Surviving Depression - Matt's Brave Decision To Quit

Stress and grief sent him spiralling

- Marilynn Mclachlan

For most people, New Year’s Eve is a time for both celebration and making resolutions. But as the year clicked over to 2018, Celebrity Treasure Island host Matt Chisholm set himself just one goal: survive.

“It wasn’t to have as much fun in life as I could, which would have been my resolution 10 years ago,” he tells. “It was to survive. That’s how I felt going into that year.”

Already unhappy, he had no idea that the events in the months ahead would create a perfect black storm that would see him spiral downwards. Nor did he know that by December he would hit rock bottom.

“I got to the end, met my last work deadline and I just collapsed,” Matt recalls. “And I allowed myself to feel and be honest and just go ‘F***ing hell, I’ve got to get off this train.’ It was killing me.”

The busy journalist had kicked off 2018 with a seven-week stint in Thailand to host Survivor NZ, before returning to Auckland, where he started a new role on TVNZ’s Sunday. Meanwhile, he was living in a small rental, had a one-year-old son, Bede, and his wife Ellen, 35, was pregnant with their second child.

“Someone in HR said I probably shouldn’t do Sunday, Survivor and have another baby all in the one year, but I thought, it’s better to burn out than fade away,” the 42-year-old says. “That was always my attitude to life.”

Determined, Matt threw himself into his job, but it began to take its toll. Previously, as a presenter on Fair Go and Seven Sharp, he was used to balancing the heavy stories with the fun, but this wasn’t the case on Sunday, where all of his work was serious and he found himself increasingly tired and stressed.

In April, Ellen and Matt welcomed baby Finn to the world, and the sleepless nights and exhaustion known by every parent of a newborn only amplified his feelings.