Snooker news - Neil Robertson reveals how wife Mille's depression left him 'completely helpless'

The Australian opened up in 2017 about how snooker had been “really, really tough” for him as his wife had been battling anxiety and depression for several years.

The issues off the table saw him drop down to 20 in the world rankings and miss the Masters for the first time in 10 years.

Thankfully Mille’s condition has now improved and Robertson has rediscovered some of his best form to be ranked No 2 in the world before the tour was postponed due to the coronavirus.

Reflecting on the last few years with Andy Goldstein on Eurosport’s vodcast , Robertson did not hide away from how tough it has been at times.

“What Tyson Fury did a year or so ago, when he did that documentary where he discussed his issues with mental health, his anxiety and depression, watching that I felt as though I was watching Mille talk, he was talking about the exact same thing more or less," he says.

“She wasn’t substance abusing with drugs, but with anxiety one of the big things people do is drink alcohol to try and settle it down, and that is what Mille was doing, which was very tough for me to try and juggle that and try and be one of the best snooker players in the world.

“For a few years, I was doing that without really talking about it. I had a few mixed results on the table and people not really knowing why, obviously it wasn’t myself going through those issues, but when you are trying to help someone through them, it’s probably, in some ways, it can probably be worse because you feel completely helpless in that situation.

"It took two or three years to actually work out what was going on, what is anxiety? First of all, learning that Mille did have anxiety, then working out what it is and how to treat it. So we went through some really tough times, especially when I was away for long periods of time. There was a time when I was only practising 45 minutes a day, that’s all I could really manage before I came home to help her through the day."

Robertson also revealed how rehab helped Mille to become a “completely different person”.

“It was really tough on the family, we started looking in to things like rehab centres and places like that, and I had always thought rehab centres were places where nutcases go or heavy drug addicts, rock stars or whatever, but when you learn what goes on, they are absolutely amazing, the people involved are usually former addicts themselves, maybe alcohol abuse of drug abuse, so they have experience and know what it’s like.

“So Mille went to rehab for a few weeks, learned a lot of things to help deal with anxiety and depression. The first thing was to come off the alcohol, the fuel for all mental illness is alcohol and drugs, alcohol is probably worse because that’s something you can just go and buy from a shop. So you spend a month coming off the alcohol, you learn to deal with the anxiety and the depression kind of goes away once you’ve been off the alcohol long enough, then the anxiety becomes easier to deal with.

“You go to meetings all the time, it’s mega important to keep going to meetings and talking about stuff. Now, she’s a completely different person, I couldn’t be more proud of her for everything she’s been able to do, which then gave me the go ahead to discuss these things publicly, and the responses I’ve got through people on social media has been absolutely amazing.

“When I started talking about it, I felt like I had the world on my shoulders, but as soon as I started talking about it publicly, it all came off.”