Scott Morrison, AKA that bloke who used to sometimes run Australia when he wasn’t busy cooking curries or watching Sharkies games, has made a vulnerable admission about his mental health. Morrison revealed that he suffered from anxiety during his time as Prime Minister (and Health Minister, Finance Minister, Industry, Science, Energy and Resources Minister, Home Affairs Minister, and Treasury Minister).
In an interview with The Australian, Morrison shared that while he was PM he began struggling with “debilitating and agonising” anxiety problems, and began taking medication for it.
Morrison shared with the publication that there were plenty of things that were causing him to suffer from the mental health problem that one in four Australians faces.
And to give credit to the guy (which I don’t ever do, but will just this once), being the leader of a country during the COVID-19 pandemic would have taken a pretty decent toll on a person’s mental health.
“It was a very stressful period and the combination of the weight of issues, the length of hours that we were working, the physical demands that brought, and to be honest the stuff around China was as — if not more — distressing than the pandemic,” Morrison told The Australian.
“You’re flesh and blood, and so it would start to impact you.”
Morrison was interviewed to promote his upcoming political memoir, “Plans For Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness“, in which he writes about how his Christian faith impacted him during his time as PM.
In an excerpt he shared how his doctor was “amazed” he went so long without seeking medical help and prescribed him a treatment medication to help.
“Without this help, serious depression would have manifested. What impacted me was the combination of pure physical exhaustion with the unrelenting and callous brutality of politics and media attacks,” Morrison wrote.
Just gonna pause and point out to Scott that there’s a difference between media “attacks” and media “reports on the cooked shit you did while PM“.
I wouldn’t call it an “attack” to say you went to Hawaii when the country was on fire, or that you lied about being there. An attack is more like what you did by letting Katherine Deves start a culture war on trans people during the 2022 Federal Election. Hope that helps clear things up!
“As a politician, I know this goes with the territory. That’s not a complaint or even an accusation. It’s just reality. Politicians are not made of stone, yet they’re often treated as though they are, including by each other, ” he continued.
Morrison also wrote of how the anxiety he felt impacted his physical health, and his relationships with friends, and Jen and the girls.
“You dread the future and you can’t get out of bed. It can shut you down mentally and physically. It robs you of your joy and can damage relationships. I know this from personal experience,” he wrote.
Other politicians, such as Morrison’s predecessor PM Malcolm Turnbull, have also shared in their memoirs the struggles they have with mental health. In Turnbull’s 2020 memoir “A Bigger Picture” he admitted to battling suicidal thoughts.
This bears as a humble reminder that politicians, infuriating and foolish as some of them may be, are humans too, and struggle with issues of mental health just like any other person.
Always be sure to check on your mates, ask them how they are doing, and let them know how you feel too. Communication is how we can all help each other, and ourselves.
One can only imagine how stressful and anxiety-inducing it was for Morrison to hide the fact he appointed himself to five additional cabinet ministries.
[Image: Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images]
