Blues rugby store<\/a><\/p>\nFinnegan\u2019s input is invaluable because he has walked the walk. He has shunned help and pushed himself away. But he also reeled himself right back in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first presented to mental health services, I wasn\u2019t engaging, I wasn\u2019t taking my meds. That ultimately led to me being detained, being arrested and sectioned and stuff like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m diagnosed with bi-polar and PTSD [Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder] and EUPD [Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder]. Now I\u2019m able to hold down a job. I take my meds on a regular basis and meet with my GP and have a Wellness Recovery Action Plan (WRAP) in place that enables me to maintain my mental health.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even if I\u2019m going through a bad patch, I\u2019m able to pick up the phone and I\u2019ve a number to get in touch with straight away.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I\u2019ve more of an insight now, whereas before I\u2019d have a complete meltdown and end up standing on a bridge in central London, shouting all sorts at the police and threatening to jump off.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perhaps you already recognise Finnegan\u2019s name or his distinctive flame red beard from these pages five years ago. Then, we spoke to the Dubliner after he had found a love of rugby with a little help from the School of Hard Knocks initiative on TV.<\/p>\n
From there, he took a shine to rugby coaching. It was work that took him to new horizons: hardy areas in east London, standard-bearing professional clubs and the troubled kid from Crumlin soon found himself being praised by the high-society types in Notting Hill for how he had coached their kids.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Rugby was good to Finnegan for a time. And it hurt him deeply when punishing restrictions were put on his coaching opportunities. His well-documented background was not something he could hide from. The first attempt on his own life featured a four-hour stand off with police, so it took the most rudimentary of Google searches to bring the details back to the surface and the criminal record he picked up accompanied him on each job application. His disclosure would have ramifications with the governing bodies who give funding, and a club who weren\u2019t interested in finding a workaround.<\/p>\n
In the winter of 2014, Finnegan\u2019s name hit the headlines again after he disappeared. That was when he made a third attempt on his own life.<\/p>\n
Each path to stability in mental health is different and extremely personal. That is why it is vital to seek and engage with professional help to tailor the way that is right for each individual. For Finnegan, the framework of his WRAP has served him well, partly because it places an onus back on himself to act when he recognises an issue or a change in his emotional state.<\/p>\n
\u201cI find a WRAP helps me, because you separate it out: your early warnings, your triggers, what to do when you\u2019re feeling a particular way.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have been interested in it at all. I would have talked a little bit, but there was a lot of stuff there I wasn\u2019t dealing with, especially stuff from childhood that I was only able to resolve last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cPersonal responsibility matters. You can take all the meds and turn up to all your appointments, but sometimes if you don\u2019t take personal responsibility for yourself then you will struggle.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important to engage, I don\u2019t know how it is in Dublin, but up here I\u2019m lucky to have a really good community mental health team, great GP, I did have a really good psychiatrist but now I\u2019m at a point where I don\u2019t need to be in with them all the time. I got discharged from all that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: Left Behind\/SoundCloud<\/p>\n
And yet, it\u2019s far from a Utopian existence. Life has that nasty way of continuing to deliver cruel realities. The least of his worries is an Achilles tendon injury keeping him out of action with Portadown RFC.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just over a year since his younger brother Ciaran died of an overdose. He is currently in the midst of a health scare \u2014 while we cross fingers for a positive outcome from tests and scans, he says \u201cI\u2019ll be grand. Trust, me I\u2019ve come through worse than this\u201d\u00a0 \u2014 and\u00a0he is speaking to The42<\/em>\u00a0in the days after his grandmother\u2019s funeral, the woman who shaped his persona and inner drive to help others.<\/p>\nThe journey back home distilled a clear vision of how far he has come, but also a sadness at the sight of \u201cthe same lads sleeping rough, same blokes using heroin. The lads I\u2019d have known for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
He desperately wants to make a difference in Dublin. It\u2019s the town he was raised in, the town where he first began working in outreach, and he knows his voice will ring true for a huge population.<\/p>\n
Finnegan regularly works with the State of Mind charity, an organisation with the express goal of preventing suicide and promoting good mental health among sportspeople \u2013 be they amateur or professional.\u00a0 That venture recently took him in front\u00a0of the Ospreys rugby squad among one of many speaking events across Britain and Ireland, but he is passionate about taking his message to schools in Dublin.<\/p>\n
Tom and Matt Morgan with Finnegan at a mental health conference in Bridgend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t cost the schools anything. I\u2019m doing it out of a genuine\u2026 a passion to try and make a difference for young people, so they know it\u2019s OK not to be OK and not be worrying about all the stuff you see on social media. Because the reality is a lot of it isn\u2019t real.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an expectation put on you, your appearance, your body, your health and we try to give them coping mechanisms, ways to improve, and helping them look out for each other and challenge that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing\u2019s impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a rough sleeper. I was kicked out of home when I was in my teens. Ended up sleeping rough for years. Got off the streets and started working with the homeless in Dublin, with drug users.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWent from there to London to do the same job again. OK, I had my problems and battles with my mental health, but if I can\u2026 y\u2019know, with a little knowledge and education, can achieve, then\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
The breaks and gaps in Finnegan\u2019s sentence seem to come just as he is on the verge of giving himself a hard slap on the back. His journey deserves that and more.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven just sitting reading a report from the national advisory role and I\u2019m thinking, if I can do this with little or no education, imagine young people in Dublin, they could be the same.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can go on and do whatever they want.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cJust don\u2019t give up.\u201d<\/p>\n
No matter how dark the day.<\/p>\n
Need help? Support is available:<\/em><\/p>\nSamaritans 116 123 or email\u00a0jo@samaritans.ieAware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)Pieta House 1800 247 247 or email\u00a0mary@pieta.ie\u00a0(suicide, self-harm)Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)<\/p>\n
A list of HSE and HSE-funded services can be\u00a0found here.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
NO MATTER WHAT the circumstances, how bad a situation feels or bleak an outlook may seem, there is always a road back. There is a path to something better. Mick Finnegan is living proof. A native of Dublin, a veteran of rough-sleeping and both sides of support services, Finnegan currently finds himself enjoying the greatest … <\/p>\n
Read more “‘Just don’t give up’: Finnegan living proof that there is always a better day ahead”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13062\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onhee.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}