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He applied for a $600,000 severe injury payment but it was rejected by the AFL and AFL Players\u2019 Association, which found he did not meet the criteria.<\/p>\n
But O\u2019Driscoll remains seriously troubled physically and mentally, going public with his issues on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThrough this period, I was grieving the most, it got to the point where I started questioning my life? If it was worth living?\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so close to ending everything, I would\u2019ve been free from all the pain\/trauma. My family\/close friends and partners honestly kept me here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aiden O’Driscoll at training for the Western Bulldogs.Source: Instagram<\/p>\n
O\u2019Driscoll said he \u201ccan\u2019t live a normal life\u201d due to his brain injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI experience brain fog, dizziness, depression, nausea, fatigue, memory loss. Only those close to me know what I\u2019ve been going through and even questioned at times if I\u2019m okay? A few people have been genuinely concerned on my wellbeing and memory,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I could describe what it\u2019s like in a nutshell, but I could only describe it like losing something in the family, except I\u2019m the one who\u2019s died and had to come back as a new version of \u201cAiden\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n
See his full comments below.<\/p>\n
If this story raised feelings of distress, help is available.<\/p>\n
Lifeline: 13 11 14 <\/p>\n
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636<\/p>\n
Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467<\/p>\n
Peer CARE Companion Warmline: 1800 77 7337 \u2013 Roses in the Ocean\u2019s 48 hour call-back service for people with lived experience of suicide<\/p>\n
1800 RESPECT: 1800 732 732 \u2013 support for people experiencing or at risk of violence and abuse<\/p>\n
13 YARN: 13 92 76 \u2013 support for Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples<\/p>\n
QLife: 1800 184 527 \u2013 support for the LGBTQIA+ community<\/p>\n
An Instagram post by O\u2019Driscoll.Source: Instagram<\/p>\n
AIDEN O\u2019DRISCOLL\u2019S FULL STATEMENT<\/p>\n
The last 2 years have been the most difficult period of my life. On going setbacks, depression on and off. Every single day experiencing a side effect from the concussion I received.<\/p>\n
A lot of people don\u2019t know my life experience in terms of every day living. The AFL has been an absolute joke towards helping me. Mentally I was so exhausted and drained, and it took 6 weeks for the AFL to find me a psychologist.<\/p>\n
Through this period, I was grieving the most, it got to the point where I started questioning my life? If it was worth living? I was so close to ending everything, i would\u2019ve been free from all the pain\/trauma. My family\/close friends and partners honestly kept me here. Without them I felt so lost\/lonely. I was truely trapped and I didn\u2019t know where to go or how to get out of my depressive states. <\/p>\n
Why does something so cruel happen to an 18-year-old that had a bright future within the game he loved. It\u2019s not just the fact that I can\u2019t play AFL again, it\u2019s more so the ongoing effects from this one hit.<\/p>\n
Weekly i experience symptoms, I can\u2019t live a normal life. I experience brain fog, dizziness, depression, nausea, fatigue, memory loss. Only those close to me know what I\u2019ve been going through and even questioned at times if I\u2019m okay? A few people have been genuinely concerned on my wellbeing and memory.<\/p>\n
I wish I could describe what it\u2019s like in a nutshell, but I could only describe it like losing something in the family, except I\u2019m the one who\u2019s died and had to come back as a new version of \u201cAiden\u201d. <\/p>\n
So, to the AFL: You have been nothing but a joke towards me! <\/p>\n
The last couple of years I\u2019ve experienced nothing but pain, and I\u2019ve explained it multiple times to you. You\u2019re supposed to help AFL players through hardship, not leave them with absolutely nothing. <\/p>\n
The doctors described my concussion as \u201cone of the worst\u201d they\u2019ve seen. With 8 micro brain bleeds, and fracture behind my ear. From a medical point of view, losing my career, my identity plus going through the symptoms I have you\u2019d think the AFL would be useful with some support? Doctors have also said you could experience \u201clong term\u201d effects from the concussion, which I have been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Western Bulldogs player Aiden O\u2019Driscoll has blasted the AFL\u2019s support for his ongoing concussion battles as \u201cnothing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-911059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}