Journalist Jonathon Moran on hitting rock bottom, and finding his way back

'I felt seen for the first time ever'

With the release of his debut book, Australia’s top entertainment reporter opens up about mental health and finding the courage to share his life story.

Your career as an entertainment journalist has taken you from the Four Seasons Hotel with Madonna to Michael Bublé’s Vancouver mansion. What’s one moment that shocked or surprised you?

I’m really hard to shock because I’ve seen a lot. Michael Buble, I have to say, is one of the greatest humans on the planet because he is a flawed, honest, beautiful human and I think that’s what sets him apart. He’s a ridgy-didge superstar, but he’s also been to hell and back. He knows what rock bottom looks like, and he doesn’t hide that when there’s a lot of celebrities that do hide behind the glamorous facade. The more famous they are, the more down-to-earth they are. 

In your book, Mental As Anyone: A Toolkit for Surviving and Thriving on the Chaotic Rollercoaster of Life, you share deeply personal stories about sexuality, addiction, grief and self-esteem, advice from clinical psychologist Dr Jodie Lowinger and coping strategies for life’s ups and downs. What motivated you to write it?

I wrote it over Covid, and didn’t want to waste that time where we had to take annual leave. I thought, ‘Why don’t I write this?’ My whole career, people have said, “You’ve got a book in you.” I’ve always had the imposter syndrome or thought they’d assume it would be a book that would be based on a celebrity tell-all, and that just bores me to tears. While I’m interested in celebrities, of course, I’m more interested in the psyche of them. The theme that has developed in my mind through getting older and meeting all these celebrities is that no matter how successful they are, they’re exactly the same as us and have exactly the same demons. The motivation was just getting it out of me. 

I think a lot of people start stories in the mental health space but they don’t take them further. They’re like, “Are you OK?” But they don’t want to hear the answer. I want people to say, “Are you OK?” and hear, “No, I’m not OK,” and then go, “Ok, what can I do about it? How can we talk about this? What are some of the strategic toolkit things we can do?” That’s what I tried to do with this. 

I’m acutely aware I’m not a psychologist. I’m not here to give medical advice, this is just my life advice. But these are things I’ve engaged to help me: putting my phone on silent at night time, getting eight hours of sleep, not drinking alcohol anymore. There’s great power in not drinking anymore, but also admitting that this was me when I did hit rock bottom, when I did drink a lot because a lot of people don’t necessarily have the ability to share that story for various reasons.

Journalist Jonathon Moran on hitting rock bottom, and finding his way back. Image: Supplied

In your book, you describe being subjected to an invasive line of questioning when applying for life insurance and how you continue to face discrimination on a daily basis as a gay man today. How do you protect your mental health in a world that can feel both welcoming and hostile? 

Since I was 17 and came out, it’s been constant my whole life. This kind of discrimination is happening worse than before and to people that don’t have a voice, people who are marginalised. It’s just the norm. How do you live in a world where women have to check behind their shoulders before they’re walking down an alley? It’s exactly the same in my mind. It just is. 

How can allies show up in more meaningful ways? 

For me, it’s a duty, it’s a call, it’s something I have to do. This isn’t just an ego, passion thing, it’s the greater calling (and I’m not religious). I have a platform, I have a voice, and I’m going to use it. There are people who don’t have a platform, that don’t have a voice, that don’t have the ability to speak for various reasons, and I’m going to use mine to try and give them a voice. 

In 2023, you were diagnosed with ADHD. What changed for you after the diagnosis, and how has it shaped the way you manage your work, relationships, and mental health? 

With my partner, it’s helped me go, “Hey, I’m processing this right now, I just need some time.” I felt seen for the first time ever in a space that I hadn’t felt seen. I rang my sister. I cried and said, “I’m broken, but I know it now.” It just put the pieces of the puzzle together for me that didn’t quite sit right for a long time because depression was a blanket term that didn’t quite fit. Depression is part of my life battle, but I went to the doctor and the ADHD diagnosis for me brought it all together. I felt seen and understood. 

You’ve spoken about having an addictive personality, whether it’s alcohol, validation, or always being “on”. How do you recognise when something’s becoming unhealthy - and what tools help you stay balanced today? 

Someone in the office thought it would be a great idea to buy a bunch of Kopiko lollies. What did I do? I had one. I can’t stop. I ate nearly two packets. I was eating the office supply to the point where I was like shit, I’m eating all the lollies. So, I went and bought three packets. I ate nearly two of those packets and there’s so much coffee in those. Three or four of those things are like a double shot. I don’t even drink coffee. I couldn’t sleep and for days my hands were shaking. I pinged colleagues on the work chat and said, “Guys, this is not OK. I need your help, someone needs to come and confiscate the rest of this packet.” They’re like, “Ok, I’m coming.” They came and said they’d put them away, I said, “No, you need to lock them up. This is serious. F*king lock those Kopiko lollies up because I can’t stop.” 

I’ve got an addiction to Labubus at the moment. I can’t stop buying Labubus. I’m on the f*cking WhatsApp group. If I’m anywhere near the store in the city and I get a notification that there’s been an update of stock, god help us. I don’t run for anything, but the other day I ran like 50 metres down the street. I saw other people were running, looked at my phone and there was an alert saying they’d restocked Labubus. That’s just how I am. I get the dopamine hit. 

It can be really tough and one of the things I find hard to manage is the fact my emotions jump up and down quite dramatically. One minute I can be really happy, seconds later I can be really sad. I’m better at recognising that now, going, “Ok, that’s a moment.” But even now, I triple-teabag with my tea. There's no moderation. But you can recognise it, sit with it, acknowledge it, and talk to people about it. What can you implement to help you get through that? 

Suicide is the leading cause of death for young men in Australia - and this is something you address poignantly in your book. 

The fact is, queer people are more likely to take their own lives. The suicide rates, the mental health, hospitalisation rates, the attempts of suicide are huge in those spaces because they have to live with this constantly. Taking sexuality out of it, nine people kill themselves a day in Australia. Seven of those are men. One person tries to kill themselves every eight minutes. That’s not OK and we’re not unique in that, it’s around the world. We need to fix the hospitals, we need to fix all this stuff. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done. If I can be vocal about my story and help create those conversations or open the door to part of those conversations, then so be it.  

Whether in your writing or on your podcast, you don’t shy away from the heavy stuff - but you also don’t shy away from a laugh. How has humour helped you process pain, and why do you think it’s such a powerful tool in breaking down stigma? 

I feel like I get up in the morning and I put on my masks, my armour if you will, and humour is one of those strategies that I have to live through life and shield myself from the pain. It allows me to escape the shit that goes on in my head often. Laughter and the smiles and the humour hides a lot of that darkness, and then I get home and it’s exhausting. I get home and I have to put the Epsom salts in the bath. It’s like I’m on this treadmill to keep the energy up. 

You’ve found happiness on the other side of trauma. What advice would you give to those going through their own struggles, to keep going even in life’s darkest moments? 

I am and have found great happiness and value in being alive today, but I don’t want the message to be life isn’t a struggle because it is. My message to people going through it is small steps: it will get better, take deep breaths, do the smallest of things. If you’re literally crippled by anxiety to the point that you can not get out of bed, you can not move, you can not get out of the house, then walk to the kitchen. Make a cup of tea. Go to the couch and just lie there. Take very small steps because those small steps will lead to bigger steps that will lead to the world being a better place for you. It is not going to be like that for the rest of your life, but there are some of us that will have greater levels of having to manage their trauma, greater levels of having to manage their demons than other people. I know that there will be future days where there will be really challenging times, but I also know that I have the tools to help me get through that. For me, it’s deep breaths, close my eyes. When I get these zoomies in my head and am freaking out, I focus on my breathing. I strip it right back to the basics and that will get me through that five minutes. And once I get past those five minutes, maybe I’m able to go for a walk around the block, going and hugging my dog. That’s what I do. 

Taking the steps and telling a friend. If a friend says to me, “Hey, I’m struggling right now.” Be that with their mental health or some medical thing. I’ll say to them, “If you’re struggling to get out of the house, I will come with you and we will go to the doctor and I will sit there with you and help you articulate what’s going on for you.” And I’ve done that with them, because that step is really challenging. Be kind to yourself. We’re our own worst enemies when we’re in our heads. All of this is stuff I’ve learned just by going through it, but I have to say: life ain’t perfect. I’m still going through it, I just hope that the book serves as an opportunity for people to say, ‘I hear you, I feel seen.’ Or maybe someone just reads it and goes, “Well that was f*cking funny, what a f*cked up person.”

Originally published as Journalist Jonathon Moran on hitting rock bottom, and finding his way back