A young rural Southlander with rodeo in his blood recounts a moving comeback tale from family loss and mental breakdown
As an eight-year-old, Slade Macdonald suffered the first of two tragic events that would shape his young life.
His father, Hamish, a Southland farmer, skilled horseman and adrenaline junkie, was killed in an ice-climbing accident. Then, nine years later, cancer would claim the life of his mother, Lisa, a glamorous, fun-loving Canadian.
The two life-defining events changed the direction of Macdonald’s life and contributed to his deteriorating mental health. Rock bottom came three years ago when he attempted suicide.
Yet this is not a story of despair, but of hope and finding a way through the darkness. It’s also about finding the right support, good friends, family and discovering a passion.
The 23-year-old farm worker is telling his story because he doesn’t want other rural people to suffer in silence as he did. Macdonald wants others to know if they are struggling with depression, anxiety or feeling suicidal that talking about it does help.
“My mental-health journey was quite tough, but it was really only tough because I never confronted it and talked to people about it,” he says.
His Kiwi dad met his mum, who was a from a well-known rodeo family, competing on the pro rodeo circuit in Canada.
Macdonald was born in Canada and was five months old when he emigrated with his parents and two older brothers to New Zealand.
They returned to live on the family station in the Te Anau basin where his father had grown up, a picturesque part of Southland that his family has farmed since 1915.
Macdonald inherited his dad’s love of horses and, like a lot of Southland farming kids, he enjoyed tractors and helping his father on the farm.
But the direction of his life changed when his father died.
“I was eight when he died and as a young fella that is quite a shock.
“He dropped us off at school the day he left to go climbing. I still remember him smiling at us in the rear-view mirror,” Macdonald says.
His dad, who took up ice climbing because he missed the rush of rodeo, was with a mate near the Homer Tunnel in Fiordland when the accident happened.
“They went on quite a hard mountain and I think there was an earthquake earlier that morning - it shook the rock and the rock gave away and the drill came out. It snapped his rope and he went down about 300m.
“He lived a wicked life, a great life. He did a lot in his 36 years,” says Macdonald.
About a year after the accident, Macdonald, his brothers and their mother moved back to Canada to live in Strathmore, in rural southern Alberta.
A self-confessed wild child in high school, Macdonald says he used alcohol to self-medicate and to avoid dealing with things that were troubling him.
He was close to his mother, who loved her work as a teacher aid. “We had grown closer than we had ever been in the months before she died,” he says.
Macdonald was 17 when she died, and not long after he decided to move back to New Zealand for a fresh start and to do something for himself.
Dark clouds
Macdonald’s lowest point came not long after returning and getting a job as a farmhand on a dairy grazing block in Cromwell.
“Certain things happened, and there were certain things with an ex-girlfriend that had come up, and all those emotions boiled up and I decided to take an encounter on my own life. It ended up putting me in hospital - not for long but for a few nights or so.
“After that it was something I really had to confront.”
Macdonald says looking back, he realises working largely on his own contributed to his decline in well-being and mental-health struggles.
“I think it was just certain days, too, when you are out there by yourself all day and something really frustrating happens.
“I remember one time something happened with a fence and I was so frustrated I started bawling, I was so angry at life.”
The turnaround
After his hospital stay, there were a few bumps in the road, a bad experience with a boss and an unemployed stint in Christchurch that left him feeling lost.
But the turnaround came after he moved back to live with his grandparents on the home farm and found work with a local tailing gang.
His boss, Nick, and neighbour, Jimmy, who would later employ him on his farm, provided Macdonald with a support network and allowed him to open up about his struggles.
“Those guys were such lovely people and it came to a point that I could talk to them about what had happened.”
Finding the right counsellor, who lives on a farm and understands the pressures of rural life, and having a good GP, were other important pieces of the puzzle.
Macdonald now works for a family-run contracting business based in Te Anau and both his bosses are supportive and understand if he has a down day.
It was friends who put him in contact with the counsellor not long after he started his present job. Some of those friends, who remain part of his support network, were youngsters whom he befriended as a pupil at Mararoa School when he first lived in New Zealand.
“Driving tractors you do very long hours. I was good for the first half of the summer, but when we came back from the summer break, I found I was getting overly emotional in the tractor.
“I sent a message to my mates saying ‘I’m not right’, and one of them came around,” Macdonald says.
That friend got in contact with another mate and they put him in contact with a counsellor.
“I have to say she has given me a lot of tools to use and a lot of confidence,” he says.
Macdonald no longer has scheduled sessions with his counsellor, but knowing she is there if needed helps.
He’s more careful with alcohol, too.
“I enjoy a stubbie, don’t get me wrong, but if you are not that well in your head, the old alcohol will bring you to your knees.
“I drank a lot in high school. I didn’t have the best reputation, probably, when it did happen. There was a lot of anger and comments such as ‘you brought it on yourself.’ To a certain degree I had.
“There was a time when I thought if I smoked or drank enough, that is just how I help it. But in the long term, if you do that it is like putting Mentos in a Coke bottle. Your emotions will just explode.”
Rodeo rush
For others who are struggling with their mental health, Macdonald’s advice is find something you enjoy - a hobby or sport.
For him, it is rodeo.
“It’s really helped with my mental-health journey. It’s given me something to look forward to and brought me back to what I want to do and me being me. After being lost for so long, I feel like I have found myself.”
His two older brothers, Beau, 27, and Tate, 30, still live in Canada. Tate rides pro on the same rodeo circuit their father once did.
Both their parents’ families were big in the sport. Macdonald’s grandfather rode saddle bronc horses in the 1960s and 1970s, his uncle rode bulls and his father rode bareback horses.
Macdonald rode calves when he was young, and has always ridden horses, but fear had held him back from taking up the sport more seriously.
“I always wanted to do it in high school but I was scared about doing it, although I talked about it a lot.
“It’s something I look forward to and take a lot of pride in. I love it, it’s fun and it’s a hell of a rush.”
Covid-19 shelved Macdonald’s chance of competing last summer with rodeo events cancelled across the country.
But he considers it’s a positive because it has given him time to practise and learn off others involved in the sport.
He is aiming to make his debut at the Methven and Winchester rodeos at Labour Weekend.
Shrouded in stigma
Mental health needs talking about in rural communities and de-stigmatised, confronted and not sugar-coated, says Macdonald.
A lot of judgment surrounds the problem, he says.
“My two bosses have been bloody good but there are still bosses out there who don’t grasp it,” he says.
He says his contemporaries are more willing to talk about mental-health issues than previous generations.
“I’ve got very good mates. There is one thing about our generation, it has definitely been confronted a lot more. There is no mucking around with it - they are very good to me.”
Increased red tape, rising costs and a growing division between the rural and urban communities is adding to the pressures for those working in the rural sector, he says.
Macdonald believes when everyone is faced with soaring living costs and a global pandemic, New Zealanders should be looking at ways to become more united.
The barriers
Kathryn Wright’s masters thesis focuses on what young rural males view as the barriers to seeking help for mental-health issues.
The Otago Polytechnic student and counsellor surveyed rural males aged 16-30 as part of her research and says they’re up against three things.
The first is a knowledge barrier: not knowing where to go, who to go to, how to find someone and not knowing if they are “bad enough”, says Wright. And many of those surveyed were unaware most counsellors do video consultations.
The second barrier is shame. “A real fear of bosses finding out, or even parents - especially fathers.”
The third thing to overcome is practical barriers such as living in an isolated location, financial constraints and getting time off work for treatment, Wright says.
Her survey also unearthed a raft of other issues young rural men are grappling with including feelings of social isolation and disconnection.
Isolation can be figurative, but also a geographical reality.
“Literally, they are isolated on the farm, but figuratively they are isolated, too, because even though there might be people nearby, they still choose to isolate themselves and shut themselves away and they spiral down.
“You have to be around people. If you shut yourself off from people then things will get worse for your mental health.”
The way to remedy feelings of isolation is to “get out and about”, she says, whether by joining Young Farmers, playing rugby or getting involved in rodeo, as Macdonald has. It doesn’t matter what you choose, as long as you are connecting with others and doing things.
The young men in her sample talk about alcohol and drugs having a detrimental affect on their mental health, causing them to make rash decisions or feel worse about themselves.
Also of importance to them is the relatability of counsellors and doctors so, for instance, they understand the ebb and flow of farming life, such as the stress of the busy lambing and calving seasons.
Employer issues also come through, suggesting farm managers and stock managers could do with basic mental-health training to be able to spot problems, know what to say and how to get help.
Fear of losing or being unable to get a firearm licence also plays on the minds of the young rural males surveyed, Wright says, so it’s important they understand such decisions are made case by case.
They speak about seeking out social connection, living by their values and having a connection to nature, which is one thing they do have at their disposal, she says.
Her research also draws attention to the payback troubled young men can receive from helping someone else. “No matter how bad you feel, you can always make someone else’s day better and that in turn will make you happier.”
And awareness that people in the same boat as them see a counsellor can normalise seeking that help.
Staying connected
Dr Annette Beautrais, a suicide researcher and prevention advocate, says social connectedness is central to good mental health.
“Social support is particularly important when people are experiencing stressful circumstances. This can include family, workplace and community support. When times are tough in a rural region, it can be very helpful to create events that encourage people to come together socially.
“A survey we did among rural and farmer-facing people found workloads were stressful and there were high rates of self-reported alcohol misuse, help-seeking for mental-health problems, loneliness despite participation in social groups and high demands for information about mental-health issues.”
The same issues are reported by urban New Zealanders, she says.
Beautrais encourages early recognition, intervention and support for anyone displaying distress, depression or other stress.
Mental-health knowledge can be enhanced in communities through “mental health 101 type programmes” such as the Good Yarn programme, she says.
It’s also important there are resources and information available in communities about where to get help, she says.
If someone needs help, they can access mental-health and well-being support services through their GP.
Electronic health resources such as online programmes and apps for health, well-being and mental health are useful tools, says Beautrais.
“There are some of excellent quality, they are free, they can be used privately, in the person’s own time – apps such as Headspace, CALM, Groov and online programmes such as Just A Thought, and Small Steps are some examples of the programmes available.”
Other rural support suggestions include creating social events as opportunities for people to get together such as social evenings, guest speakers, book launches, quiz nights and coffee mornings, she says.
“Meeting up with others with similar experiences is very important and events also take people’s minds off their troubles.”
Beautrais encourages people to make use of Surfing for Farmers and other initiatives to give themselves a break off-farm and try new activities.
It is important to provide support for women too, she says. “We have to be careful not to focus only on men.
“Generally, women are the social organisers who hold the family together and they provide emotional support for their male partners.”
“They are the medical decision makers in their families and they may also be isolated and need support - they need just as much support and opportunity to socialise,” says Beautrais.
Solace in the sea
For the past two years, Southland farmers have been trading their gumboots for wetsuits and surfboards and heading to Riverton or Colac Bay to get some respite from the stresses of the land.
Surf-training programme Surfing for Farmers, which is run in 16 locations throughout the country, began in Gisborne in 2018 to get rural folk off the farm to socialise with their peers and rural professionals and to enhance their well-being.
The programme is up for an award in the new community impact category at the ILT Southland Sports Awards to be announced on July 8.
Tom Slee, co-organiser of the Southland branch, discovered first-hand how great the programme is three and a half years ago when he was shepherding in Gisborne.
“I went along to the Gizzy one because I didn’t really know anyone up there. It was a pretty cool way to meet people and get off the farm for the week.”
Slee was the driver in getting a Southland programme under way two years ago. It runs one weekday evening between late November and early March.
“It’s about getting people off the farm for the day. We have a bit of a swim in the sea and try to surf.
“If you get in the cold water and have a swim you feel better. You are out there with a lot of other farmers talking, socialising and exercising. With a bit of a feed afterwards, you go home feeling pretty good about yourself.
“It ticks three or four of the boxes that mental-health researchers talk about,” says Slee.
The surf programme attracts 50-70 people each week, including farmers, farm workers, rural professionals and their partners.
It’s been so successful that many of the original participants have bought surfboards and take to the waves in their own groups.
“A lot of them will go out for a wee surf at the weekend or when the weather is a bit better because they can choose the night of the week they get to go surfing.”
And what about Macdonald?
He’s enjoying the rural life of tractor driving, looking after livestock and watching his mates play rugby.
Later this year, he will be reunited with his brother Tate and his young family and he hopes the two of them will be able to hit the rodeo circuit this summer.
“It’s been a hell of a ride. But I can’t say I regret anything because I’ve learnt a lesson - so something has come out of it.
“I’m doing very well, you can put it that way. I’m a very lucky man,” says Macdonald.
Where to get help:
1737, Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 any time for support from a trained counsellor
Lifeline - 0800 543 354 or (09) 5222 999 within Auckland
Samaritans - 0800 726 666
Suicide Crisis Helpline - 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
thelowdown.co.nz - or email team@thelowdown.co.nz or free text 5626
Anxiety New Zealand - 0800 ANXIETY (0800 269 4389)
Supporting Families in Mental Illness - 0800 732 825
* Made with the support of the Public Interest Journalism Fund
