Scott Morrison: I was on meds for my mental health when I was PM due to 'debilitating and agonising' stress

Scott Morrison has opened up that he struggled to get out of bed at times during his prime ministership due to debilitating anxiety.

The former PM revealed that the pressures of the top job left him so anxious he had to be prescribed antidepressants.

The 55-year-old shared a candid insight into his mental health battles in his new book Plans for Your Good: A Prime Minister's Testimony of God's Faithfulness.

He said that he couldn't look to a particular moment in his role as PM that triggered the anxiety, but added there were many factors at play.

'It was a very stressful period and the combination of the weight of issues, the length of hours that we were working, the physical demands that brought and to be honest the stuff around China was as, if not more, distressing than the pandemic,' he told The Australian.

Mr Morrison said the Covid-19 pandemic, and trade tariffs imposed by China on Australian products like wine and barley only added to the anxiety.

Tensions with China rose when Mr Morrison called for an independent inquiry into the origins of Covid. 

He said most of his time in The Lodge was 'debilitating and agonising', and that without anxiety medication he would have spiralled into a deep depression.

'My doctor was amazed I had lasted as long as I had before seeking help,' Mr Morrison wrote in his book.

'Without this help, serious depression would have manifested. What impacted me was the combination of pure physical exhaustion with the unrelenting and callous brutality of politics and media attacks.'

Mr Morrison said that while that was all part of the job as a public figure, 'politicians were not made of stone'.

'You dread the future and you can't get out of bed. It can shut you down mentally and physically. It robs you of your joy and can damage relationships. I know this from personal experience,' he wrote.

The former prime minister tried focusing on other hobbies to quell his anxiety such as swimming and cooking but the mental anguish was too much to bear without medication.

Unlike many other memoirs written by politicians, Mr Morrison says his book is more focused on how his religious faith has guided him throughout his life.

Mr Morrison was Australia's 30th prime minister from 2018 to 2022 before he lost to Anthony Albanese at the 2022 election.

He was replaced by Liberal candidate Simon Kennedy as the federal MP for Cook in Sydney's south at the recent by-election.

Mr Morrison retired from politics in February this year and went on to become the strategic adviser to DYNE Maritime, an Australian-founded, US-based venture capital company that invests in technologies related to the AUKUS pact.

He is also the vice chair of American Global Strategies, which was co-founded and chaired by Robert O'Brien who was National Security Advisor to US President Donald Trump from 2019 – 2021.