The Braunias interview
Please remain calm
by Steve Braunias
Sports broadcaster Murray Deaker talks about a life
of confrontation, control – and loss of control.
Three o’clock on a Tuesday afternoon in winter, a grey day, flat and still, and Murray Deaker was evidently medicated. In his gated apartment on the expensive Takapuna shore, with intimate views of the Waitemata Harbour – the grey water resting flat and still right beneath his garden – Deaker settled into the shell of a great big cream-coloured leather armchair. Now and then he crossed his legs, reached out his freckled paw for a biscuit, or took off his cap to reveal a head as smooth as a great big egg. All these movements took an age, were heavy and deliberate. His presence was as vague as fog.
I said, “You move slow, don’t you, because of the lithium.”
“Yes, you do,” he said, and then gave a sideways glance: “How do you know?”
“I’ve been watching you.”
“Yeah. You move slow. Yeah. Yes, you do. Although your brain still goes the same pace.”
And that was true. Deaker takes three lithium capsules a day, “a pretty mild dosage by all accounts”, to stabilise the violent mood swings that led to his being diagnosed last year with bipolar disorder. The lights were off, but there was quite definitely someone at home. He was observant and sensitive beneath the lithium fog. The brain was quick, alert, astute. The subject of sport animated him, switched on the plug. He laughed a great deal. He talked an even greater deal.
As a radio and television sports broadcaster, Deaker is famous for his provocations and agitations, for the loud sound of his voice. It had been put to me by a friend, jokingly, I thought, that I needn’t bother questioning Deaker – he would supply the questions, deliver the answers. In fact, after I had asked my first devastatingly original question – “How are you?” – he talked almost without interruption for about 20 minutes, laying down approximately 2300 words. This story is shorter than that monologue.
He talked about the nature and circumstances of his mental illness. Much of the speech was another telling of the chapter titled “Depression” in his book Just an Opinion, published this week by HarperCollins and sporting the sponsorship brand of his employer, Newstalk ZB, on the cover. How, in the pits of his despair, he couldn’t get out of bed or string a sentence together, and wanted to die. How a trip to Ireland was the beginning of his troubles; the jetlag was so bad that he didn’t sleep for 19 days. How he was given the anti-depressant Aropax, and how that took his head off, loosened a gibbering tongue, live on radio. (“Graham Henry was driving home at the time. He rang up Chris Doig, and said, ‘You’ve got to turn him on and listen to him.’ He said, ‘It’s vintage stuff.’”). And how this severe bout of depression – the fourth in his life, he estimates – more than merely coincided with the 2003 America’s Cup yacht races. He writes, “I became obsessed with Team New Zealand retaining the America’s Cup … I thought of little else … Unquestionably, my obsession led to my major depression.”
His monologue began with the happier present. “I’m really well now,” he said. “I think I’m mentally as good as I’ve ever been. I received a wonderful letter the other day. ‘Deaks. We are all nuts, and those of us that have known you for the last 30 years are aware that you have been completely crackers for some time.’ And then I was walking along the road and I saw this card, which simply said, ‘Don’t suffer from insanity. Just enjoy it.’ And those two things have probably meant more to me than anything else in recent times. It puts the whole thing into perspective. I don’t feel sick. I don’t consider myself too different from what I was. But what I’m very conscious of is that I’ve got to be careful, and that the medication which I’m under has led to a personality modification.
“Things that used to get me steamed up, or upset or depressed, don’t seem to be having those effects. I’ve been on lithium for almost a year. And it’s working. When medical people tell you that you need to do something, you do it. It’s just like a diabetic taking … uh … their medication. They should take theirs; I should take mine. Because gee I was sick. How sick is what you really want to know … ”
Having assumed the question, he then went into bat for a long innings. By all means read the full story in his book. In an age where we are used to the celebrity confession, Deaker’s chapter has the expected anguishes, the inevitable fall from grace, etc. There is no curiosity about bipolar disorder, no information about the illness, no background – he is suddenly sick, and he suffers, and tries to cope. On page 45, he writes, “I’m writing this chapter more to assist my personal recovery than anything else.” On page 46, he writes, “My sole purpose in penning this chapter is the hope that the honest sentiments expressed may help others, men or women, to face their personal devils.”
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