Polly's Battle With Depression - Dave Is My Medicine!

A co-worker has becomeher confidant.

- Amy Nelmes Bissett

For much-loved radio broadcaster and Woman’s Day columnist Polly Gillespie, it was as if someone had flicked a switch. She went from being a happy-go-lucky schoolgirl to a 13-year-old who started to fret about anything and everything.

It was so sudden, Polly initially believed the overnight change was due to something being physically wrong with her, rather than what it really was – her first encounter with depression and anxiety.

“When hormones set in, I got all kinds of very odd anxiety issues and I didn’t understand why I was so worried,” says Polly. “My mum took me to the doctors and they said it was all in my head, which it was, but that wasn’t particularly helpful. People just thought I was being a bit dramatic.”

The way New Zealanders approach mental health is undergoing a much-needed shift, but for a long time, Polly – like many Kiwis back in the day – didn’t know what she was up against. In fact, she was only diagnosed with mental health issues at 21 when she found herself in a psychiatric ward.

“For eight years, I’d have these bouts of what I now know to be depression,” she explains. “They would always go after a week. But when I moved to Gisborne for my first radio show, it didn’t go away.