Tearing paint off her bedroom wall instead of tearing herself apart, Lara Filocamo was close to the point of no return.
At 13 years of age, Filocamo was already showing early signs of mental illness after a troubled and sometimes abusive childhood in a broken home.
When her 41-year-old mother May died three years later, her life tumbled into a spiral of panic attacks, depression and suicidal thoughts.
The Fremantle Dockers AFLW star’s plight was then worsened by her fear and refusal to tell even those closest to her of her problems and she was diagnosed only with anxiety because she did not tell her doctors enough about her issues.
Filocamo also had an obsessive-compulsive disorder that even had her stressing about whether she was walking correctly.
“I was in my room ripping all the paint off the wall because if I didn’t I thought I would die,” she told The West of an incident just four years ago when she was 22.
“I also had another episode when I heard voices and thought someone was going to come and kill me.
“It got to a point where I was in another world and I had a really tough time trying to get out of it.
“I was in a really dark place… on the verge of giving up.
“So I made myself do things out of the square so I didn’t do something to myself that I didn’t want to.”
Filocamo decided to tell her story for the first time as part of her ambassadorial role with the Mental Health Commission.
After years of doing the opposite to talking about her escalating problems, the 26-year-old finally approached her Fremantle coach, Michelle Cowan, in January about the demons in her mind.
It led to immediate testing that diagnosed her with bipolar disorder and the appropriate treatment regime that has turned her life around.
Forced out of high school as a teenager because of her bad behaviour, Filocamo was last month Fremantle’s highest vote getter, in fourth place, in the AFLW’s inaugural best-and-fairest-award.
She says football has saved her life.
The emergency department nurse at Fiona Stanley is often confronted with young people with mental health issues and hoped opening up about her journey would help others to find a way though their problems.
“There are a lot of people out there struggling with their mental health and no one seems to talk about it…my heart hurts sometimes,” she told The West.
“Everyone needs to get the message out that if you are sick and need help, seek it.
“The brain is like any other organ and if it needs help, you need to use the resources to get better. I’m feeling so much better in everything about myself. I see a very bright future.”
Cowan said she had seen major changes in Filocamo since her revelations and treatment.
Filocamo uses meditation as a way of improving her mental health and her football.
