Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes says his depression is a ‘poisonous dread’

Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes says his depression is a ‘poisonous dread’

FORMER Savage Garden singer Darren Hayes has opened up about his battle with depression in a lengthy Facebook post in which he describes his illness as a “poisonous dread” that follows him every day of his life.

“One of the most challenging things about my depression is pretending I don’t have it. It’s exhausting,” the singer from Brisbane wrote in a post that has been liked 6500 times and shared more than 2000 times.

“Because I’m open about managing with a mental illness, it sometimes makes me feel paranoid (how ironic) that people are always worried about me or worse, assuming that all of my behaviour is the result of depression.

“Sometimes just mustering the energy to get out of bed, go outside and grab a cup of coffee feels like giving a lecture to ten thousand people. The entire time I’m walking around the world and pretending to be a happy, at ease person, is a performance designed to distract anyone from seeing just how incredibly dark I feel inside.

Mr Hayes shot to fame as the singer and songwriter of the pop supergroup that sold 30 million albums around the world. But he’s also been open about his struggle with mental illness that he said plagues him from the minute he wakes up to the minute he goes to bed.

“The best way I can describe my depression is a poisonous dread. It’s a feeling in my stomach that registers the moment I wake up. My first waking thought, most days is, something is wrong. It’s a simultaneous feeling of dread and grief,” he said.

Mr Hayes has lived in Los Angeles with husband Richard Cullen since 2012 and praised his partner for supporting his battle with the illness, saying it brings a feeling of guilt for the people it impacts in his life.

“To my husband, especially, I feel sad for the burden it places on him. When you love someone and you can’t fix them it’s incredibly hard. You want to take a bullet for them, but you can’t. He has a way of making me feel so special — he appreciates my complex mind and he is in this for better or for worse,” he wrote.

It’s not the first time the Truly Madly Deeply singer has written about his battle in public. In August 2014 following the death of Robin Williams he wrote a piece forAttitude describing the depression he was diagnosed with in his mid-twenties as a “cold utterly dark void” and said he fell into a long bout in 2007.

He is now producing a comedy podcast with Tim Stanton called the He Said He Said show focusing on pop culture and “locker room inappropriateness” but wants people to accept those suffering from mental illness.

“So if you know someone who suffers from anxiety or depression, please know when they don’t see you, or don’t check in as much as you’d like, it’s not personal. If they’re anything like me, they are recharging their superpowers, powering up their pac-man to be the person they think you love, even though you love them anyway and in all ways just the way they are.