O’Connell has long been coy about the true motivation for his surprise move Down Under in 2018 to join GOLD FM, but in his memoir No One Listens To Your Dad’s Show, the breakfast radio ratings magnet has opened up about his secret mental health crisis that resulted in him moving hemispheres.“I was 44 when my life fell apart,” O’Connell said.“The panic and anxiety attacks were so severe I could not do the radio show and yet I had it all, I had the number one show, I had everything I had ever wanted.“It was serious. I was having to call in sick. (I was) unable to work and terrified I was going a bit mad.”O’Connell said the anxiety attacks started without warning five years ago and when in the grip of one he would be vomiting into bins at Absolute Radio in the UK with his heart racing and thinking he was going to die.At those times he was unable to make himself go into his “sacred space” – the studio – to start his show, a show he had hosted for 12 years and was number one in the UK ratings with three million listeners.The anxiety would spiral, leaving him consumed with fear and haunted by the spectre of failure.O’Connell said he kept his anxiety a closely guarded secret from friends as he was embarrassed and ashamed, but on the urging of his wife, Sarah, he started therapy in a shed in a back garden in London. “Only I could find a therapist who would take me to the bottom of his garden and we would sit in his shed and talk,” he said, adding he had learned to manage his anxiety and had not suffered an attack since arriving in Melbourne three years ago. “The show was getting easier and easier and that was part of the problem; I had lost my mojo,” he said.“There is a real gift in those moments when your life goes sideways, as it did for me and I thought I was losing it all, I thought I would not be able to pay for the house, I would not be a good husband, I wouldn’t be a good dad.“You build up an identity around your jobs. I had been on the radio a long time, I had won a lot of awards, and suddenly that being possibly taken away or threatened was really, really hard. “It was a very dark time but getting help and starting to come through it I realised it was part of getting my attention to actually what had been going on for a couple of years and that was that I had lost my mojo. I was in a comfort zone and I needed to get out of that.“I needed something more. It was time for something new, something different and I found that in moving to Australia and taking the biggest gamble of starting a radio show here.” O’Connell said going through a mental health collapse had made him a better radio host.“What I learnt about empathy and compassion through having those panic and anxiety attacks, it changed how I did radio in subtle ways,” he said.“When listeners have tough moments I could know what that was like in my mind, and connect with it.”O’Connell said he hoped his experience would encourage others, especially men, that there was no shame in asking for help.“There is for men so much shame around having anxiety, depression or having a breakdown and I thought well, ‘I need to lead by example’,” he said.“I had this, I got help, I grew through it, it does not define me.”No One Listens To Your Dad’s Show is published by Allen & Unwin and is released this week.fiona.byrne@news.com.au
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