This article mentions suicide.
As part of the promotion for his upcoming book Plans for Your Good: A Prime Minister’s Testimony of God’s Faithfulness, former prime minister Scott Morrison has revealed he took antidepressants in 2021 while in office to ward off bouts of acute anxiety.
It’s the first time any former occupant of the Lodge has spoken so explicitly about the toll the job can take on a person’s mental health, not to mention discussed using medication as a result.
The praise Morrison has received for his candour is a positive sign of how discussions around the mental health of political leaders have progressed.
Abraham Lincoln
There are obviously many issues with speculating on the mental health of long-dead figures — different language, different expectation of seeking help or a diagnosis — but in some cases there is a great deal of evidence that they suffered from serious distress. Contemporaries of Abraham Lincoln consistently describe his “melancholy” — “No element of Mr Lincoln’s character,” said his friend and biographer Henry Whitney, “was so marked, obvious and ingrained as his mysterious and profound melancholy.” Lincoln’s law partner William Herndon said, “His melancholy dripped from him as he walked.”
Joshua Wolf Shenk, who wrote the 2005 book Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness, noted that Lincoln’s melancholy — at one time an accepted fact of his life — had been cut out of his life story by 20th century historians, potentially fuelled by a desire “to toss out evidence they found distasteful”.
Winston Churchill
“You must not suppose that any of my depressions here have any relation to those terrible and reasonless depressions w[hic]h frighten me sometimes,” Churchill wrote to his wife in 1916. There is a great deal of debate around just how serious the “black dog” that afflicted him throughout his life was; some have gone so far as to suggest he may have had bipolar disorder, swerving from intense energy and impulsive activity to paralysing depression. Others have insisted his “dark moods” were never anything more than the understandable response to the strains of high office during wartime, perhaps exacerbated by Churchill’s legendary alcohol intake.
Churchill’s physician Lord Moran, who prescribed amphetamines and barbituates for Churchill, made notes of his conversations with his patient, including one passage where Churchill apparently said something to the effect of:
I don’t like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don’t like to stand by the side of the ship and look down into the water. A second’s action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.
John Brogden
In 2005 Brodgen was opposition leader for the NSW Liberals, doing well in the polls and looking likely to lead the party back into government against a wobbling Labor. Then, after allegedly drunkenly propositioning two journalists and referring to his rival Bob Carr’s wife as “a mail order bride” at an AHA function, his political career in ruins, Brodgen attempted suicide in his office.
Brogden is now a chairman for suicide prevention hotline Lifeline. He reflected in 2023:
“I remember talking to my doctor, saying, ‘My God — what do I do now? Everything I wanted is now gone.’
“He said, ‘John… things will get better.’
“And I thought, ‘Why are you teasing me? Everything’s crushed!’
“But he was right. Things did get better.”
Geoff Gallop
Gallop led the WA Labor Party back into power in 2001, taking 13 seats off the Richard Court government. He won again in 2005, making his resignation in 2006 all the more shocking. He announced that he was ending his 20 year career on account of his battle with depression:
Living with depression is a very debilitating experience which affects different people in different ways … My doctors advised me that with treatment, time and rest this illness is very curable. However, I can’t be certain how long that will take — so in the interests of my health and my family I’ve decided to rethink my career.
In 2017 he reflected that while the debate on mental health had improved, stigma remained:
“The general knowledge of this issue has improved — but of course, you can have more knowledge about something without necessarily having a better attitude towards it,” he told the ABC. “There are still elements of stigma that are very debilitating.”
For anyone seeking help, Lifeline is on 13 11 14 and Beyond Blue is on 1300 22 4636. To speak to a First Nations crisis supporter, call 13 YARN (13 9276). In an emergency, call 000.
