People who suffer from depression describe it as wearing a mask. They hide behind it, refusing to let co-workers, strangers, friends and even family see that they’re struggling inside to look normal.
Thanks to TSN broadcaster and Off the Record host Michael Landsberg, those masks are being thrown aside.
Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me, debuting Wednesday on CTV, is a personal and frank discussion about Landsberg’s own depression, as well as the mental illness shared by sports superstars Darryl Strawberry, Clara Hughes and Stéphane Richer.
Broadcast as part of Bell’s “Let’s Talk” mandate to raise awareness and support for mental health, Darkness and Hope is an educational documentary that is important no matter what time of year it airs.
Within the first minutes of Darkness and Hope, the affable talk show host recalls how depression manifested itself in his late teens and early twenties, culminating in something every person suffering from mental illness experiences: rock bottom.
For Landsberg, it came in 2008 at the Grey Cup in Montreal. For four sleepless nights he fought negative thoughts while waiting for his medication to kick in. It was a battle Landsberg ultimately won.
“I had been on medication four times before, but there was this legitimate, but small, fear that this time I won’t get the benefit from the medication,” he tells TV Guide Canada, adding that it’s during the wee hours that negative thoughts often creep in.
“It’s the one time when your brain has 100 per cent control over you. No distractions. You are owned by your brain and it’s the taxi driver, taking you wherever it wants to take you, and you have no say. As a result, any fears and anxieties that I have that are well-controlled during the day are out of control at night. There was this fear, of ‘Oh my gosh, what if I have to live like this the rest of my life?’
“And at that point you understand why people take their own lives, because it was so painful that I had no interest in living like that.”
A year later, Landsberg was welcoming Stanley Cup winner Richer to the set of Off the Record, and asked on the air for an update on the Quebec native’s mental health.
Later that day, Landsberg’s inbox was filled with notes from mostly male viewers who thanked him for discussing it on the record and confirming it wasn’t a weakness, but something to be acknowledged.
Acknowledged and talked about. As Bell’s “Let’s Talk” campaign and Darkness and Hope suggest, an integral facet of healing is talking about it. Richer, Hughes and Strawberry do just that, relating that the highest points of their athletic careers — whether it be a Stanley Cup, Olympic medal or World Series Championship — meant nothing to them and their mental illness.
Not all are comfortable talking about those days. Richer visibly struggles with his emotions as he recounts considering suicide days after winning the 1995 Cup with New Jersey, but brightens when he says he’s doing much better now.
Landsberg points out that one in nine people suffer from depression. That means the person you share a subway bench with, the person who works 10 feet away from you, or the person nestled up in bed next to you could be wearing a mask, and pretending that everything is OK when it really isn’t. It’s time to talk about how we’re feeling.
“I want people who suffer from depression to feel less lonely,” Landsberg emphasizes.
“I want people who suffer from depression to feel motivated to share and to get help. And I want people who don’t suffer, but who will be touched by depression, to look at this as an illness and not a weakness and to create an environment where more people can share and not feel like they are being judged.”
Darkness and Hope: Depression, Sports and Me airs Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET on CTV and 10:30 p.m. ET on TSN2.
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