When I was 18 yo, I went to see a psychiatrist for symptoms of depression. It’s was a very dark time in my life: being pushed into it by my parents (“you are so smart, you have to realize your potential!”) I was pursuing higher ed very aggressively. No one, including me, had any idea I was autistic. “You are just gifted” they would often say.

One-way trip to my uni used to take ~3.5 hours, classes started at 7:45AM, and stopped around 6-8PM. Between having a single meal per day (my family was financially poor), working on home assignments on trains and pursuing a romance with an entirely disinterested person, I was only getting 3-4 hours of sleep every day, except for weekends.

That was a recipe for disaster, that would eventually come in a form of a self-harm episode. But at the time the doctor didn’t see anything wrong with me, so they left me with a prescription for a short course of tranquilizers.

This meat grinder of a regiment nearly killed me in 9 months. After my sh episode I had to spend a month in a hospital, and full physical recovery took another 7 months.

After recovering I decided to drop out - best decision of my life for sure! It’s been more than 15 years since then, and I am doing so much better.

Anyway, I kinda hate that doctor now, hope everything is ok with them.