One in four people will suffer from mental health problems at some stage in their life. However, despite the fact that these illnesses are common in Ireland, and people experiencing them can often find themselves facing stigma and discrimination.

In a one-off special called 'Time to Talk', presenter Sinead Desmond will chat to some of the more well-known names who have suffered from and overcome mental health issues.

The half-hour special will air just two days after former Cork hurler, Conor Cusack, opened up about his mental health issues in a revealing blog post and spoke openly to Primetime about his personal experience. The programme also comes in the wake of the tragic death last week of Galway senior hurler Niall Donohue, who died just days before his 23rd birthday.

In 'Time to Talk', which airs on Thursday 31st October at 7.30pm, Cavan GAA footballer, Alan O'Mara speaks candidly about his own battle with depression:

"You start to question your existence, why am I here? Is this what my life is all about? Is this what I'm going to do? This voice is building in your head and this just kept snowballing up until Christmas with me until the day I was driving home."

Alan describes how he was awake all night before a match and couldn't understand what was happening to him.

"I got up and I head to this match then, and I don't remember much of the game."

"I'm driving along the motorway and I have an image of me just swerving the car into the wall, this just pops into my head! There's a slip road off, and you know there's a barrier there which breaks up the junction, I just see the car just slam straight into that."

Alan told Ireland AM presenter Sinead that he saw crashing that car as a way out and that it "was a way to stop this conversation that was happening in my head at the time." He said that thinking of his parents kept him from swerving the car.

"Thankfully for me within about two seconds after that I saw my own mam and dad standing in our local church at my funeral and that just zapped me straight back in. I put down the window and was more or less hanging me head out the window like a dog so that the air would hit me - just to feel it."

Alan describes going home that day and sitting on his couch with his hood up and his mother asking him if he was "feeling a bit depressed". He tells Sinead that he could feel the tears rising and he coughed up an answer which was the first step. Alan also speaks about how the Gaelic Players Association's counselling service has been beneficial for him.

Rugby player and commentator, Brent Pope speaks about his own experience of mental health and gives advice to anyone in a similar situation. He explains that he always had a low sense of self-worth and used to worry irrationally the night before his exams would start:

"My Mother would always have a bath, in those days they'd leave the water in and she'd say 'Look, go in and have a bath and try to relax.' For some reason as soon as I hit the water I would go into this panic attack state and I just remember sitting there sometimes for hours unbeknownst to my parents at the time. Maybe one or two o'clock in the morning, you know, blue, the water would be freezing cold, shaking there because I would think, and it's quite emotional for me now actually, there's no way I can pass these exams."

Spin103.8 DJ Nikki Hayes opens up to Ireland AM's Sinead Desmond on 'Time to Talk' about the attempt she made to take her own life:

"I was 17 and I overdosed. I remember I was in the box room in my house. I went down to our medicine cupboard which was over the fridge and just took whatever I could. I know there was a lot of Paracetamol in there. I think there was some of my mother's blood pressure tablets and I just, very quickly I think, in the space of maybe 20 minutes/ half an hour, took as much as I could but then I told my mum. I don't know if it was to try to hurt her or what it was but it was definitely a cry for help. It wasn't something I obviously wanted to do because as soon as I had taken the medication I let them know what I had done."

Sinead: "And you had to go and get your stomach pumped?"

Nikki: "Yea she called an ambulance and I was taken into Loughlinstown hospital so they pumped my stomach."

Sinead: "But you made a subsequent attempt on your life as well?"

Nikki: "I did a couple of years later. I was in college and I wasn't really coping too well, things were happening, I was still medicated at that stage so I don't know if it was a combination of that but I hit a tough time and I tried again and It was a little bit more serious that time. I ended up back in hospital but took a little bit longer to recover."

Sinead: "When you say it was a little bit more serious this time, I mean, the first time you recognise it was a cry for help, second time round did you want it to be the end?"

Nikki: "I think so, at the time yea, I just wanted out, I was hurting a lot, there was a lot of things I didn't understand with life."

Sinead: "What was going on for you?"

Nikki: "Well Dad was obviously getting sicker, he had been given a couple of free years and then he got a lot sicker. The cancer had become a lot more aggressive, I wasn't doing too well in college, I was doing a course I didn't really want to do. I felt very isolated, very alone. I didn't really know where I wanted to be in life and I just thought it would be easier to get out but the overdose I took, there was a lot more tablets involved, it affected me in a lot more of a way."

Author Marian Keyes also speaks to Sinead about her experience of mental health and about her battle with depression which led to attempted suicide:

"I went in [to St John of Gods] as an inpatient."

Sinead: "Had you been in a place like that before?"

Marian: "No, oh my god, I mean I've been through rehab a thousand years ago for alcoholism but this was very different."

"[St John of Gods] was a safe place I suppose, in that while I was in there I couldn't kill myself."

"I was thinking of killing myself 24 hours a day, because I couldn't sleep and I planned in incessantly."

"There was a time in my life when I thought it was a person's right to end their life if everything became too much and funnily enough, having gone through all of this, I would really prefer now if people were given help and kept safe so that they didn't."

'Time to Talk' airs on Thursday 31st October at 7.30pm on TV3.

For more information visit www.tv3.ie/timetotalk or join the conversation on Twitter using the hash tag #timetotalk Tweet

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