I have this childhood memory of my mother scolding me. I was 10. She would say, “Why are you sulking, nobody wants to be around that!” And thus began a ritual. I was to take my long-face to the quiet of my bedroom, and wait for it to pass then I could return to the rest of the world. I’m older than I care to admit now, and yet I still often need to take myself to the quiet of my bedroom to wait for feelings overwhelm to pass. I guess you don’t outgrow everything! As far back as I can remember, I have had big feelings, often overwhelming feelings that drowned out everything else around me. I couldn’t “snap out of it”, or “cheer up”. I had to feel what I was feeling for as long as the unwelcome emotions visited.

In my pre-teens, I would get head-splitting migraines that would land me in hospital. But really, I did not mind these as much as the episodes of soul-wrenching sadness. I did not know it at the time, but I was experiencing the first couple of depressive episodes. I also went from being a straight A student at the start of high school to frequent skips in attendance, owing to a myriad of minor ailments. One such day, I woke up as usual, ready to go through the motions of another drag of a day at school, but found that I couldn’t stand up straight to go brush my teeth. Instead, I had what I could only describe to you as the worst ache in my stomach. A pain so severe I thought my inside organs were signaling a premature death. I remember shouting for my brother to come help me stand up straight. Instead, when he tried to help, I thanked him with a banshee like scream. Cue-doctor’s visit.

It isn’t always teenage rebellion