“It’s a bit like admitting that you have a common cold,” Goondiwindi Cotton owner Sam Coulton said. 

“Nobody’s game to stand up and say ‘My name’s Sam Coulton. I have depression and I feel really bad.’”

“What we’ve got to try and do is get depression as accepted as the common cold.”

Goondiwindi Cotton will launch their winter line up at their store on 27 Herbert Street, Goondiwindi, on Thursday April 13 from 6pm-9pm. Fashion parades and nibblies will be combined with talks on mental health, and the $25 entry fee will go towards Tie Up the Black Dog’s efforts to help struggling locals. 

Sam said he hoped to make people with depression realise they are not alone.

“It’s a common problem and it’s something that we’ve not kept in the cupboard all the time. Bring it out and let’s talk about it, and let’s feel free to talk about it,” he said. 

Established in Goondiwindi by Mary Woods, Mary Carrigan and Liz Wood, Tie Up the Black Dog was inspired by Winston Churchill’s descriptions of his struggle with bipolar disorder, in which he described his depressive states as ‘the black dog’.

“We thought that in the bush, people have dogs and to control them, they need to tie them up,” Mary Woods explained. 

Mary said attitudes towards mental illness have been slowly changing over the years.

“When we started in 2007, people would cross the street if they thought you had depression. They’d think ‘just pick up your socks and get over it,’” she said. 

“There’s a lot more compassion now in the community, but by the same token, in the last 10 years, society has been like a big ball of wax that keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. There’s more and more pressure and more and more stress on people, and people are less able to cope and they find themselves in a situation where they just can’t manage any more.”

Despite the progress, Mary felt there was still a long path ahead. She was most concerned about the rising rate of suicide in Australia.

“When we say it’s better – I mean, is it? Is it better when we’ve got eight people a day committing suicide because they’re not managing?” she said.

“People don’t just commit suicide – it’s a long slow haul, usually, before they can’t cope anymore. So when we say we’re managing, we’re managing part of it, but I think there’s other parts of it we need to be managing a lot better.”

All funds raised on the night will go towards local programs to help those struggling with mental illness.