Ronan Keating's grief attacks

Nov 16, 2009, 5:01 GMT

Irish singer Ronan Keating is grieving still. EPA/TRACEY NEARMY

Ronan Keating has suffered anxiety attacks since Stephen Gately's death.

The Boyzone singer has been devastated since his bandmate passed away last month and admits he is still struggling to come to terms with his grief and has been left emotionally exhausted by the tragedy.

He said: "I just feel worn out. I haven't slept. My brain doesn't work. My heart's broken. You just feel crushed. I've had good days and bad days.

"The bad days are horrible, it's like the walls are coming in on top of you. Anxiety I think is what they call it.

"I haven't been sleeping at all lately. It's been horrible. We've all been feeling the same way since Stephen passed. Mentally I'm absolutely exhausted.

"There's times when you feel like you can't breathe, you know, when you're panicking and I'm not like that. I've always been on a level."

Ronan - whose mother Marie died of cancer in 1998 - admits he is even considering having therapy to help him through his grief.

He added to Britain's Observer newspaper: "I've never before thought about going to get help with counsellors. For the first time ever I think I should.

"When I lost my mum it was the hardest thing at the time I'd ever known in my life but because she was sick for two years and we were told three months before she died that she had three months left, subconsciously you build a wall, your defence mechanism goes up and you prepare yourself for that.

"Whereas with Steo, there was nothing, just this wall of devastation, shock. I don't think it has hit any of us properly."

Stephen died aged 33 from an acute pulmonary edema, a build-up of fluid in the lungs, at his holiday home in Majorca on October 10.