1 EVOCATIVE MUSIC Captions by Pippa Jefferies. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 It's gonna rain. BLUES MUSIC We are just on Carrs Rd, just north of Urenui, and this is one of our farm paddocks that we` the farm that we used to own. Paddock number 31. BLUES MUSIC Working on a farm with depression is horrible. It really is. It's the inability to do the things that you could do, and you know that. Um, and you're not oblivious to it, and you know that you can't do a full day's work. Um, you know how physically hard it is, and you're not able to do that. You know how demanding it is. All of those things get together, and they get at you. Most farmers can have a problem, analyse it, sort a solution and fix it. But depression's not` can't do that. I couldn't fix what I had. BLUES MUSIC Yeah, this farm's been in the family for four generations. MUSIC CONTINUES LIGHT SWITCH CLICKS The job sort of defined who I was. I was` I was a farmer. That's what I was. You got the sense of what you're worth, and then to not be able to do it just didn't feel right for me. You spend 80 hours a week on a farm working. You know, that's` that's a big part of your life. You're basically selling off everything you'd worked with and for` you know, for the last 20 years, and, um, yeah, emotionally it was really hard. It was really hard. A struggle that day. It really was. So, uh... You know, like selling the stock. I mean, it was really tough the day the` one of the herds was trucked out the gate to head to the South Island. It was really... really hard for that, you know, because, I mean, these were animals and stuff that we'd cared for, you know, for` for 20 years. Coffee? Yes, please. Anything in the paper? No. Haven't got that far into it, actually. A slow morning? Yeah, definitely. Farmers are optimists. They will see something, and they'll be optimistic that they can do it. So they` Generally, they'll take on a large amount of debt, so increase stock, increase feed, increase pressure, increase stress. They'll back themselves to do anything. It's a self-imposed stress. Doctors will tell you that, um, periods of intense stress over long periods of time, um, bang, depression. He was always looking at the neighbours' farm,... (LAUGHS) Oh yeah. ...you know, um, instead of actually thinking that enough is enough. Um, and that the stress is getting to John, the way of dealing with that was 'head in the sand' stuff, that 'let's get bigger' because that will help. More` More cows meant more money coming in, which helped the debt and everything else. More staff. More staff. More staff. It justified everything. But really it` it was just not quite thinking straight. Yeah, I didn't believe I had depression, because to me it was normal. I did have days when I would go to do something and I couldn't finish it. And I'd end up back at home, and` and Linda would pick up this side, and she'd know what's gone on. Um, so, you know, we'd sit and have a coffee and, um... and then she'd say to me, 'Look, it's, you know, an hour till lunch. Why don't you just shoot out and finish that job 'and then come back, and then we'll have lunch.' With depression, they're long periods of time that you don't feel motivated. John` John could get his overalls and go and sit and put his work boots on but just couldn't move the 20m out on to the concrete pad to go and fix the tractor or, you know, do some maintenance or do something else. Any plans for the day? No. Nah. No. Not a very nice day to do anything. No. < It'll be all right. Yeah. < We could do the walkway. We could do the walkway. It's a good idea. Get some fresh air. Mm, yeah. You can borrow my yellow coat and... (LAUGHS) > I wouldn't be seen dead in your yellow raincoat. BOTH LAUGH BLUES MUSIC When we first had to realise that things had actually got worse was we'd been out to dinner the night before, and the next morning I couldn't get him out of bed. He just was in a ball, talking about a black hole, and this was really scary. John couldn't eyeball. He couldn't do anything, and the GP diagnosed depression. They were telling me the things that I needed to know and that I had depression and I could get through it and I needed to, you know, do things differently. Yeah, two years after John had been started on the anti-depressants and, um, theoretically was supposed to be getting well because he was going to counselling every week and, um` I could see that he wasn't really. His` His mood hadn't changed, and his mindset hadn't changed, and he still couldn't function normally as a` as a farmer. Um, and then just one day he just disappeared. We spent about six hours driving, trying to find this man that you love. When you have to involve the police and other things, then it becomes the reality. Then when they bring him home, um,... you know, with the shotgun in the hand and the shotgun there, you know that your life never will be the same again. (BREATHES SHAKILY) Mm. Um, yeah. Eh? So that was our introduction to being in the mental health ward, um, because he was put in there and put in under the Mental Health Act, and all you want is for this person to actually engage with you and say everything is going to be all right. Um, but that doesn't happen. No. It's really hard to try and understand, um, why someone would want to take their life when theoretically we had everything, you know? But you don't see it that way. > No, no. You see it` You feel more guilty, mm. It's a negative thing. All you see around you is a negative. You see these other people enjoying themselves, and you can't be like that. < No. You see families, you know, and mine was a classic. I could` I could be in a room with them and they'd be having fun, and I'd feel like I was sitting in the room next door, and yet you weren't. < No. But that's how you felt. BLUES MUSIC Well, mine came on fairly sudden, and mine was from a complete mental breakdown, brought about by factors I couldn't do anything about. BLUES MUSIC CONTINUES It is a big stigma. You know, you can go and catch a cold or you can break your leg or you can get pancreatic cancer or something and that's OK, but if you've had a mental breakdown or you suffer from bad depression, it really does carry a stigma. Come on. (WHISTLES) 'A lot of people won't say anything, because they feel stink about saying anything, 'so they hold it in, and that's not the thing to do.' When I was depressed and that and when I was, yeah, used to` not so much the hills, the road got to me. All the twists and turns, and it just wasn't very nice. I was, um, like, thinking, 'Man, it's a long way in and out of here all the time.' It's a perfect environment to be depressed in, (CHUCKLES) cos, um, there's no one to see it. BLUES MUSIC DOG BARKS (WHISTLES, COMMANDS DOG) DOG BARKS That's right. BLUES MUSIC CONTINUES Yeah, I live at Whangamomona. The family were all brought up. Five boys and two girls came to Whanga, and then Michael was born a couple of years later, yeah. He was the last one. SOMBRE BLUES MUSIC To take your own life with that much in front of you is, um... We were about to, um, break a` like, set a six-stand 8-hour record between six of us boys. The world record. > Yeah, world record. We were 10 days from our shearing record attempt. He was looking forward to it. He would` Like, we were all fit and no drinking and that kind of stuff. He was probably kind of gunning for a couple of us older ones to try and beat us. Wouldn't have wanted that to happen, cos he'd have had skiting rights otherwise. BLUES MUSIC If it had gone ahead, Michael would have been the youngest world record holder in the world ` 20 years of age. Maybe the pressure of shearing and then a bit of other stuff just didn't help the situation. If he'd had any idea what he'd left behind, he wouldn't have made the decision. Mm. Kids that aren't quite born yet, you know, this sort of thing, um, his own son. He would've never think about tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. Sort of mind-boggling what you` > It's probably what they're thinking at the time. What they're going through was, you know` So it was a pretty long night, that night, yeah. Mm. Yeah, I built up to my breakdown mainly through, um` well, not mainly through it, but a lot of it had to do with not getting any sleep and not being able to let my brain rest. And, um, because your brain didn't rest and you didn't get any sleep, it can only take so much and then something pops, and it popped. BLUES MUSIC Go on. There was probably six or eight weeks of being really really sick and, like, the shakes and the tremors and the crazy things ` is this your brain? It's going round and round a hundred miles an hour and it won't shut off. It forces you to do something about it. You've had enough, man. You're sick of it going round and round and round, so you just think, 'No, man, I'm gonna fix this. 'I'll fix you.' You know? (LAUGHS) If you're not feeling happy, you'll just keep going further and further and further down the hole until it does come to something serious ` you know, a breakdown or complete depression and then you're staring down the end of a gun. Once the big night happened and` and I didn't die, (CHUCKLES) um, yeah, it was a long road back from there. It probably took... a year, probably, but it got` Oh, for probably three or four months, it got` it was... very slow progress. BLUES MUSIC I got right away from here for, um, six weeks and went to the other side of the world and saw my mates, and then I was able to come back and it wasn't so bad. It was` You know, I could cope with it. Because farming's a 'seven days a week', you know, job and they've got to leave their farm with somebody and all of` all their dogs and horses and their chickens and they just feel like they can't go away and leave that to somebody else. Because they're such hands-on people and they do everything themselves, they just feel like they can't do that. But, um, if you` if you wanna get through these things sometimes, you do need to take yourself right out of the picture and just have that break. And when you come back, you feel like you can take it on again. So, what's it like having your gumboots back on again after having your townie clothes on, John? Yeah, no, I'm quite happy to put my gumboots on any time at all. I might have to book you in for a bit of relief milking. (LAUGHS) Oh, it is a relief not` not to be tied to that` that again. It` Yeah. I don't, um` I won't miss that. You've been tied 24-7 for a long time on the farm. Yeah, I have. Yeah. My diagnosis was, um, severe depression, and` and the belief is that, you know, long, long hours and hard physical work in all sorts of conditions and stress associated with farming had caused me slowly over a period of time to become, um, deeply depressed. Um, I` I wasted a few years because I felt that everyone else was wrong and I could get a handle on it. The first suicide attempt was probably the point where I realised that, you know, what they were talking about was` was right. The people that have got it as a rule don't necessarily feel they've got` they don't see that there's an issue... No. ...and that they'll be fine. Um, and, um, you know, it makes it difficult for others around them to treat them like that. I spent a week with my brother four days before he died` well, took his life. And I walked down the street of Gore with him, and it would have been six days before he took his life, and he looked me in the eye and said, 'Mark, do you really think I've got depression?' This was a guy in the deepest, darkest hole he could have ever come across. < Yeah. And he still wouldn't accept that he had depression. It's a gradual process. It's not suddenly you wake up one morning and you've got depression. It doesn't work like that. No. Um, and so the signs can quite often just creep in in someone's behaviour and not really be noticed. They're becoming withdrawn, not wanting to join social activities, not falling asleep, falling asleep early at night-times, major weight loss without any reason for that weight loss. Pulling away from close family members and that type of issue. Um` Saying no to social occasions... > Yep. ...where they would they would have always have used to have gone out. > Yeah, yeah. Inability to concentrate. Yeah. I` I still get a bit disillusioned as to what you've gotta do to fix the problem, you know? And realistically you wanna stop the deaths, and we just don't seem to be making a dent in it. BLUES MUSIC It's hard to let go of the farm, really. I` I have flashbacks. (LAUGHS) I think you might surprise yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. It's early days. It really is early days. You do something like that for 30-odd years; it stays with you. It doesn't disappear quickly. It's part of` part of what the` what it is, I guess. Yep. Well, I` You're at a new` new stage of your life, which has gotta be good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we'll get there. Get there. Yep. BLUES MUSIC For me, it's been about learning to live my life with depression. I have to work hard to` to go out and think, 'This is a really great day.' I've actually gotta tell myself that that's what it is because my mind doesn't naturally go there. PEOPLE CHATTER I just really feel just uncomfortable, just like... I` It's almost like being watched. It sounds terrible, but it's so you feel like you're under scrutiny, um, that you don't` you don't fit in. I suppose you feel like, uh, insecure. That's why when Linda's around, it's` it's usually better. (MOUTHS) One day it'll be OK, and the next day it won't. I` I don't know that. I can't figure that out. Um... What's the first thing you look at when you come into a place? (LAUGHS) How to get out. How to get out. That's it. That's a classic. Life is not your own. You know, it's controlled by whether you can go and do something or... And the answer isn't just to confront it all the time, to put yourself out of the comfort zone. It just doesn't work like that. You know, it's just small steps,... It's a managed process, really. ...and it is managing it and doing it at the time. When you come in here, you're feeling uncomfortable,... Mm. ...what tools are you using for what`? Again, it's... We went` We've done mindfulness courses and that, and it's about that. It's the breathing ` slowing the breathing down and focus on what's going on and be` being here and not over there. Sheep and beef property was 350-odd hectares. Yeah, I was there, oh, probably 15, 18 years, I think, um, running the farm. BEEPING My formative years were all done on the` on the farm. Learnt to run cross-country on the farm. Heading toward Cheviot will be the end of that day, which will be good. And then... another 130 K, another two days to get up to Picton. The big run I'm looking at doing in, um, November ` 5th of November ` starting down in Bluff to run through to the cape. The unofficial record is about 18 days. I'm wanting to do it in 16 days, which involves running about three marathons a day, so it'll be anything from 16 to 18 hours a day. Crazy things start going on. Your mind just starts wanting to shut your body down. It has that power to shut the body down when it doesn't wanna go any more. I'm gonna go through the bad days, and they're gonna be shocking days. You can do that with depression. You have absolutely hellish days, and you wonder what it's all about, why it's happening. REFLECTIVE MUSIC Yeah, I guess where I've come from, um, over the last 10 years, there was a strong chance that I may never have been here to experience what I'm about to embark later on this year through crazy, wayward thoughts that came about with depression and` and wanting to end your life. BLUES MUSIC Running's played a huge, huge part of my mental health and well-being. MUSIC CONTINUES It's` It's a damn good lifestyle. You know, you're your own boss, doing your own thing when you want. Just a great sense of achievement when you produce animals that are looking the best they can. But, you know, the dairy farmers and` and, you know, sheep farmers, sheep and beef farmers, you know, if they've got huge mortgages... BLUES MUSIC ...it's tough. You've gotta wonder what it's all about and why you're doing it. That lifestyle just` just disappears and turns into a grind. Gotta get that horse over there. How did you`? When did he go over there? Oh, last night. Jesus, he was a bit bloody keen, wasn't he? Yeah, he'll either` he'll either come back or he won't. And if he doesn't, well, we'll have to just use one horse, so we'll` OK. Yeah, well, as long as I don't have to go in. I'm not gonna get a wet arse. Right. So... All right, so we better` And he's a bit hard to get. Yeah, last year when things really started hitting hard for the dairy farmers last year, um, I thought, 'OK, well, I've gotta do my training somewhere. 'I can load my buggy up with my tools and, um` fencing tools and a spade and bits and pieces, 'my gumboots and my dog and sort of run round the Waikato, 'helping` helping out if there was help` help needed.' I'd run to the farm and look at doing whatever they wanted me to do. Busy looking at you. I was lending my hands during the day, and at night-time they put me up and I was lending my ears at night-time. Get over! Get over! (SHOUTS) Get over! Get over! (SHOUTS) I heard some really sad stories. Some of them are really really doing it really hard, showing signs of a huge amount of stress and stressors and heading down that path of depression, which is what I've experienced at different times, and been able to talk with them and let them` tell them, you know, 'Go and get some sleep. Make yourself go and get some sleep.' They've got all the excuses in the world not to, but if you don't get enough sleep, everything gets out of hand. It's 10 times worse than what it's supposed to be. Pick up. Catch him, catch him, catch him, catch him! Catch him! Oh, well, Grunter, we didn't get the horse, but, um... No. It was a bit of a bugger. ...we can have a` He seemed pretty happy over there. BOTH LAUGH Kiwi cockies, you know, they don't want to go to the doctor and have a talk. They don't wanna say anything to their partner. They wanna` They see it as a sign of weakness to say something, you know, 'I'm can't cope. I'm not coping,' you know? Um, but, yeah, they` they need to. We need to. It's not just for cockies, you know? It's everybody. BIRDS CHIRP BIRDS CONTINUE CHIRPING Um, this was Michael's favourite duck pond, and ever since he was a little fella, he was always shooting ducks. Then after he died, we decided to build a decent maimai, so that's how it all started, so... And then we planted the tree as well, mm. We haven't shot any ducks here yet, but Craig's gonna come up next weekend, the last weekend. I'm saving it. LAUGHS: Yeah. Yeah, this is just a` just a visitor's book, really. Um, Rochelle said I'd better write something in the book, so I thought I better write it. So, I didn't know how to put it, so I thought I'd write a letter to Michael. (EXHALES) 'Dear Michael, 'it doesn't seem that long ago I brought you back from the hospital, 2 days old. 'First stop, the pub. Everybody was waiting to see you, all. 'I remember a few funny moments. Crashing your bike down the Putik. Went over the bank. 'When you did a skid beside the Beehive and they chased you down the road.' (CLEARS THROAT) 'Who's going to carry the pigs now? 'Who's gonna shoot all the ducks? Who's gonna make the pancakes? You made the best out of all of us. 'I taught you to pull a sickie so you could go shearing up the Mang on school days. 'All your brothers taught you to smoke. Mum taught you to drink. 'And Nana taught you not to swear. 'Nobody taught you to be strong and look after yourself. We're all so sorry, Michael. 'Why didn't you give us a call or your mates? 'You have some great mates and family. We're all here for you. 'You are now home with us under the blue totara tree. 'We all miss you so much and would do anything to have you back. 'I hope you like the maimai, the best in Whanga. I've gotta go. The ducks are coming in. Dad.' So, um, and everybody else writes stories as well, but, um, that's the best I can do. You hear about people that have depression or have` or have had a mental breakdown and that have really, you know` you might think, you know, they've gone a bit loopy, you know. But until you've actually been there and really felt it for yourself, you don't really have the empathy or anything that goes with it, but once you've had it` I've been actually privileged in a way to have actually experienced my experience, because I actually know how it feels now for some of these guys that live with it and, um, that can't get through, and I do understand a lot of how and why it happens. And it's sad, but it is part of the world we live in. You know, so... You know, you can` You can come out of it, and that's the thing you've got to think about ` is that it doesn't last forever. It'll come right if you just give it time. Yeah, things have changed. I mean, I've` The counselling's taught me a lot, um, and it's a really crucial part for someone who's` who's, you know, got depression or anxiety or any sort of mental illness. It's really important. Um, and I` One part of that counselling was to teach me what to look for in what was going on around me and how I was focusing on things. So, you know, I've been refocused now a little bit with regards to time off and being able to actually` to physically leave the farm but also to mentally leave the farm. REFLECTIVE MUSIC If you're positive about something, there's a big change in your mindset, and for me that positivity's what I need. We don't have too many expectations, but we're confident that we can make the right decisions that we'll enjoy what's coming up. It's nice to see the positivity, isn't it? Yeah, it is. Yeah, and feel it? Yeah, definitely. Well done. (CHUCKLES) Yeah, I know. After losing Mick, you start thinking about it ` all your mates and stuff like that, cos it's, um` What happened with Mick, it's not the first one that we've known of, but we didn't really know how to react or how to feel. And now it's happened to us, it's, um` it's a lot different to, uh` to what you would if it was just someone else that you knew, but you didn't know how to, um, feel about it. Didn't know how to approach them. Yeah, that's more the thing, approaching people. You just go and have a coffee with somebody, just... out of the blue. Just call around, 'Oh, coming in for coffee,' and just sit there and` and talk, you know? Um, and not even` About everything else. It doesn't really matter. You don't have to mention the` his trouble, but just talk about farming or rugby or whatever, you know? Just for... Just call in random, eh? Just have a yarn about anything. Yeah. Anything, yeah. Yeah. Just so they're not by themselves. BLUES MUSIC