The AFL world was rocked last week when Lance Franklin’s mental health issues surfaced in a very public manner.

‘Buddy’, as he’s more colloquially referred to, was withdrawn from the Sydney Swans’ qualifying final clash against Fremantle – and has since been ruled out for the remainder of the season.

With that announcement, a sense of disbelief blanketed football’s public sphere: namely that somebody of Franklin’s ilk – the AFL’s million dollar man with the Bondi lifestyle and the beautiful fiancée – could suffer from such an illness,
Speaking to Neos Kosmos, psychologist Vicky Manikas says Franklin’s story is one that can shed light on the impact of mental health issues on people and its non-discriminatory nature.

“It could be anybody, it could be the person you see having a lot of money, ‘the perfect family’, ‘the perfect life’, just like him. Mental health is something that can strike anybody and often it can be a genetic thing,” Manikas explains.

In light of that, mental health issues are more commonly acknowledged by females, she says, because males have historically dealt with their problems through other means.

“Women are more introspective and tend to think a lot more about things, whereas men are more likely to express things with aggression. You probably see more men with anger management issues and more women with depression.”

That sentiment revolves around a ‘blokey culture’ – especially among sporting personalities – that has plagued men facing mental health issues for years – but it’s something that can rid itself of its cultural shackles now that somebody of Lance Franklin’s calibre has acknowledged his battle with it.

“I think it’s fantastic. Anybody in the spotlight who is willing to come out and acknowledge and talk about it, I think it’s great.

“It actually gets people to realise that anybody can have it, a person who has everything can have it, so I’m not weird for feeling this way.

“I think over the last 10 years there have been a lot more organisations out there, like counselling for just men, to deal with their issues, because men would turn to drugs and alcohol to get through it and ‘man up’ type of thing, whereas now there’s nothing wrong with them acknowledging they do have feelings and do take things a certain way.”