Wales rugby legend Gareth Thomas has opened up on the psychological torment he has gone through during the coronavirus lockdown and revealed how he has 'cried a lot.'
The former Wales captain, who also led the Lions during their 2005 tour to New Zealand, gave a candid description of his innermost feelings whilst appearing on the Jeremy Vine show.
Alfie, capped 100 times by Wales, revealed he was HIV positive last year and admits the words 'virus' and 'disease' have been triggers for him while the coronavirus crisis has dominated the news outlets.
"I will admit the start of it was very, very difficult for me because for me anxiety is like a loss of control and that brings a huge amount of fear into me. At the start of it I didn't feel like I was in control," he told the show.
"It went from one day to the next. I suddenly felt this pressure I suppose of having to fill time, so I found the pressure to get really fit or become a genius to do a jigsaw, or learn to bake banana bread and some things that weren't me, so I found that challenging."
Thomas says "I cried a lot" because he was missing those close to him.
"I was very anxious and very afraid," he says.
"I was obsessed with the news and I was obsessed with finding out more about coronavirus so that brought a more fear.
"I am somebody who has HIV, which is a virus, and yet I find the word disease something that really scares me, is really discriminatory.
'You look at the tabloids and they are calling it different things, they are calling it a virus, a disease, a pandemic, and they are trigger words which to me - someone who is very anxious and very afraid anyway - it heightened my senses and heightened my fear."
To overcome his issues, Thomas took to helping others in his local community.
"I don't take pleasure out of knowing people are in worse circumstances than mine. People often say you know: 'It could be worse, you could be so and so down the road'," he continued.
"What I do now, is I do a lot of work in the community which helps other people and how you feel and gives you a purpose because you're helping people who are in worse circumstances than mine.
"That gives me a real sense of purpose, a sense of actually being able to get through this thing by helping other people."
