{"id":16088,"date":"2020-10-30T09:12:34","date_gmt":"2020-10-30T09:12:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/?p=16088"},"modified":"2021-01-02T11:36:41","modified_gmt":"2021-01-02T11:36:41","slug":"coming-out-former-rugby-professional-chooses-freedom-instead-of-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spartacus.gayguide.travel\/blog\/coming-out-former-rugby-professional-chooses-freedom-instead-of-career\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming-out: Former rugby professional chooses freedom instead of career"},"content":{"rendered":"

“My own death felt preferable to anyone discovering I was gay,” Dan Palmer said during his outing. The Australian ex-rugby player finally faced a choice: his freedom or his career.<\/p>\n

In a column in the Sydney Morning Herald, Palmer, former vice-captain of the rugby team ACT Brumbies, wrote about the agony he had to go through to deal with his sexuality as a professional sportsman.<\/p>\n

“I fantasised about disappearing, changing my name and starting my life all over again. It is not an exaggeration to say my own death felt preferable to anybody discovering I was gay.”<\/p>\n

Very open and unembellished, Palmer talks about his life as an elite gay athlete, about psychological problems, drug abuse and self-hatred. He admits that most nights he cried himself to sleep and regularly sedated himself with a heavy opiod cocktail. In the end, it was the drugs, of all things, that led to a turning point in his life.<\/p>\n

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He chose freedom over sport<\/h2>\n

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After Palmer took an overdose of painkillers in 2013 and woke up in his own vomit, he confided in a friend for the first time. It changed everything.<\/p>\n

“The next morning, I had changed in a way I didn\u2019t anticipate. I hadn\u2019t realised until then, but this was the first time in my life I had truly felt free. Not long after, I decided I needed to stop playing rugby and begin the next chapter of my life.”<\/p>\n

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Palmer found a new passion: he studied psychology and neuroscience in Canberra. He is currently writing his doctoral thesis on cellular mechanisms of brain function. With his outing, the ex-professional athlete hopes to stimulate discussion and create understanding of what a person goes through in his situation.<\/p>\n

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Dan Palmer is a neuroscience Honours student using electrophysiology to investigate the cellular mechanisms of #epilepsy<\/a>. In a past life he was a professional rugby player @BrumbiesRugby<\/a> @qantaswallabies @FCGrugby<\/a>, and currently coaches the Brumbies here in Canberra.#WeAreJCSMR<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/GNpFYr0J6Y<\/a><\/p>\n

— John Curtin School of Medical Research, ANU (@JCSMR) April 26, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n