David Robertson says sharing mental health struggles was first step to healing

Hamilton gritLIT event is among first stops for the author after release of All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety. 

Prolific author David Robertson says he was skilled at hiding his bouts of depression and his battles with anxiety. He had a breakdown where he did nothing but work and sleep for six months, found himself suicidal after the death of his father, and desperately wished he could just feel like other people. 

His body and his mind was in chaos but no one would have known, he told an audience at The Playhouse Cinema at a Thursday gritLIT event.

To an outsider, Robertson would have appeared to have it all. By his count, he’s written 30 books, earned widespread acclaim, and prestigious literary awards, has a loving family and a platform to promote and advocate for his Indigenous community.

But he was hiding behind a shield he carried everywhere. It was built out of embarrassment, shame and a fear of appearing weak. But breaking his silence was the first step in healing and in building a community of support, says the author of All the Little Monsters: How I Learned to Live with Anxiety, which was released Jan. 21.

“When you’re isolated, you feel like no one can understand and no one else feels this way.”

That loneliness was a big part of the depression, where it felt like every task required a herculean effort. He was often crippled by negative self-talk, where he told himself he was a failure or that bad things were about to happen, especially when it comes to his heart condition.

Those “mean” voices are the monsters he writes about.

“You might hear them but you don’t have to listen to them. When you listen to them, they get bigger and crush down on you.”

He started with exploring mental health challenges for characters in his fictional work for children and young adults, which includes The Reckoner Rises series, five books in the Misewa Saga, When We Were Alone, The Barren Grounds, and On the Trapline. 

Then he found that kids he met during school visits were sharing their own struggles with him. For a while, he hid behind his shield, but then he found himself telling kids that he had panic attacks and anxiety, too.

He started sharing his story in school presentations and from there, was invited to speak on panels. All the while, he was finding comfort and catharsis in speaking about his experiences. 

That doesn’t mean it was easy. He had a panic attack on the way to the first panel at a literary festival. When broadcast journalist and university chancellor Shelagh Rogers (who wrote the forward to All The Little Monsters and has been open about her own mental health) asked Robertson how mental health affected him, he answered by sharing he was having a panic attack at that very time. 

It wasn’t too far a leap to then write this memoir, he says.

He’s learned when his anxiety is trying to protect him, such as when he had a panic attack the morning of a work trip to Germany in September and realized he simply needed to rest after a hectic pace, and when it’s being irrational, such as when he decided a searing pain in his abdomen was not simply an anxiety flare up and that he need to go to the hospital. His gallbladder came out in an emergency surgery in February.

Robertson credits his partner Jill for knowing exactly when and how to push him and he’s grateful for his kids and friends who are there with understanding and kindness whenever he needs them.

“I just hope I can do that for others.”

The chat with Robertson was hosted by Robin Lacambra, the creator of GOODBODYFEEL Movement & Therapy, the director of the Safer Spaces Project, and a counsellor at SACHA (Sexual Assault Center of Hamilton Area).

It was the first event of the year leading up to gritLIT Readers and Writers Festival in April. The next event is an adult spelling bee at Mosaic Bar on Feb. 1.