After two suicide attempts, the Olympic diving gold medallist tells Glen Williams she’s putting her life back together.
Her smile is uncertain at first. It creeps up tentatively, almost as if it needs permission, before lighting up her face.
For the past eight months, Chantelle Newbery has been trying to dig herself out of a very dark hole. Immobilised by depression, she spent her days wallowing indoors with the blinds pulled down, lacking the will even to get out of bed.
The last time Woman’s Day met Chantelle her marriage was in tatters, she was feeling “scared” and “lost”, and calling herself a hopeless mum to her two young sons. She was tear-stained and racked with guilt following two failed suicide attempts.
Thankfully, it’s a very different Chantelle, freshly returned from a self-imposed stint in a Sydney rehabilitation hospital, who greets us this time.
Opening the door to her Brisbane home, there is a healthy sparkle in her eyes, an energy to her once lethargic movements, and a certainty when she speaks.
And the smile, when it does come, radiates a new found peace. “I’m feeling a lot better, I’ve come a long way since we last met,” Chantelle, 32, says. “That dark time is a bit of a blur to me now. One day kept rolling into another, and nothing ever got better. But now, things keep getting better.
“The bad feeling does come back every now and then, I don’t think I will ever get over it totally, but I’ve learnt to work on strategies to try to keep me on top of things, so that I won’t spiral out of control.”
The bottom line for Chantelle Newbery, who captured our hearts with her gold-winning dive from the 10m tower at the 2004 Athens Olympics – our first diving gold medal in 80 years – is that she’s learning how to be happy again.
The young woman who found herself “crying tears for no reason” is determined her two boys, Jet, 7, and Ryder, 3, will not remember her as a tragically sad mum. “I hope they can see me as a happier mum,” she says. “They’re perceptive. They picked up on my sadness, so hopefully they can pick up on my increasingly happier mood.
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