Depression can be a mental illness. Equally it can be a coping mechanism for people who have an issue they don't want to address. For Thorpe that may or may not be his sexuality. Thorpe's an intelligent person whose life seems to lack direction. He probably needs a career more than he needs an escape. Why has he gone back to Switzerland? To escape the attention from an Australian public to whom he is a figure of marginal interest. He's self absorbed and mildly narcissistic.
