I didn’t understand the difference between being depressed occasionally and clinical depression until Ming was in Year 2 at primary school and I kept forgetting to provide him with the left-handed scissors he needed.
His teacher, a lovely woman, reminded me again about the scissors and, in a bit of a panic, I promised to go straight to a shop and buy the left-handed scissors and bring them back. I felt like such an absolute failure.
I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment anyway, just to get a script for an asthma preventative for me, but also to ask this wonderfully empathetic doctor how I could deal better with Anthony’s post-kidney cancer weirdness.
When you are in a waiting room to see a doctor it is sometimes a long wait and, by the time our doctor called me into his office, my suppressed sobs erupted into a cacophony of almost guttural half-sentences.
“I keep forgetting to get the left-handed scissors for Ming!” I sobbed, inconsolably (and I remember this vividly).
Our gentle doctor let me cry, gave me a tissue, and then said he could help me with my depression.
Oh! Depression? Clinical? How embarrassing! But he was so right, that doctor (who I still see!) He prescribed me with an anti-depressant that has changed my whole life, allowed me to function normally, hoisted me up from my descent into a valley I didn’t need to go through again … and find the perfect set of left-handed scissors
for my beautiful little boy.
jmgoyder 
interesting how we come to things
People still don’t seem to understand that clinical depression can’t just be “got over” any more than you can “get over” a broken leg! Good that you have spoken about how meds can turn it around.
What a wonderful doctor to help you so thoroughly.
Such a sad time
It was in 99 that I first learnt about clinical depression myself when my daughter was diagnosed with it that was good of the doctor to explain it to you
Nice that the doctor let you cry before naming the problem, and the solution..