Wellbeing and the Law
I offer some thoughts from my personal experience that may be of assistance to fellow legal professionals. Firstly, depression is an ongoing battle. Last year through to the middle of this year the stresses were so great professionally and personally that I ended up relapsing.
Depression is an illness that can be treated properly with vigilance and it’s important to realise it is a battle you cannot win on your own. Earlier this year I resisted discussing my relapse with anybody. In the typically-Australian male way I just thought, “Well pull your socks up, kick yourself in the backside, you’ll be right. Don’t tell anyone anything, that’s a sign of weakness, just work through it and you’ll turn the corner,” which is absolutely nonsense. Your family can tell when there’s something wrong and – fortunately – I have a supportive one.
So it’s crucial to always communicate with people you can trust – family, friends, health professionals. When I was first diagnosed five years ago a senior judicial figure told me that I shouldn’t tell anybody because people would use it against me. I thought I would have received greater sympathy from him if I’d walked into his chambers with a broken wrist.
The biggest problem is stress. It is worth remembering that stressors can be things you can’t do anything about, like coming from a dysfunctional family which is something I have had to bear. There are other stressors that come from work, and the judiciary can be a bear pit, there’s no question about that.
Stress can be relieved by taking leave when it is due and not working through it. I once did not take leave because there was an interesting case I wanted to hear and believed I was the one to do it. In retrospect it was not a sensible move and one I will not repeat.
Another critical point is to keep physically fit. It greatly assists the thinking process. Invariably when I have been feeling low it is when I have not been exercising sufficiently. I find that exercise helps to promote positive thinking.
Sleeping well and being compliant with the medication for your own particular mental health situation is vitally important. Work with your health professional to find the right medication. Utilise cognitive behaviour techniques to manage stress when needed. The last thing I will leave you with is a thought that’s helped me: someone once said to me that it’s typical of first-born males from dysfunctional working class families, where alcohol is prevalent that you have low self-esteem. You tend to form your view about yourself through the prism of other peoples’ views. And the law is very, very hierarchical. Everybody ranks each other.
The most important thing I have come to realise is that when someone says something critical about you or what you do, say “I’m not interested because their opinion of me is not my business.” Equally you need to be careful of the imposter, which is praise. Treat negative criticism and adulation equally as irrelevant. The idea is to find yourself, have confidence in yourself and see yourself through yourself. This is the most important thing I have learnt through my period of relapse and re-mend.
