An Aberdeenshire farmer who suffered mental health has been praised by his peers for telling a roomful of people about his struggles with the condition over the years.
Almost 50 farmers gathered in Inverurie on Thursday evening for NFU Scotland’s (NFUS) north-east region’s Mental Wellbeing Conference, which included representatives from NHS Grampian’s public health.
The panel included a farmer from New Deer, who told the audience about how depression and anxiety had affected him since his 20s when he claimed he ”couldn’t shut off.”
After working on the family farm from the age of 15, the farmer took another job away from home when he was 22. His doctor advised him to slow down but he didn’t listen, resulting in him being admitted to hospital.
“Mental health has been discussed quite a lot but the world mental just puts up red flags,” said the farmer.
“Could somebody please come up with a better word to replace it?”
The farmer went on to tell the audience that he got married and had two sons but in 2009 depression set in again.
After spending two weeks in hospital, he returned home to the farm but soon after, he felt he was back in the same place again.
He then told fellow farmers in the room that he tried to take his own life in 2016.
“I kept all my feelings locked up and didn’t even tell my wife how I was feeling,” he said.
“After this, my wife and I decided we would branch out on our own from the current business because it wasn’t working. Since then, I have worked at various places, as well as running my own farm.
“I’ve been really lucky that I’ve worked with some really nice people. Everyone is keen to speak to you and discuss mental health issues.
The farmer said the worst time for him was when he was working on his own and everyone else was away being busy.
He added that this is the case for a lot of farmers and said he sympathised with them.
“Some farmers are guilty of expanding at a great rate and expecting the current staff to do the same but if we as an industry don’t look after our staff, we’ll end up driving them away to something else,” he said.
“The biggest thing when you have a mental illness is to speak to somebody but some people find that very difficult. If I didn’t speak, I might not have been here.
“Farmers really need to get a handle of this. Scotland is miles behind the English on how they are focusing on mental health.
“To get the freedom of eventually being my own boss was like throwing off a jacket and it’s made a big difference.”
The audience was reminded about the the Art of Farming: Community, creativity and company, project which was launched in August 2021 to raise awareness of wellbeing in the agricultural community.
RSABI also has a freephone helpline running 24 hours per day, 7 days of the week on 0808 1234 555.
