Speaking for the first time since his return to the fold, Araujo offered a candid and emotional insight into the darkness he had been living with long before his leave of absence. In a raw interview with Mundo Deportivo, the centre-back admitted that he had been masking his symptoms for 18 months, trying to maintain the facade of the tough defender fans adore.
"I'd been dealing with anxiety for a year and a half that turned into depression, and I was playing like that," he said. "That doesn't help, because on the field you don't really feel like yourself. You know your worth and what you can contribute on the field, and when I wasn't feeling well, I knew something was wrong. That day I realised that was it, that I needed to talk to professionals and the club so they could help me."
He explained that his cultural background and the machismo often associated with football made it difficult to admit vulnerability, adding: "You try to be strong, perhaps because of your roots, where you come from, you start to push forward, but I felt like I wasn't okay. Not just in sports, but also in my family and personal life. I wasn't feeling like myself, and that was when it clicked and I said: something's wrong, I need to speak up and ask for help. I'm the type of person who keeps everything to myself, but you also have to understand that there are professionals who can help you, give you tools to know how to handle certain situations… I needed to speak up and say that something was wrong with me so I could recover."