions during Munster's Heineken Cup semi-final defeat to Leinster in 2009 were not solely the product of the opportunity he had lost out on.
Encouraging others to address their own mental health issues, the Tipperary native revealed how it had taken years for him to realise that anxiety and stress had been issues throughout his life; a basis that exacerbated the disappointment felt at missing the Lions tour in such circumstances.
"I didn't really understand anything about mental health," stated Quinlan, "I grew up in an era and a time where it was a kind of a hush-hush subject."
"I probably always would have had a level of anxiety in me that I didn't really understand or know growing up.
"My thought process around that anxiety was that you can't see this problem, and you can't share it with anyone, you just have to be tough."
Contrary to what one may expect, however, Quinlan's childhood demonstrated few traces of this internal suffering.
"I was happy-go-lucky and obviously very active, but I look back now and I probably understand through trying to learn more about myself and my emotional well-being that there was always an underlying level of anxiety," he understands now.
"Sometimes, I would have created greater anxiety for myself. As I got older, that anxiety made me feel very unwell in myself, and then depressed in myself.
"Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is closed up in those moments.
As he got older, leaving his job as a mechanic to "work in a track suit" with Munster, Quinlan's "dream job" couldn't compensate for the inner-struggles that required addressing.
"It created a frustration and anger in me and it did inhibit my performance," he acknowledges now.
"It wasn't devastating you know? I was still able to have a wonderful life and I was very outgoing, always able to speak publicly, able to be captain of my team and try to inspire other people.
"I couldn't inspire myself, [however]. I didn't see my own value which is very strange, and I'm still trying to figure it out."
Admitting that he didn't "want to trouble people," Alan Quinlan eventually came to the conclusion that something would have to happen.
With the disappointment of the Lions situation kick-starting this process, Quinlan offered a closing message to those who may be suffering in silence still: "If you've a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel, no matter what the situation is, try and go toward that light."
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