Why Cowboy Up just isnt enough any more

In the bush, you're told to cowboy up. In the military, we called it grabbing a cup of concrete, or a can of harden up — a way of telling yourself to suck it up and get on with the job. But saying it doesn't make it so. There are only so many times someone can get knocked down before they can't get back up. I've walked alongside the black dog myself, on and off, for years. I'm in a good place now, but it hasn't always been that way, and I only say that to make one point: one life lost is one too many. According to the statistics, 18 people in New South Wales have taken their life in the past seven days. Chances are, you knew one of them. This weekend, our community lost one of its own. Troy Cross, of Boorowa, was a bull rider, a farrier, a horse breaker and a carrier — the kind of bloke who showed up for other people's hard yards as often as his own. For years he organised and supplied stock for events at Buckville Rodeo Academy near Young. Everyone who knew Troy knew how giving he was. As the club he helped build put it this week, he was simply "one of the good ones." A lot of it comes down to money, if you trace it back far enough. High fuel prices push up feed costs, which push up what contractors charge, while falling meat prices squeeze the other end. Farming is getting harder and more expensive, and so is dragging a float from one rodeo to the next. That pressure follows people home, into marriages and breakups, onto shoulders that already had plenty stacked on them — and it's not just the men carrying it. It's the women too. That's the environment R U OK Day tries to break into once a year, and most years it barely makes a dent. The orange shirts come out, the posters go up, and it can start to feel a bit virtuous — a good conversation in a meeting room, then everyone goes back to work. That's not what matters. What matters is the third, fourth or fifth question — the ones that come after someone's already said "yeah, good thanks" and you stay anyway. Would you like to sit down and have a chat? Let's go outside and grab a coffee. Somewhere around the third or fourth question, people start to relax and actually begin to answer. But you can't ask a third question of someone you don't know well enough to notice something is off. That means knowing people's baseline — what their good looks like, so you notice when it's out of kilter. Troy knew that. It's why he was the one who showed up, who noticed, who asked. That's the standard the rest of us should hold ourselves to. Wellways brought staff to Buckville Rodeo Academy on Saturday, offering that kind of support — its first time working directly with a rodeo community here, though it has supported rural NSW after suicide for years. Staff from the After Suicide Support Program, Universal Aftercare and StandBy Support After Suicide were made available to talk, with no expectation that anyone had to. Wellways can organise ongoing support year-round on 1300 111 400, or in person at their Young office on Campbell Street. For anyone with thoughts of self-harm themselves, Wellways says genuine human connection can be protective in a way little else is — no single service stops every suicide, but compassionate support and reduced isolation give people a better chance of finding their way back. Nothing about Saturday, or this article, undoes what's happened. But as Wellways puts it, we can help ensure no one has to face it alone. One person a week lost to the black dog is too many. Eighteen in seven days is ridiculous. As a community, we need to band together and do something about it. If this brings up anything for you, Lifeline is on 13 11 14, the Suicide Call Back Service is on 1300 659 467, MensLine Australia is on 1300 789 978, or Wellways on 1300 111 400.