Niall Aslam opens up
2018 Love Island contestant Niall Aslam has opened up about his mental health on Instagram.
He revealed the reason he left the show just days after arriving, was because he started suffering from stress induced psychosis.
Niall admitted he ended up watching the rest of the show from a psychiatric hospital in London.
He explained stress induced psychosis is when, "you get so overwhelmed that you lose touch with reality."
The reality star listed the symptoms: hallucinations, being unaware of your surroundings and feeling unsafe.
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He admitted it takes, "a lot of time to come down from that."
Niall added, "But when you come down from it you really come down, you go into a really deep depression."
During his two week stay at the hospital, Niall said, "In my head I wasn't fully aware of what was going on."
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Leaving the hospital
When he left the hospital, Niall was in no state to deal with the pressures of life after Love Island.
"I was on so much medication getting loads of side-effects, that's why I didn't really do any interviews as I was getting really slurred speech from the medication."
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Niall revealed, "Then I had to come off the medication, I was on Xanax - really, really strong stuff."
"I just 'cold turkey-ed' it, that was horrible."
"It was a really upside down time for me."
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The reality star admitted, "it took quite a long time," for him to fully recover.
"I was trying to get back to reality and my reality was different. I was really struggling..."
Niall admitted, "I was all over the place, I was depressed, I was avoiding things."
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He added that everyone thought he was having an amazing time after Love Island.
But the truth is, behind the façade of reality TV stardom, he was really struggling.
The Islander encouraged his followers to check in on their friends and family because you never know what they're going through.
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If you'd like to show your support for young people in Ireland struggling with mental health, check out Jigsaw's coffee cup campaign here.
