My earliest memory of dealing with depression and anxiety was on a Tuesday, in October, 1982. I was seven years old, my maternal grandmother had died the year before (incidentally, at the time, we were learning about fossils at school) and my maternal grandfather had had his lower right leg amputated due to smoking related health complications. (He had pain in his legs when I was four, and I remember missing a day of kindergarten for him to go and see a vascular specialist. That vascular specialist told him that he didn't need an operation, if he would give up smoking and take up walking, instead. My grandfather insisted upon the operation. The operation on his left leg went well, but he developed gangrene in his right). I remember being in the schoolgrounds, with the cacophony of kids around me.

That was also the year that I remembered seeing on the news, a boy of around my age, who had leukaemia. He died. I remember, eleven days before Christmas, 1982, my mother was ironing and I was talking to her, and I said that people had lived so long without getting leukaemia, and she said to me, "There are people who are in their 70s and 80s who haven't got leukaemia. Not everybody gets leukaemia. It's Christmas time, think happy things."

I neglected to mention, I was seven years old.

Depression was to lead to an autism diagnosis, at 35.

If I could give one piece of advice to anybody dealing with depression, it would be, for heaven's sake, DON'T follow this ridiculous doctor and sequester yourself away for twelve months on an internal quest for answers! Once you commence treatment from a psychologist, read autobiographies of people who deal with depression, by all means, and find something that works for you. My depression is still around, but rather than seeing my depression as a shadowy black dog, I see it as a friendly black Labrador, whom I call Kintaroo, who acts as an invisible assistance dog.