Living with Depression – Andrew Robb

The Hon Andrew Robb was introduced by the Hon Barry O’Farrell at The Sydney Institute on Tuesday 8 August 2011, click here to view.

LIVING WITH DEPRESSION

ANDREW ROBB

I’d like to thank you all for coming tonight. It’s a great privilege to have so many distinguished people, so many friends that have brought great friendship and good humour into our lives.

Many people have said to me that they think I’m a considered person. Well, I’ve got to say to you that I’m not proud of not doing anything about my depression for 43 years.

Since I was about 12 years of age, I produced seratonin about five hours later than most people. And so I walked around for the first few hours each day with inadequate levels of the chemical serotonin – serotonin fires you up for the day. For some people, including myself, such a period is associated with a depressive condition. Then, when my seratonin levels were up to a right amount, I’d pop out of it and be a different person. Instead of being insecure, lacking confidence and not wanting to engage or talk to people, I’d be optimistic, a decision maker. I’d like responsibility; I’ve run organisations of different sorts for 30 years.

About 21 months ago, I was visiting my psychiatrist. I was three months in to what turned out to be six months of experimentation with different forms of medication and different levels of medication. At the end of our discussion, he told me he had just been to a gathering of psychiatrists from around Victoria where colleagues remarked on the spike in visits to them from men over 40, including many executives, since my own case had been made public.

This was a coincidence. A few days before, Louise Adler from Melbourne University Press had rung me and asked if I would write a book about experience with the depression I had gone public about. It was the last thing on my mind, the last thing I wanted to do. But I thanked Louise and said I’d think about it. A couple of days after hearing of this response from the meeting of psychiatrists, I contacted Louise Adler and told her if I could nail my condition I would do the book.

There are, today, hundreds of thousands of people with some form of depressive condition, many of them a lot worse than mine. And they cover it up, don’t deal with it, mainly because of the stigma. It is for that reason that I’ve written this book. And I do hope that some people get a sense of encouragement from it, that you can in fact confront it. Nowadays – not 20 years ago –there are lots of answers.

Medical science still is limited in its understanding of the brain. But much has been achieved in clinical responses. The science is not clear but clinical observations show great improvement. And it takes patience as treatment is different for everybody. It may also involve psychology around how people lead their lives, or a combination of other treatments such as acupuncture, or light treatments.

In my life, I developed strategies to deal with the problem. As many do. When I look back, some were quite sad things. I spent my life trying to release endorphins, or adrenalin that affects our emotions. If I had a belly-laugh with somebody I’d feel better, as you do. I was told that if you smile the same thing happens to a lesser degree. And if you actually mimicked a smile, your brain still thought that it was being told to release endorphins. For about nine years, we lived 20 kilometres out of Canberra. I’d drive into the office with a pen between my teeth. I had my “endorphin pen”, as I used to think of it. I don’t know what people thought coming the other way, or neighbours that passed me.

I’ve had so many different parts in my career. I always said that I was not a morning person. I would never admit to myself that it might be depression. I spent 20 years going into bookshops picking up the books on positive thinking. I’d never pick up a book about depression because that was tantamount to admitting I had a problem. I’d just pick up positive thinking books and go through them.

In our household, we used to joke before 8.30 in the morning that Maureen and I didn’t discuss the state of our marriage before and the kids didn’t ask for money. Yet, it was growing later and later, rather than 8 o’clock it got to noon. When I took a seat in parliament, people would often say to me, “Are you enjoying politics?” It’s an obvious conversation opener. And for five and a half years I would respond that I was getting enormous satisfaction out of it. I would very consciously never say I was enjoying it. And I wasn’t enjoying it. I was getting satisfaction from achieving things but it was a pain most days to get through to lunch time.

I’d have lots of meetings, press conferences, speeches or whatever, and be forcing myself, talking to myself about getting my act together, to get on top of things. It was increasingly frustrating and annoying but, you know, life goes on. Many mornings I’d swim at the Middle Brighton Baths, on Port Phillip Bay, where many other people gather each morning. There’s a steam room to warm you up on cold Melbourne mornings. One day, a year after becoming the local Member of Parliament, a chap I know quite well pulled me aside and said, “Andrew, a lot of the lads think you’re up yourself. You don’t speak to anybody. You say hello, but you don’t talk, you don’t engage. And you’re the new local member.”

It was a jolt. Later, though, I was really grateful to him. But at the time, I thought, oh shit, really? For years I had been doing my daily 1500 metres and people would say, “It must bore you witless, going up and down the black lines.” But for me, it was my meditation. And to be confronted with the fact that I wasn’t engaging in the banter pulled me up. It made me realise that for the first time there was an observable consequence of my “morning problem”.

So, I started going into the steam room. I could then throw in a comment or two while others were all talking. And for the next few years I got away with it. I also found that steam room was full of wisdom. They solved all the problems of the world all the time. All I had to do was listen. Now I have to allow an extra half hour because I’m initiating conversation with so many.

So the thing is, why didn’t I confront it, and why don’t many others confront their condition. The answer is the stigma, the perception that if you’ve have a depressive condition or mental health problem, then you’ve got a character weakness; that you won’t be able to manage responsibility, or be reliable in a crisis.

And I have always been ambitious. I like responsibility and I like making decisions. I am optimistic. I do like to see where we can take things. So, I had felt through a lot of my life that if I admitted, even to myself, that I had a depressive condition – much less admitting to anybody else – that people would view me differently. I would be denied opportunities.

Despite the best work of institutions like the Black Dog Institute in Sydney, Beyond Blue in Melbourne and individuals like Jeff Kennett (and they all do astounding work), there’s still a long way to go as far as the stigma is concerned. I got an email last week from some fellow who said – in reference to Senator Jo Fisher – saying, “When she appears in court I’ll be standing on the footpath reminding her as to just what kind of demented loony she is. But then again, you know all about being a loony, don’t you? How’s the depression going, mate? Hypocritical twat.”

However there are positive signs. The other day I was in Brisbane speaking with the ABC’s Richard Fidler on his program. It was live in Queensland. I got back in the car and wasn’t even to the airport when on my Blackberry up came this little note from a young woman, Claire, somewhere in Queensland. She said:

Hey Andrew, I heard your interview on ABC today regarding your experience with depression. I’ve had depression for years, and when I heard you speak this morning it really made me realise, yet again, that depression is not a weakness but a legitimate issue. As I’m still a student in high school I suppose I’m under rather a lot of pressure to do well. Though in comparison to the pressure placed upon you as a federal politician, it probably seems like nothing. Lately I’ve been feeling that I’m not going to do anything in life because I tend to have weeks or months in which I feel rather like you described in the interview, staring at the wall for two hours rather than answering calls and emails. But you showed me that it’s not a case of my being lazy or, well, stupid. If successful men such as yourself have felt this way then maybe there’s hope for a 16 year old school girl. I do feel like rather an idiot for saying all of this but you have actually made me feel like pursuing my goal of studying law, for the first time in a long time. Thank you, Claire.

Receiving that email alone made writing my book worthwhile.

We can all in our own way make a contribution. A lot of it is just treating it like a broken arm. If you’ve got a broken arm, you go to the doctor. You deal with it.

For me, the first 38 years of my life was in and around agriculture. It’s always bothered me, the levels of demonstrable depression that you can actually see in rural Australia people who are displaying signs of distress. I saw that off and on, not that I was looking for it. But I saw it. And it’s no surprise the number of single car deaths in rural Australia. What you’ll find, in many cases, is that it’s one way of dying with dignity and with life insurance. For so many of them, it is the financial pressure of the ups and downs in agriculture and the isolation many of them confront in trying to work through problem periods.

So, whatever opportunity I’ve got, I’m going to particularly focus in the years ahead on raising awareness and increasing opportunities for treatment in rural and regional Australia.

For 18 months now I’ve had better mornings that I’ve had since I was 12 years of age. It’s a revelation.

Thanks again for sharing this with me. I hope you enjoy the book. I’d just like to conclude by acknowledging firstly our children, who have given great meaning to our life and we’re really proud of them – and I don’t think my morning problems, hopefully, caused too much disruption to their lives – but you know, they’ve all had their battles with illness and other things and it’s part of life for all of us. It’s the way you deal with it that’s important.

And, finally, to my wife Maureen, whom many of you know. She’s a woman of great substance and great common sense. I love her dearly and she has helped me through all of these years with the issue that we never used the “D” work for. So thank you darling. Have a good night, thank you.

*****

OPENING COMMENTS BY THE HON BARRY O’FARRELL

Ladies and gentlemen,

Andrew Robb should have been an MP – and a Minister – much earlier but for the Liberal Party’s usual inability to renew our ranks. Despite his background, skills and interest, the NSW Division of the Liberal Party was unable to secure the opening for Andrew to commence his parliamentary career prior to the 1984 Federal election. It’s a failure that’s always rankled with me – made worse by the fact that the Victorian Party succeeded where we failed.

I’ve always wondered if I could have done more to have helped. I certainly recall conversations with Andrew where he made clear his frustration that ‘time was running out’. I’ve always wondered about the ‘what ifs’ that would have flowed from such a decision – including whether Andrew’s obvious leadership ability would have been recognised in the aftermath of the 2007 defeat.

So it was with relief that I read Andrew’s book. A relief, I suspect, different to that others readers of this great book may experience. Relief to learn that neither I nor the NSW Division had buggered up his career! Relief to finally discover there was another reason – a more personal barrier – to Andrew fulfilling his leadership ambition.

The essence of this book is summed up in three words – three words that took forty years to hear: ‘This is treatable’.

Why it took 40 years for Andrew Robb to hear these words is the reason why ‘Black Dog Daze’ is such an important contribution to our long overdue ‘enlightenment’ on the subject of depression. And the strength of conviction – in the character of the man we get to see on this journey – is paradoxically part of the answer as to why it took four decades for those words to be heard.

Mental illness can be one of the great constraints on personal liberty, fulfilment and opportunity.

But as Andrew tells us in his account of his journey, the objectives of freedom, choice and opportunity that he pursued in Liberal policy – and which were the broad motivations for his call to public life – were not his in his daily life as he created ever more elaborate ways to avoid the entrapment of the ‘morning problem’. Sneezing, hot showers, contriving to walk in the sunshine, cultivating adrenaline to get you through the morning without being found out, his career achievements were made at the expense of his health. In a sense, as he says, it’s was an academy award performance up there with John Hurt and Mel Gibson – and yet he did it for decades and not for a few weeks of a movie shoot.

If there’s one message I take out of this book – other than an even higher regard for Andrew’s integrity and determination – it’s to say that, as much as people suffering from mental illness are doing themselves no favours by ‘acting’, neither are we – as friends and colleagues – doing anyone any favours by ‘acting’ to politely ignore what we often, if we are honest’, suspect might be happening to that person. If we pretend to that person that we haven’t noticed a sign of distress, or a changed pattern – or that it really is normal for someone to lock themselves in their office for the morning – we’re as much an actor in the deceit as they are.

Andrew Robb had the courage to ring Jeff Kennett. But not everyone is lucky enough to have Jeff’s number. And neither should they need to. While great organisations like beyondblue and Lifeline exist, sometimes people need a helpful push from a friend or loved one to make that vital call. For Andrew it took 4 decades: ‘I deeply wish I had confronted my depression earlier’

Andrew, congratulations on your courage in sharing this story. Leadership of this sort, thankfully not unique but still too rare, will give more people the courage to make that call without fearing it will be interpreted as a character weakness, or an end to their career aspirations. And as Andrew has done, help convert the daze of the ‘black dog’, into the ‘blue-sky’ his parents taught him we should look for in the pursuit of freedom and opportunity.