Willy de Wit

Willy de Wit starred in some of New Zealand's best-loved comedy shows, from Funny Business to McPhail & Gadsby as well as spending over a decade on Radio ...

There was a year and a half of slow comprehension as it dawned on me that I was, for want of a better word, disabled. I now walk with a stick but that's cool, because I couldn't walk at all for a while, so to be able to walk is a win. then I stood up and I collapsed to the ground. I have been sober now for seven years and I am full of hope. I stood again, and I collapsed again. I was living by myself in an apartment at The Heritage, and I distanced myself from the people who cared about me. That I didn't have the fortitude or desire to stop. We were also doing Comedy Central and Pulp Comedy and because I was creating and being successful, my feelings of depression were few and far between but, whenever things turned sour, it was "hello old friend". I kept it to myself at first, but because we were in Ōrākei and lessons were in Titirangi, I had to ride my pushbike all that way, twice a week. We worked out some sketch and solo stuff, and on the first night we had a grand total of six in the audience. I did try happy pills for a while, and they tempered things a little, but depression has always been in the background for me. In my early teens I took up ballet, much to my father's disgust and my mother's confusion.