Depression hits rural communities
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Mark Pickford is one of four recovering depression sufferers who tell their stories on a new DVD, 'Braver, Stronger, Wiser', released today by the Salvation Army in a bid to publicise the nationwide problem of depression in drought-hit farming communities - and its corollary: persistently high suicide rates.About 1.2 million Australians - adults and young people - live with depression, yet only six per cent of the population identify the disease, in its various forms, as a major health problem. And nowhere is a sufferer more likely to be told - or tell him or herself - to 'snap out of it' than in a isolated bush town or hamlet.
Here, in the hope of accelerating changes to traditional attitudes to this scourge, the young Central West farmer tells his story.
Out of the darkness from the DVD, 'Braver, Stronger, Wiser'.
By Don Fossey
Mark Pickford, a 46-year-old, fifth generation farmer at Cumnock, north-west of Orange in the Central West, is no different from most of his peers - he's the first to admit, for example, that he never wanted to be anything but a farmer.
In particular, he likes working with livestock - "in fact, I just love everything about farming".
But his life - and that of his family - changed dramatically about mid-2002 as the effect of drought and rising feed prices on a once-thriving piggery at "Belleview", a mixed sheep, cattle and pig property, outside Cumnock.
Under the strain of a 120-sow piggery losing about $10,000 a month, his behaviour changed. He became cranky about small things, then increasingly withdrawn; he complained of chest pains and not sleeping well. He stopped seeing friends and going out: "I just wanted to curl up and shut myself away."
Mark felt a failure "because I guess I hadn't done the things I promised myself I would do when I got married... of not meeting your dreams." The young pig farmer was displaying classic signs of deepening depression, but no-one, including his wife, Ros, had any idea what was happening. "I didn't know what to do - just prayed that I would get to somebody; that somebody would be able to help," she said. Ros had always seen her husband as strong-minded, friendly and sure of himself, "and I never thought he would be someone who would suffer from something like depression".
The Pickford family had established the piggery about a year after Mark completed a 12-month farm-tech TAFE course in 1977, slowly building up sow numbers. Later, under a succession plan, Mark's parents, Bruce and Sylvia, moved to Sydney (and later to Yeoval). The younger couple thrived on the hard work, seven days a week, then came the drought from about 2000 and feed prices - under the influence of drought - soared to the point about two years later when the piggery was losing heavily. Cheap Canadian pork imports worsened the situation.
Months later, a penny dropped for Mark when he was working with another farmer who described the headaches and chest pains he had experienced before needing by-pass heart surgery. Mark realised these were the same symptoms he was experiencing. But his GP found no signs of a cardiac problem - instead, he quickly diagnosed depression, saying that any of half a dozen problems the farmer described had the potential to cause the condition. He prescribed anti-depressants.
"At first I thought, 'old ladies' pills', Mark recalls, but it had helped that a friend six months before had told him he was on anti-depressant medication "and I knew he wasn't crazy". Ros said once her husband's medication was balanced (it can take several weeks to adjust dosages and for the remedial effects to kick in) they decided to close the loss-making piggery - despite 90pc of the sows being within a fortnight of farrowing.
"It was a hard day," said Mark, and both admitted to shedding a few tears on the loading ramp before Ros drove off in the farm truck with the sows, bound for the abattoir. But getting the piggery sorted out helped them focus on other hard business decisions and to think outside the square. (The Pickfords still run Shorthorn beef cattle, but sold the sheep off in 2006.)
"I've changed the business structure of my own farm and we've still got the farm. Really it's the best of both worlds - the farm's now working for me, not me for it," Mark said. He now works on other farms "and I'm loving that; I'm still part of agriculture".
As well, he works three days a week as a monitoring officer for the Little River Landcare group - and not the least of the group's work from their Yeoval office is to encourage depressed farmers to see their GPs or community health workers. And Mark has a message to other farmers who might see falling victim to depression as "weakness" or something to be fought alone.
"We often talk about Australian values and what makes an Australian - that stiff upper lip. We say we'll suck it up - get up and get over it, boy... "But I think that Australian values, of mates helping mates, is what we need more of when it comes to dealing with depression. We need to be able to reach out for help.
"If I was a diabetic and decided to stop taking insulin people would call me a fool, but if it's depression pills there's often a different attitude." Mark is reconciled to taking what he jokingly calls his "drought pills", if necessary for the rest of his life.
What's important, he said, was that the family - including teenagers John, 15, and Sarah, 16 - have got their life back.
"We can laugh again - have a joke again. We're not out of the woods financially yet, but we get three feeds a day and that's better than half the world," he said.
To Ros, the final word: "We've gone through this journey and I know it's been hard, but we love each other more than ever, and it's been a great journey."
Article provided by The Land.