Editor’s note: this article discusses themes of suicide, depression and mental health. If any of these topics raise concerns or issues for you, you can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue on 1300 224 636.
The stigma surrounding mental health has receded dramatically in the past 20 years, but there is still a long way to go before mental health is treated no differently from any physical disease, the Professional Planner Researcher Forum has heard.
In conversation with Conexus Financial founder and managing director Colin Tate AM, Lifeline International honorary president John Brogden told the forum the ability for people to talk among family, friends and in their workplaces about the issues they are facing, including the treatments they’re receiving, “is so much better and so much different” now that it was even just two decades ago.
“We’ve had an enlightenment in the way we talk about, and we think about, and we feel about mental health in Australia,” Brogden said.
He added that one of his principal objectives in his post-politics career is to “normalise mental illness, because it’s just an illness of an organ called the brain”.
“There’s nothing abnormal about having depression. There’s nothing abnormal about having a bad knee, et cetera. But we don’t want to normalise suicide, because we want people to live. That’s not a moral judgment, or values or a religious judgment. We don’t want to say it’s normal to kill yourself.”
Betterment Consulting and Mongrels Men director and founder Tim Hewson said that when his mental health issues were at their worst there was little that he believed could be done about it – not even talking to family or friends.
“I’ve now got the benefit of maturity, experience, and retrospect,” Hewson said.
“I can look back at my childhood now and see that what I felt as a teenage boy wasn’t just worry, it was intense paranoia, where there were days that I couldn’t leave the house to go to school unless my tie knot and my hair were absolutely perfect.
“And so you roll that teen angst, worry and paranoia through to my 20s, when I’m working in financial markets, and I would start every single day like clockwork at 9.30 having a panic attack in the bathroom, shutting myself away in the cubicle, holding my hands up against the walls to hang on to a whisper of hope and control for five to 10 minutes, where I’d collect myself go back to my desk and just pretend that everything was okay and continue to bury myself in work, fear, shame and ignorance.
“And this is the early 2000s – so think about how much mental health awareness and negative stigma has changed: I shared that with nobody. Family, friends, colleagues, nobody knew. And so, roll the clock forward, in my 30s, and unchecked and untreated, having done nothing but bury my head in ignorance – I didn’t want to ask what was wrong, because I actually didn’t want to know the answer – that became depression.”
Hewson said that if someone were to ask his family what they observed at the time they’d say, “dad’s a workaholic”.
“He’s tired, he’s always grumpy and he’s irritable,” Hewson said.
“I buried myself in work, work, work and more work.
“I am proof that you can spend 20 to 30 years in an industry, you can turn up to work every day, do your job, you can lead teams, get promoted, and still have your mental health be a complete mess. It wasn’t until my 40s that I, as part of [a] separation, I finally got some professional help.”
Brogden’s position at Lifeline has made him one of the country’s most visible and high-profile advocates for addressing the stigma of mental health and airing the issues that needs to be discussed publicly.
Brogden’s own mental health issues reached a nadir when, despite a career that from the outside appeared glittering, he attempted to take his own life. He said he knows now that many of the things that led him to that point originated in childhood and led him to become, as he described it, “a very ambitious and very angry young man”, but nevertheless outwardly successful: he was elected Leader of the NSW Liberal Party and leader of the opposition at age 33.
“You know, you do your media conferences, you stand up and speak in Parliament, you do those things with a magnificent mask on – physically, it’s suit and tie,” he said.
“But behind the scenes, I was inconsolably miserable.”
Mental health in the workplace
Brogden noted that it’s not just society that has changed to accommodate mental health issues better than in years gone by; the law has changed as well. Employers have a clear duty of care to employees for their psychological safety as well as their physical safety.
“You are responsible as employers for the psychological safety – not the good mental health, but black-letter law psychological safety – of your staff,” Brogden said.
“We are going to see the mother of all legal cases at some stage where somebody in the workplace takes their own life because they were in a psychologically unsafe workplace.
“We design jobs based on physical safety. Do we sit down and say, ‘I have designed this job so it is psychologically safe?’ No, I don’t think many employers do. Every state now has industrial manslaughter laws, so you could go to jail if you do not provide a safe, physical and psychological workplace. So it’s the right thing to do. It’s also the legal thing to do.”
Hewson said more people would be able to positively address mental health issues in the workplace “with the right framework”.
“People duck out to go to the gym and pilates or yoga,” he said.
“They play social, corporate sports, meet other people, take walking meetings. All the mechanics are there, you just need to amplify it.”
Hewson said that while mental health awareness has undoubtedly improved and the negative stigma associated with it has reduced, even though funding has increased, growing numbers of people are experiencing poor mental health.
He said Mongrels Men is unashamedly aimed at males – seven out of the nine suicides that occur every day are men – to provide them with a brave space and a sense of community.
“They’re branded,” Hewson said.
“Guys turn up in their Mongrels gear, and this visually represents the strength of the pack they have surrounding them for support. They walk as a group, they’re a group of men sharing their shit in a brave space. We are creating new communities of men to support one another and if I think about where we’re having the greatest impact…it’s our communities in outback Queensland, and that’s because they need it the most.”
Hewson said some of the older men who are involved with Mongrels Men don’t necessarily see it as addressing mental health issues per se.
“You talk to a lot of guys, especially older guys, and they’re like, ‘You know what? We know Mongrels Men is a mental health charity, but we’re not here for that stuff, we just walk and talk and share a few laughs and tell some stories’,” Hewson says.
“I’ve walked with these guys and heard the conversations these guys have. So, I can tell you firsthand, the conversations these guys have and the support they provide one another have saved lives.”
Living with mental health issues
Brogden said he’s learned that the key to living with mental health issues is managing it properly. “There’s no doubt about that,” he said.
“For me, that’s sleep, it’s eating well, a bit of exercise – or I say ‘activity’. The problem is, when we hear ‘exercise’, people think you’ll do 100 push ups. It’s really activity – go for a walk.”
Brogden said that he experiences suicidal ideation and depression, and a key part of managing that is a focus on “the hope that I have” through the relationship with his wife Lucy; particularly as their kids get older and they begin “to step out and do their own things”.
“And you know, strangely enough, at 55, the hope of grandchildren too,” he said.
“And I’ve got to fight, sometimes, against the ‘I-can’t-get-up-in-the-morning stuff. That still happens.”
Hewson said that for him a large part of managing his mental health is maintaining a clear sense of purpose, which he achieves through both his consulting work and his men’s health advocacy.
“I recently left this industry so that I can have a positive impact on the people in my family, my friendship groups, and create mentally healthier communities and humans in every industry” he said.
“But I still need a routine. I need to get in the water six days a week. I need to connect with other people, and I need to move. And if I don’t do these things, I get a little weird.”
