Matt's Story

JK: Hi it’s JK here and I’m here with Matt. So Matt, tell me a little about yourself and your background.

Matt: Home for me is Ashburton, I come from an intensive cropping background. Cropping has been a large part of my life.

JK: So tell me about your journey with depression.

Matt: It all started when I was a young fella about 15 or so, I lost a good mate to cancer and I didn’t realise it at the time but I was starting a downward trend then.

JK: Tell me what some of the triggers were for you.

Matt: Probably the harvest was the biggest one, it was big hours in the combine and tractors and just the stress of it all- it was pretty tough really. The self-doubt was the biggest one. The, "I’m not doing good enough, I’m not doing a good enough job."

JK: And how did that emotion come out in you?

Matt: It didn’t, and that was the biggest problem really, I kept it inside and I just kept holding it in, holding it in and it spiraled down hill and I felt very responsible for dragging other people down. And that, of course, dragged me down even more.

JK: So what was the turning point then?

Matt: Probably my cousin, he gave me that kick, that shove that I needed to talk to a professional person and I went and talked to a counsellor and that was my turning point then.

JK: And so what were some of the things that you did to turn this around?

Matt: First thing the counsellor suggested was to get on some medication to help balance my mood- I was pretty dead set against it. I was probably like the old macho man, I didn’t want, didn’t need this pill to sort me out. So I gave in, I gave it a try, and then yeah, it started coming right. The balance in my mood was there; I was in control.

JK: So once you started getting the balance back, what were some of the things you did?

Matt: I was enjoying life. I took the time to enjoy myself. I was out doing stuff in my spare time with the boys. It wasn’t so much I think that actual doing of that stuff, it was the doing it with somebody. Hope for the future was something that started to take shape to more of a physical form so I started to realise what I was working towards and what I was trying to achieve by getting up every day.

I enjoyed being on the farm, I enjoyed the smell of the wet grass under the irrigator as I went out to shift it. And I just had to just pause and look around and realise where I was. That made me start appreciating how lucky I was to be in the environment that I was in. 

JK: So what would you say to a young farmer like yourself that might be watching us and struggling?

Matt: Talk to your mates. You might be terrified about what they going to say but if they’re your mates, they’ll be there for ya. Generally they are there for you; they’ll pull you through.

JK: Thanks, Matt. That was an incredible insight to your journey with depression from someone in the farming community. What we have got with The Journal is we’ve got a really simple, practical way that you can get through some of your problems. So check The Journal out.