Danny Frawley reveals battle with depression, nervous breakdown

BRAVE former St Kilda champion Danny Frawley has broken his silence to reveal for the first time his private battle and how he’s fighting back.

A nervous breakdown led Frawley to contemplate taking his own life Picture: Mark Stewart

BRAVE former St Kilda champion Danny Frawley has broken his silence to reveal for the first time his battle with depression.

And he has told how a nervous breakdown led to him contemplating taking his own life.

The 54-year-old father of three opened up to Hamish McLachlan in an emotionally charged interview detailing the depths of his depression and how his family helped him back from the brink.

Frawley is best known as a fun-loving footy commentator on TV and radio. But in 2014 his world collapsed and he suddenly withdrew from public life.

Today he reveals what happened.

“I had a nervous breakdown,’’ he said.

“It was incredible and so hard to believe it was actually happening.’’

At the time Frawley was privately struggling as head of the AFL Coaches Association in the midst of the Essendon drug saga, and publicly trying to maintain his image as the media performer.

Danny with wife Anita and daughters Danielle, Chelsea and Keeley. Picture: Mark Stewart

In April 2014, it all came to a head in a car park at the MCG.

“The most frightening thing happened,” he said.

“I was sitting in the car park behind the wheel. I had no idea where to go, or what to do, I was lost. I had to call my wife up to work out how to get home from the MCG. I’d been driving home from the MCG for 30 years and I didn’t know if I should turn left or right. I had no idea. It was an out-of-body experience. I was mentally shot.

“I was confused and couldn’t find an answer. Any answers. ‘How to get home’ isn’t one you should be searching for.

“I know that sounds bizarre.

“The only thing that I could think of was ringing (my wife) Anita and saying, ‘I’m confused’.

“I got home after she told me how to, and she said, ‘You should take the dogs for a walk’.

“It was dusk in late April. When I got back I thought I’d lost one of the dogs, I wasn’t concentrating when I went walking.

“I got home, and basically sat down and just cried for 24 hours. I just thought, ‘This is not happening to me, what’s going on?’”

Danny Frawley has a tough day in the office as Richmond coach in 2004.

Months of months of tension trying to deal with the coaches caught up in Essendon saga had finally come to bear.

“The tipping point was that I found myself trying to manage a position with the Essendon saga which I didn’t have the skill set to manage,’’ he said.

“It was the ultimate failure in my mind. And because I had let people down by not being able to save their jobs or make things easier for them, it was my fault.’’

A month earlier, Frawley had spoken to the AFL coaches.

He said: “I broke down in front of them. I just thought I was a huge failure.

“The signs were there that I was struggling mentally. I remember a couple of coaches called me the next day asking if I was OK. I’d say, ‘Yeah, I’m fine mate, no worries’, but I wasn’t, I was done. I was done six months before I tipped over the edge, there’s no doubting that whatsoever.’’

In the depths of his depression, Frawley said he did not sleep for up to three weeks at a time.

“The darkest days for me were when I’d come to the realisation of how bad I was, and that I wasn’t going to get any better,’’ he said.

“There was no time frame as to when I would get better. And the ‘black dog’ was barking louder and louder and louder.

Frawley with fellow footy media personalities, Jason Dunstall, Brian Taylor and Garry Lyon.

“He’d go to sleep for a few days and I thought, ‘How good’s this, he has gone’, and then he would come back and he would just bite you again and wouldn’t let you go.’’

In desperation, Frawley visited a psychiatrist.

“I sat down and told him what was going on. He looked at me, with Anita, and said, ‘You’ve had a nervous breakdown’.

“I didn’t know what that was. I just thought that was for people who had a bit of a weakness, or that had a bit of a brain malfunction, or for the mentally weak.’’

Frawley was prescribed sedatives but even the strongest drugs would only let him sleep for a few hours at a time. Every day for more than a fortnight he would see his psychiatrist, before finally asking to be admitted to a clinic.

Danny Frawley with his daughter before his final game.

He said he told his psychiatrist: “I need to go somewhere, I don’t know what I’m going to do with myself.”

Frawley added: “At that stage all I wanted to do was get out of bed, walk around the corner and walk under a truck. That’s what I was thinking about.’’

He was admitted to a clinic for “people who were ready to do away with it all’’. But in time with the support of his medical team and his family, he began to turn his life around.

“I had to reprogram the hard drive,” he said. “I had to retrain myself, which is really hard when you are in your early 50s.

“I see my psychiatrist as a mentor now, and I can openly talk about it. If I had told someone two years ago that I was seeing a psychiatrist I would have been really down.’’ Frawley said he was speaking out for the first time on his breakdown and depression because “I’m not embarrassed by it anymore”.

“I was reluctant until now because I still saw it as a weakness, not an illness. It’s an illness. I want to help people ... If you’re struggling, tell people. Don’t be like me and look in the mirror, start crying, and then cover it up and walk out with a smile on your face. You’re just living a lie.’’

Frawley credits his wife and daughters with helping him through his toughest battle. Picture: Mark Stewart

My girls are my world, they saved me

DANNY Frawley has paid tribute to his family for helping him though his toughest battle.

“In my mind, the only thing I have succeeded with is my family,’’ he said.

“That was the thing that got me through the last few years — that made me feel like I was able to achieve something significant and wasn’t a failure.

“My three daughters and my wife — they are my greatest achievement.’’

During his darkest moments when he admits he thought of ending it all, Frawley reveals that “the only thing that kept me going was knowing I couldn’t leave my wife and daughters with that’’.

And the popular footy figure insists that his bout of depression has made him a better husband and father.

He said: “It took an illness for me to get perspective in life.

“The big thing that I’ve found is that if something happens, or if I lost my job in the media tomorrow, I wouldn’t be worried.

“I’d be disappointed, but it doesn’t define me ... my three girls do, and Anita.’’

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