New Zealand actress Kim Crossman has turned to podcasting as a way to talk with others following her diagnosis and recovery from depression.
The second season of Pretty Depressed launched yesterday.
Crossman told TVNZ1's Breakfast she turned to podcasting after feeling the need to "turn my recovery into a bit of a project."
"My brand of depression is this kind of negative self-talk, but it also means I'm very high-functioning, so I need to be busy all the time and 'go, go, go' and it's moments of peace and reflection that I tend to really struggle in," she said.
"I'm not good at self-care and I felt like unless I made my depression and recovery a project, I wouldn't give it the time of day, whereas I'm very good at giving 100 per cent to any work I do."
She said she had initially intended not to release the podcast, calling it a "selfish way to talk to high-profile people about how they navigate through life's ups and downs."
"I don't have any transferrable skills - this is what I've chosen to do - and there has to be a healthier way to approach it because I was making myself ill by getting burnt out."
Crossman said she was "really resistant" to receiving help, saying she "didn't want to be labelled with depression".
"I spent a long time in a really bad place, shutting people out, isolating - which is tell-tale signs that someone isn't well - and it wasn't until kind of my family and my partner had stepped in and said that I needed to go and see someone.
"Seeing someone and being diagnosed was this huge weight off my shoulder 'cause it was like, 'Oh, these thoughts aren't my own and I've had some bad habits that have got me into this place and that there is a pathway out of it.'"
She said while seeing a mental health professional "isn't a cure-all, but there are definitely tools to be learned."
Crossman said she's learned a lot from doing the podcast, including that her depression is "a lifer, and I've just got to learn tools to manage it better," and to learn to "unpack" issues which don't always come in "neat little boxes".
"We're all imperfect people from imperfect parents and we all have residual stuff. It's just if you're brave enough to go and lean in and go, 'Cool, let's start unpacking those boxes,' on the other side of that is a much more freeing life."
Pretty Depressed with Kimberley Crossman can be accessed on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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