A short introduction

oh, that’s a long story… I have a long history of depression and depressive episodes which started when I was about 12 or 13, at least that’s the earliest I can remember. I think it probably started earlier, as I was a victim of some heavy bullying at school, mainly because I was just a bit different from the other kids. For instance I was (and still am) very bad at sports, always a bit clumsy and I spoke very much like an adult form a very early age, which must have seemed very strange to the other children. Of course, back in the early to mid-eighties no-one ever thought of autism, so it was always „he’s a bit different, that’s all“, it wasn’t considered a serious problem.    

I’ve seen many doctors since and had various forms of therapy for my depression (mostly medication, but also psychotherapy with 3 different therapists), but nothing really helped me to feel better in the long run. When I got older I kind of realized that I was a bit different to the people around me – I have friends, but I never socialize much and I don’t really miss it. I don’t live in a relationship, because I really don’t want to. I always wanted to work alone on my own, so I got self-employed and turned my interests into my job etc etc., I could just go on and on…

So I kind of felt a bit out of place in many ways. When I got to my late twenties I decided to ignore my depressive moods as I felt that there was nothing I could do about it and that I simply had to live with it for the rest of my life. So I kept myself very busy with work and doing the things I liked, but the depression kept coming back at irregular intervals.

It was just at some point that I felt I couldn’t accept that nothing could be done about it and that there must be someone out there who could help me after all. So I went to see a new psychiatrist that was recommended to me, told him that this was probably my last attempt to get some help regarding the depression and that no doctor and no medication had ever helped before. I think he was the first psychiatrist I went to that was really willing to listen to me in detail and he asked many, many questions and at the end he he said he suspected I could be on the autistic spectrum and that I should seek out further diagnosis. So that was the start of it all and it turned out he was right.

He said that I probably developed my depression from a very early age because of my inability to socialize and interact with other kids properly and the problems I later had at school and to a lesser extent in my adult life turned it into a chronic depression which could never be cured because no-one realized what was actually lying underneath and therefore couldn’t be treated appropriately.

My God, that was quite a bit of text… I hope it makes sense though ;-)

oh, that’s a long story… I have a long history of depression and depressive episodes which started when I was about 12 or 13, at least that’s the earliest I can remember. I think it probably started earlier, as I was a victim of some heavy bullying at school, mainly because I was just a bit different from the other kids. For instance I was (and still am) very bad at sports, always a bit clumsy and I spoke very much like an adult form a very early age, which must have seemed very strange to the other children. Of course, back in the early to mid-eighties no-one ever thought of autism, so it was always „he’s a bit different, that’s all“, it wasn’t considered a serious problem.    

I’ve seen many doctors since and had various forms of therapy for my depression (mostly medication, but also psychotherapy with 3 different therapists), but nothing really helped me to feel better in the long run. When I got older I kind of realized that I was a bit different to the people around me – I have friends, but I never socialize much and I don’t really miss it. I don’t live in a relationship, because I really don’t want to. I always wanted to work alone on my own, so I got self-employed and turned my interests into my job etc etc., I could just go on and on…

So I kind of felt a bit out of place in many ways. When I got to my late twenties I decided to ignore my depressive moods as I felt that there was nothing I could do about it and that I simply had to live with it for the rest of my life. So I kept myself very busy with work and doing the things I liked, but the depression kept coming back at irregular intervals.

It was just at some point that I felt I couldn’t accept that nothing could be done about it and that there must be someone out there who could help me after all. So I went to see a new psychiatrist that was recommended to me, told him that this was probably my last attempt to get some help regarding the depression and that no doctor and no medication had ever helped before. I think he was the first psychiatrist I went to that was really willing to listen to me in detail and he asked many, many questions and at the end he he said he suspected I could be on the autistic spectrum and that I should seek out further diagnosis. So that was the start of it all and it turned out he was right.

He said that I probably developed my depression from a very early age because of my inability to socialize and interact with other kids properly and the problems I later had at school and to a lesser extent in my adult life turned it into a chronic depression which could never be cured because no-one realized what was actually lying underneath and therefore couldn’t be treated appropriately.

My God, that was quite a bit of text… I hope it makes sense though ;-)