Will’s World: Rough season brings mental health reflection

Dark nights and dark thoughts tend to go hand in hand and, as always, I find myself feeling melancholic at this time of year.

Another summer’s gone, I’m exhausted after one of the most challenging harvest seasons of my farming career, and the thought of the long winter ahead seems daunting, to say the least – especially with the spectre of severe flooding that seems to hang permanently over us these days.

See also: Farm cash flow advice as cost and price pressures mount

I suppose none of us went into farming for an easy and comfortable life.

But it does feel particularly difficult at the moment, and the many conversations I’ve had with friends and neighbours this year who’ve intimated – or openly said – they’re struggling with the pressure and stress of it all has left me feeling deeply concerned.

Staff shortages, high input costs, low yields, tight margins, inadequate support systems, the ongoing nightmare that is bovine TB, pointless bureaucracy, a rapidly ageing workforce, low farmgate prices, and plain loneliness and isolation are just a few of the things weighing on farmers’ minds.

Mental health challenges

This is only reinforced by the sheer number of recent articles and features in the farming press talking about the importance of good mental health and looking out for one another.

This is patently a good thing and doubtless helps people to realise that they’re not on their own and that it’s “OK not to be OK”, but it does emphasise the fact that our community and industry is finding it extremely difficult to adjust in a rapidly changing world.

I’m certainly feeling that too. So much so, in fact, that I’ve begun to wonder, if only fleetingly and occasionally, if I made the wrong choice all those years ago when I decided that I wanted to be a farmer.

It could just be because I’ve spent too much time on my own in a tractor cab lately, and that’s never particularly good for me.

I’m alright for a few days, but any more than that and I’ve overthought everything there possibly is to overthink and morphed into an even more strung-out version of Robert De Niro’s character in Taxi Driver (“You talkin’ to me? Well, I’m the only one here…”).

It could also be that I’ve attended a few funerals recently of members of the local farming community that I was very fond of, and it’s taking me a while to come to terms with the fact that I won’t see them around or share a chat and a laugh with them anymore.

Talking to friends and family

Sometimes it can feel like there’s fewer and fewer of us, and I often wonder if I’m part of the last golden era of small family farms in this country.

I should stress that after writing previously in FW about my occasional bouts of severe depression, I’m not feeling like that this time, despite my temporary downbeat mood, so no one need worry about me.

It does like to jump out of the shadows every now and then, to punch me in the face and tell me I’m still not good enough – just as a nasty reminder that it’ll never fully go away. But I can cope with that.

The difference now, as opposed to when I first encountered it, is that I know it for what it is, and will quickly talk to a few close friends and family members who’ll help to gently drag me back to the light.

Normal service and irreverent humour will be resumed next week. But in the meantime, stay safe and look after yourselves and each other – it’s rough out there.