Shane Martin on his son Dustin’s battle with depression
From Dusty’s battle with mental health, to an off-field incident that nearly derailed his AFL career - Dustin Martin’s dad Shane spares no detail on his son’s life in his explosive tell-all book. READ THE EXTRACT.
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In his book A Rebel In Exile, Dustin Martin’s dad Shane on the day his AFL star son asked for help with depression, keeping him out of trouble and tattoos.
As the first game of the season rolled around he was named in the team for the first match. It was a home game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
That morning Dusty was bloody nervous. I said, ‘Don’t worry, mate, it’s just footy. Relax and enjoy it.’
But to be perfectly honest, I needed to take my own advice. I’m not an overly emotional bloke but I was as nervous as he was, I reckon, but I was being calm for him.
Kathy and I went to the ground together, and we were given seats by the club.
They have an area set aside for players who aren’t in the team that day and family members or loved ones of the club.
They were the best seats in the house, right up close to the action.
Here I was at the ‘G with thousands of people cheering on my boy.
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Dusty played well, but his team copped a 56-point hiding.
After one game that year he said to me, “Dad, I’m thinking of getting a tattoo.”
I said, “You’re old enough to do as you please, Dust.’ I mean, I’m covered in the bloody things, so it would be a bit rich for me to say, ‘Nah, mate, forget about it.’ “
“I want the ‘Live Free, Die Free’ that you’ve got on your arm.”
At that point I didn’t know whether to be flattered or what.
“Son, you make your own decision. Think about it and if that’s what you want then go for it.” He was going to do it anyway, so there’s no point fighting about it.
His mother wasn’t too happy.
He got the tattoo on his rib cage. Bloody big letters, too. Poor Kathy didn’t know that was just to be the beginning of his ink.
In the end he got two more that were the same as mine, both of them linking to my Maori heritage.
I don’t make a big deal of being Maori. I figure people are people, but it’s a part of who I am and where I come from, so I had Ngati Maru — which is my iwi, or tribe — and Matai Whetu — which is the name of my marae — tattooed on my neck.
I did caution him against the neck, mostly because I knew his mum would have a fit, but again, he’s his own man.
Sure enough, he got it done.
Those tattoos don’t change who he is. They don’t make him a better or worse man. And they don’t hurt anyone else. Given that, they are his decision and nobody’s business.
But I still did feel a bit for Kathy. Mums see these things a bit differently.
But certainly the tattoos didn’t hurt his footy.
In his second season he began to really take off. I never missed a match, and I travelled all around the country to watch him.
In a game against Melbourne he scored four goals himself and had thirty-three disposals.
He topped that effort just a couple of weeks later and some in the media were already saying he should be considered for the All Australian team.
But for all of the signs that his career was skyrocketing Dusty was never too far from being in the news for something stupid.
In 2012, he and his buddy Daniel Connors came unstuck when they missed training after a big night out.
The f---ing idiots had taken sleeping pills after an all-night bender.
Connors was kicked out of the club completely because it wasn’t the first time he’d been in trouble, and Dusty was suspended for two weeks.
I got a call from his manager and next thing I was flying down there. I gave him a fair bloody drilling over that.
“Stop acting like a clown. You’ll f--- up this thing that you love if you don’t pull your bloody head in!”
Once again, it wasn’t the last time we’d have that conversation. Honestly, for a kid who made me the proudest man in the world, he could be a pain in the arse.
But one of his issues was not of his own making. A thing many people don’t know is that Dusty has had a few struggles with mental health.
One day I got a call from him. “Dad, I’m getting bad anxiety, I need to get help. Can you come with me to the doctor?”
You might think that this isn’t a call you want to get from your kid, but in some ways it’s exactly the call you want. If they don’t call you, that’s when you’ve got problems. I said to him, “Of course I’ll come, mate.”
“Don’t tell anyone, Dad.”
“All good, but don’t be ashamed of it. You’re more of a man for admitting it and doing something about it.”
So we headed to a psychologist or whatever and eventually he was put on some medication for anxiety and depression.
We were worried that the drugs might affect his ability with football, but the psychologist was really good and very clear that it had nothing to do with any of that.
It’s just a chemical imbalance in the body, he said.
Those drugs didn’t hurt his skills, and they helped by making his life easier.
Depression and anxiety are pretty common as I discovered. Dusty now knows it’s nothing to be ashamed of.
People suffering need to know that help is available. If you have problems in those areas or know somebody who does, get along to the doctor and chances are they’ll see you right.
In 2013, Dusty was back in the headlines for reasons other than football.
During a loss in the elimination final he put his wrists together after scoring a goal as if he were in handcuffs.
It became known as the ‘jailhouse salute’ and it created a hell of a lot of drama.
Some people just really love to get upset.
Dusty knew a guy in prison — he was actually a mate of mine — and he’d used the gesture to say ‘hi, bro’ at a time when he knew the cameras would catch it.
I’m happy to give Dusty grief when he’s done wrong, but what’s wrong with saying g’day to a mate, even if he is in the can?
Just because a bloke gets locked up, that doesn’t mean you ignore him or don’t give him support.
People can have different views on that, and that’s fine, but I’m not knocking Dusty for that one.
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Your mates are your mates and you stand by them through thick and thin.
While I did say he shouldn’t do it again, it seems he always wanted to do something with his hands.
In 2015, in a big win over Collingwood, he celebrated a goal by giving the fingers to some opposition fans who were heckling him from the stands.
In the heat of the moment I’d probably have done the same thing, if I’m honest.
But it was an incident off the field that nearly derailed him. After the end of the 2015 season, Dusty and a few of his friends went out for dinner to a Japanese restaurant in Windsor. They’d been at a music festival that day and he’d had a few beers.
A dispute erupted and Dusty was being a bit rowdy at the bar. Some woman told him to quieten down and he took exception to her butting in.
Undoubtedly he acted like a dickhead, but the woman made some really serious allegations. She said he had threatened to stab her in the face with a chopstick, and had stood over her and slammed his hand into a wall.
The woman knew who he was and complained to the club and it soon escalated, becoming a police matter, and some famous former players were saying he should be banned for a year and made to pay thousands to a women’s charity.
I’m not going to defend Dusty for acting like an idiot, but the allegation didn’t seem right to me.
Who the hell threatens anyone with a chopstick? If you’re going to threaten somebody, use something a bit more effective than that.
But seriously, he’s not a person who would abuse a woman like that.
He told me it was blown out of proportion and I believed him.
I thought Richmond could have backed him a bit better than they did. The club got him to immediately apologise to the woman, and while it was good to do that because he acted poorly, he denied the serious allegations, and that needs to be remembered.
After the police investigated the matter — including looking at all the CCTV footage — they concluded no criminal offence had taken place.
Even still, his behaviour was no good and I was having another little chat to him.
This time I think was the last. At least I hope so.
BEHIND THE RANCE RIEWOLDT BROMANCE
One person I have to mention here is Dusty’s manager, Ralph Carr.
Ralph has been with Dusty from the start.
He’s a top bloke and he’s like family to Dustin.
On financial matters around contracts and the like, Dusty will always ask my advice, but Ralph’s is front and centre.
Many times when Dusty has gone off the rails, Ralph has been sitting beside me when I talk with him. He’s had plenty of those conversations without me too.
Not only do I like the bloke, I’m incredibly grateful for what he’s done for my son.
It’s easy to dwell a bit long on the controversies but they were only interludes in his life.
He wasn’t a great talker on camera and he wasn’t fussed by the media, which didn’t help, but people could tell he was a good guy, I think.
And as for his footy, he was getting better and better.
And in a short while he was going to prove himself to be the best.
Originally published as Shane Martin on his son Dustin’s battle with depression
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