“I bear in mind at a degree earlier than the Euros, I used to be pondering ‘can I proceed to do that?’. I had no escape,” Furness tells BBC Sport NI as she opens up about her psychological well being journey.
“It was a very, actually robust choice, however the little woman in me needed to play at a serious event, to go and expertise that.”
She boarded the airplane to the Southampton, and, along with her customary smile, made historical past stepping out towards Norway in Northern Eire girls’s first match at a serious event.
However behind the outgoing persona, issues have been brewing.
Halfway by way of the event she needed to go dwelling for the sake of her psychological well being.
“You would possibly suppose it is loopy, however I simply wasn’t completely satisfied,” says Furness.
“Every thing simply appeared so in place on the soccer facet, it was going very well.”
Within the background, all the pieces wasn’t as rosy.
Off the pitch, she had been processing the tip of a long-term relationship alongside her father’s sickness.
Coupled with the high-intensity atmosphere of a serious event, she had reached breaking level.
“Personally, I wasn’t pleased with myself within the atmosphere,” Furness provides.
“You then begin to query, why? Why am I doing this? Why do I really feel like this?”
After shedding some tears, she composes herself to recall the conversations as team-mates tried to influence her to stay in camp, fairly than stroll out on a marketing campaign that was the top of all their worldwide careers.
Furness and her fellow gamers talked lengthy and deep, looking from their lodge overlooking Southampton’s sun-kissed harbour. Ultimately, she was satisfied to remain.
“I am glad I did keep as a result of I’m going again to that second with the followers on the finish, and pondering that was all price it,” she says. “That is the particular second I take away.”
However when the singing stopped, when the dancing was achieved, a call remained.
Furness had managed to get by way of the event, however her thoughts was made up. She wanted to take a step again from a crew she liked a lot.
After the event, she had conversations with employees about “how I used to be feeling, and the way I used to be made to really feel” and why she could not stick with it.
“It was robust to get throughout how I felt, and the way mentally I used to be feeling,” she says.
“I did blame myself for lots of that. Earlier than I might spoken to someone and made sense of it, you just do blame your self.
“I really like representing Northern Eire, and taking that threat of stepping again, by no means figuring out if I might step again in, was one of many greatest choices of my life.
“Two years on you may inform it nonetheless touches and it nonetheless means loads, but it surely’s one I can comfortably discuss now. I am in a significantly better place for that.”