Dear Diary: I Had A Clinical Depression During My Younger Years

It is just interesting to remember the years when I was afflicted with a clinical depression and I obviously doesn't know that I had it until many years later when I learned about this kind of devastating disease.

When I was still a baby I cried a lot and I lose consciousness, my neighbor noticed my condition and suggested my mother that I should be seen by a doctor since my neighbor thought that my parents could afford it because at that time my father was already working abroad as a mechanic.

So my mother took me to the hospital and some tests were taken which I couldn't remember because I was so young then. The also tested my heart but nothing was found but one, I had a mild epilepsy.

I was given an epilepsy medicine and was under the medication until the early 90's when my mother and I decided to stop seeing the doctor anymore.

We went to a Neurologist and then after sometime my mother stopped me from taking my medicine until I had a bout of losing consciousness. Then she took me again to the doctor and she had a good scolding because of halting my treatment.

Then after some time and I don't know what we landed into my second Neurologist which prescribed me Phenobarbital for my mild epilepsy. We went to consultation to him every 100 days when my medicine starts to run out and sometimes I would get an EEG for detecting seizures.

But the negative side-effects of Phenobarbital, a slow-acting anti-seizure medication overtook me around the year 1983 and I suffered a clinical depression. That was around 1983 and since I was still a child the clinical depression didn't pushed me in a level of totally "sad and blue" that could have harmed me.

A clinical depression is different, it isn't like you are sad, it is a deeper feeling that affects you physically and mentally. That is why my mother always notices me that I was always silent when I was still a kid. But you will surely know what is it until you are suffering or have suffered from it.

Fortunately I was able to sweat it off maybe because my body made a tolerance from Phenobarbital. Then the dosage got tapered off as years go by my Neurologist and that made a difference since I was taking the medicine daily until when I was already in the middle school we decided not to go anymore to my Neurologist.