Real Talk: England rugby international Henry Slade opens up on how he overcame OCD struggles | Rugby Union News | Sky Sports

For Henry Slade, there was nothing unusual about his daily routine he had undertaken since childhood. Looking back, however, the England rugby union international now knows there were signs of something he needed to address.

Speaking to Sky Sports News as part of the Real Talk series, Slade opened up on how he came to realise he had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and how speaking to some of his Exeter Chiefs team-mates led to him getting treatment.

Now aged 31, the Gallagher Premiership and European Champions Cup-winning centre acknowledges the impact the routines he had developed were impacting on his life, driven by a fear of what would happen to either him or those closest to him if he did not perform them.

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“Throughout my whole childhood I would have to do certain things to feel okay or to feel safe, or for my friends, family and loved ones, to have peace of mind nothing bad was going to happen,” Slade told Sky Sports News.

“There would always be so many different things I’d have to do, sort of like a checklist. I never really spoke with it about anyone else, I just thought it was something you do.

“It wasn’t until I mentioned it to a couple of people when I was playing at Exeter Chiefs and they said, ‘yeah, that a bit weird – you shouldn’t be doing that’.

“I was spending so much of my day worrying about a certain way I was doing everything. It would take up so much of your day, add extra stress and extra worry to your life.”

Tasks Slade had to perform included switching a light switch off what he considered to be the ‘right’ way, having to repeat it if he got it wrong, and a bedtime routine which took him nearly an hour before he could go to bed.

His OCD habits became part of his rugby life as well, such as having to get changed in a certain way and having to do lace up his boots in a particular manner as well – and suffering a serious injury after not doing so for one game set back his progress while he was trying to break those routines.

“It was so ingrained in my life it naturally progressed into my rugby,” Slade s