An Unpredictable Life

1. Where It All Began

Where It All Began

1

I was fifteen, at the time just over my fourth year exams and just before I went into my fifth year. Needless to say, it was a crazy time in my high school life.

If you don't know what 'fifth year' means, then let me explain how high school works in Scotland.

I have lived in the little town of Haddington, East Lothian, my whole life. Literally from six months old and I'm still here. I don't plan to ever leave.

We go to playgroup, which is like a pre-school around three to four years old, then into Primary School from five to eleven. Round about twelve-years-old (depending on where your birthday falls in the calendar) we go into High School. I went to Knox Academy, after brilliant years in King's Meadow, the primary school. In Primary School, you have Primary 1 right up to Primary 7. These are your class years. We had sub-sections and all that, within the years, but I won't go into that.

In High School, we suddenly went into 'Years'. So First Year, Second Year…so on and so forth, right up to Sixth Year, which was the final year, when we're Seventeen / Eighteen (again, depending on your birthday). I was right in that awkward stage. You have set classes from First to Third Year and then in Fourth, you get to choose what you want to study from then on. You choose again in Fifth Year and again in Sixth, depending on your grades in classes and exams. I loved that part of school, because it meant I had a year to try a subject, and if it didn't suit me, I could choose to take another class. It was exciting, to me.

However, because I was about to sit my fourth year exams, it was stressful and hectic. Classes were giving out extra homework, to help us revise for our exams, and in between that, we were usually always preparing for our summer break. I used to go to East Kilbride, near Glasgow, to stay with my gran during the summer.

I'm not sure there was ever a more chaotic time in my life.

For a long time, I had dizzy spells, headaches and times where I would feel like passing out at the drop of the hat. I could be sitting or standing anywhere, at home or at school, in class or at lunch and I'd get a sudden rush of heat through me. I felt like I could pass out even though I didn't know why.

Over the passing months I went to my local doctor and was continually told that I had a virus or some kind of infection. There was nothing to tell him other than that I felt dizzy and sick all the time. I was always tired and unable to concentrate, either on what people were saying or at school. I was unable to do my school work properly and I worried constantly about failing my exams. He put me on various antibiotics and I worked my way through them, even though due to the way I felt they often made me feel worse.

By the time I entered my fifth year, sometime after summer, things got worse. I was being sick almost every day, sometimes several times a day and I passed out (fainted) two or three times. When I went back to my doctor with these updates on how I felt, he insisted that my virus had become worse and that there was nothing else wrong with me. He claimed that I hadn't had the proper time to overcome my first virus when, because my immune system was low, I caught another virus on top of that.

It seemed strange to me, but I was too sick to complain, so I took the stronger antibiotics. A few weeks later, I went to see him again for a check up to see if the tablets were working. I broke down in tears and he gave me a form to fill out. He told me to sit in the waiting room for a minutes while he calculated the results.

I had no idea what results he was calculating, but when I went back inside he told me I was depressed. He claimed there was nothing else wrong with me but the virus, which on top of my stress levels at school with my exams, had made me depressed. He put me on antidepressants which were initially already quite strong, and I took them as I was supposed to. For two or three weeks all they did was make me feel worse.