In the last few months Holly Shervey has birthed two incredible projects: her eight-year labour of love, Crackhead, the TV series she has created, written and starred in. Plus just three months ago – while Crackhead was about to hit TV screens – she literally gave birth to her first child, a little girl, Addie, with her husband, fellow actor Emmett Skilton (who is also the director of Crackhead).
TW: Suicide, eating disorders, mental health
In our story series ‘How Are You Today?’, we have a meandering, mental-health focused chat with some of our most well-known New Zealanders. Check out previous chats with people such as Hayley Holt, Kiri Allan and Dame Jacinda Ardern.
When Holly Shervey was just six she lost her precious mum to bowel cancer. That completely harrowing and untethering event led her down an anxious path, which all came to a head when she was at university. Struggling with anxiety, disordered eating and suicide ideation, she thankfully managed to gather the strength to reach out for help.
That help came in the form of a stay at a psychiatric unit – an extremely difficult chapter in her life, which she’s now turned into a positive: the creation of a TV show which she hopes will help people understand what it’s like to go through these challenges, and to help those who are experiencing it first hand feel less alone.
And Crackhead appears to be doing just that – with a massive response in New Zealand since hitting Three Now, and now about to reach a wider audience after being picked up by HBO Max in Australia.
Here at Capsule we believe in having good mental health chats and as part of that, we like to check in with each other to see how we’re each doing – and we hope to encourage our readers to do the same. ‘How are you today?’ can be such a small question, but if we take a moment to really check in with ourselves and be honest in our reply – and, if we’re the one asking the question, be willing to really listen – it can lead to a much bigger conversation.
So, having said that, Holly, how are you today?
I actually got goosebumps when you said to answer it authentically! Wow. Okay, I’m good. I’ve got an 11-week-old – we’re almost at 12 weeks and I’ve just started to really enjoy her. I feel like I’m coming out of the trenches. I’ve really been waiting for this, so I’m feeling buzzed.
ELEVEN WEEKS? My God, well bloody done. That’s huge. Those first 12 weeks are absolutely insane. Some big changes happen around the 12 week mark. I remember even the little things, like it feels like they start acknowledging that you exist?
Yes! So last night, instead of going into the night times – like the night is dark and full of terrors – now I’m like, ‘oh, I’m looking forward to waking up and being with you tomorrow’.
That’s huge! Well done!
Thank you, now, anyway, how are you today?
Well, thank you for asking! Let me check in a second – I feel like I have goosebumps too now. Look, I’ve got a bit on my plate at the moment and I’m feeling a bit stretched and tired, but I feel like my mind is in a pretty good place. I’m pretty good. But thank you for asking! Tell me, eleven weeks in postpartum, how is your brain feeling?
I’ve been so lucky because my husband has been off work this whole time. That was part of our deal: I was like, yeah, I’ll do this – if we’re in it together. That would be my one tip – everyone go into this process together!
That’s a great mindset! Are you someone who always thought they’d be a mum, or always wanted to experience motherhood?
It’s something that I did want, but I lost my mum when I was very little, so it was a huge fear. I know me, so I was like, ‘okay, if I go into this, I just really need to be held.’ That was always the dialogue and my husband was like, ‘yes, I’m there for you’.
Oh, that’s beautiful. How has that fear been now, experiencing motherhood? Where is it sitting?
It’s always going to be there, I think. But it’s a kind of fear that’s with everything, because it’s life – it’s all an unknown. This is no different. We can’t predict any of it.
Do you have tools in your mental health toolkit that you rely on when fear creeps in?
I’ve got a little mantra – I have a Lotus Bud Mindfulness Bell app, have you heard of it? It’s this little bell that goes off randomly, and it just reminds you to take a breath and check in with yourself. My little mantra is ‘ich bin OK’ which translates to ‘I’m okay, I’m alright, I’m good’. I say that all day and it helps!
Okay, I’m going to Google this as soon as we get off the call! Now, you’ve got a fair bit on your plate at the moment. You’ve had these two massive life events collide – the birth of your daughter at the same time as you essentially gave birth to another project, Crackhead, which you’d been working on for about eight years. How has that timing been for you?
It’s just so wild to me that they came at the same time – two dreams! It has been so intense, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. I think riding the wave of the TV show coming out, while having to keep a human alive at the same time, has just made it all incredibly grounding.
I have loved this series – it’s really unlike anything I’ve seen before. Although, there’s something Fleabag-ish about it, watching a woman dealing with trauma, but it’s all diffused with comedy. But then sometimes it’s very Girl, Interrupted – very gritty and confronting.
Those references are bang on. It was always like, how do we make Frankie irreverent and relatable, like Fleabag? That was always such a great reference point. And then my time going through psychiatric care, Girl, Interrupted was what I fell back on. Part of me wanting to make Crackhead was because I had Girl, Interrupted.
Can I ask you more about that experience of going through psychiatric care – because Crackhead is obviously very loosely based on your experiences. What stage of your life were you in when you went into psychiatric care?
Yes, it was that really fun time when you and all your friends are at uni and you’re trying to do that too – but because of the trauma I had growing up, I wasn’t adulting well. I wasn’t coping. I always describe it as like I had these really jagged thoughts. When it came to uni, it all just kind of combusted. It’s a high party time, you’re taking more drugs and alcohol and sex and excess, and I just couldn’t navigate it anymore. Then the suicidal thoughts started getting pretty intense – that’s what I mean by those jagged thoughts. I tried to take my own life and then thankfully, decided I wanted to be here. I asked my parents for help and they suggested psychiatric care.
Gosh, that’s such a difficult period of life – it’s so incredible you were able to ask for help. I can’t imagine that was at all easy?
That was the worst bit, the shame that comes with it. Again – I’ve got goosebumps on my arm – my body’s very good at telling me. I remember it so vividly. There were these commercials that would come on with the rugby player [Sir John Kirwan] and he would be talking about depression. I would always shrink when those came on, because I knew how much I felt like that, and I was so embarrassed. I actually went to a girlfriend first and I said, ‘Hey, when you found me comatose in that pub toilet, I’d taken a whole lot of pills to try and take my own life’. And she just hugged me and was like, ‘Hey I think we – I’m laughing right now because it’s so shocking – we should tell your parents’. When they said psychiatric care, I just didn’t want it. But a part of me did. It’s hard to put into words – a part of you fights it.
And what was that experience like?
It was the most horrific experience. I think, well, you probably remember at that age you already feel embarrassed about everything, right? So, to be in a flat in uni and be like, ‘hey guys, I’ve got to move out of this flat because I’m going to the mental institution up the road’… Then also, being from a small town, everyone knows your business. My little brother was getting bullied at school because his sister was crazy. The shame sucks. It’s weird though, when you’re in psych care you’re removed from the world a bit, so you get to be in your own bubble of craziness and it’s not until you come out and you’re trying to figure out how to fit into society… I think that was almost the hardest bit.
We’ve got better and better about how we talk about mental health – I imagine back then it was tough though. But even tougher and less understood when you lost your mum – you were only six, right? Back then, taking your kid to therapy wasn’t something that even crossed people’s minds to do – nor was it suggested might be helpful. If you could go back, what would you want to say to that little girl?
To that little girl whose mum had just died and had all these unnatural fears, I’d give her a hug. When I was little, I would check for murderers outside the house, or I’d do rituals – kind of going into OCD territory – to navigate my way through the anxiety. I’d give that little girl a hug and just say, ‘hey, you can go tell your grandma or your dad’. Because for some reason, as a little kid, you don’t.
Creating Crackhead must have been confronting at times, opening up old wounds. How was that experience?
It was hugely cathartic, because the wild and wonderful thing is that almost every single person has their own relationship to mental health. Over the last eight years of making Crackhead the shame has just dissipated.
One thing that really jumped out about Crackhead was the dark humour in it. I’ve noticed that, even while we’ve talked today, there have been times where you’ve laughed to lighten things up when we’ve talked about heavy things. How important is humour to you? Is it something you’ve relied on to get through?
Comedy has saved me. I remember coming out of psych care, being in the grittiest, shittiest and most depressing flat and chucking on The Hangover and it just bringing me out of my funk. There have been so many moments, so many films or TV shows, that do that for me. I escape my reality through them. Even now, the trenches of the first 12-weeks with a newborn, I rewatched all of Game of Thrones! It just took me to a fantasy land.
Oooh, I remember watching movies like Jurassic Park, or Dante’s Peak – just any big disaster movie. Like, okay, I’m going to be fine – I just have a newborn, it’s not like a T-rex is chasing me! Going back to Crackhead – this is a massive project, what are your hopes for it? What are you hoping people might take away from this show?
That thing that I took away from Girl, Interrupted first and foremost when I watched that and I saw young women who were not coping, who were self-harming, had eating disorders, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I feel seen. I feel like someone understands me.’ And so my hope is that anyone going through something similar to what the characters in Crackhead are going through can identify with that and just feel less isolated on their own.
That’s such a powerful message, because it is such a funny thing that we can all feel so isolated when we’re tackling something difficult. But the thing about being a human is, you’re never the only person on Earth who is going through it.
I actually watched the [Dame] Jacinda Ardern documentary, where she’s pregnant. Have you seen it?
I have. I actually saw it at the movies with one of our Capsule co-founders, Emma – I don’t think we even made it through the opening credits without crying.
Oh my God, yes, she’s pregnant, she’s a mum, she’s working. It was just seeing someone do it – her get through that, you’re like, oh okay, I can do it! It’s really powerful seeing someone do it, do the hard things.
Do you have a message for, perhaps a young woman who is watching the show, who is in a dark spot right now – what would you say directly to them?
Oh yeah [wells with tears], sorry. It’ll pass. As shitty as it feels right now, it will pass.
Crackhead is available to stream now on Three Now.
Where to get help:
- Need to talk?: Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor.
- Healthline: Call 0800 611 116, available 24/7
- Safe to talk: a 24/7 confidential helpline: 0800 842 846, text 4334, webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
- Shakti: 0800 742 584, provides culturally specialist, confidential support services to women and their children of Asian, African and Middle Eastern origins
- The Harbour: Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.
- Women’s Refuge: 0800 733 843 (females only)
- If it is an emergency or you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
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