When Darkness Falls

Depression had followed Wendyl Nissen through her life, and in a bid to keep it at bay, she resolved to make a massive change. But living a simpler, less stressful life wasn’t going to be straightforward. In this deeply moving account, she talks about the loss of her baby daughter, battling perfectionism and finding her way out of the shadows.

The Auckland Star as a cadet reporter and living in a flat in Mt Eden. My boyfriend of two years and I had just broken up, he had moved out, I was living on my own and I wasn’t dealing with it very well.

I stopped eating, I got sick and my parents eventually picked me up and brought me home, where I would eat only yoghurt and lie in bed all day for two weeks.

They took me to the doctor, who could find nothing wrong with me and sent me home.

These days I’m fairly sure a diagnosis of depression would be made and a script for antidepressants written out. But this was 1981 and everyone just hoped I would come right.

Which I did. Got myself off the couch, fitted into some size eight jeans, went back to work and tried not to think much about it.

In years to come I would have some more bad times, which I called breakdowns, but they were never for too long, usually brought on by a life event – usually a relationship problem – and then I would come right.

But then in 1992 my third child, Virginia, died of cot death. I picked myself up and went back to work, but two years later I couldn’t get out of bed. This time a doctor diagnosed depression, sent me to a psychiatrist who gave me a prescription for antidepressants (in those days GPs could not write them) and within a week or so I felt a bit better and in a month I felt normal – well, my normal.