Teen Depression: Why? What can help?

Teen Depression- why? What Can Help?

“When that feeling comes, I feel so helpless and hopeless.” Says a teen who suffers from depression. ” Other times I just feel like ending my life.” He added.

The above-mentioned teenager is one example out of the millions of teenagers who suffer from depression every year. The diagnosis of depression is increasing alarmingly every year. In fact, the World Health Organization (W.H.O) says that depression is one of the leading causes of illness and disability in young ones between the ages of 10 and 19. These facts do not reduce in young adults either. Over the years there has been a steady and very fast paced increase in individuals between the ages of 20 and 30 suffering from depression. Most of them get depressed from their young age and do not get help and suffer from it for a long while.

These statistics of teens and young adults suffering from depression increases every day and this made me pick this topic as my first topic to be discussed.

Symptoms of depression

The symptoms of depression vary from each teen and individual but generally include the following; changes in sleep pattern, appetite, and weight. Feeling hopeless, loneliness, worthless, overly sad and despair may also appear in patients of depression. expression of undue anger, aggressiveness, withdrawal, concentration and remembrance issues are also symptoms. It is also worthy of note that suicidal thoughts and actions is one of the most prominent and common symptoms of depression. Medically, a patient is only diagnosed of depression when one or more of the above-mentioned symptoms persist for weeks on end and serve as a disruption of a person’s everyday life.

Causes of depression

W.H.O in its definition of depression says “depression arises from complex interaction of social, biological and physiological factors.”

These factors include;

Stress- stress and pressure is the leading cause of depression in teens and young adults. Most patients of depression often fall into the depressed stress after chronic stress and intense pressure. For example, a student who is under undue pressure from his/her parents to perform so highly in an institution could fall into depression when that student fails or someone who is fired from work could fall into depression. Other stress factors are divorce, death of loved one, bullying, familial instability, feelings of rejection, and sexual abuse.

Genetics- it has recently been proven that depression is hereditary. This fact also came as a surprise to me when I saw it. From a case study carried out in the united states, it was noted that over 60% of teens and young adults who suffered from depression had one or more of their family suffering from depression before them. It was said that this hereditary factor could lead to change in chemical activities that could affect the brain.

Substance abuse, health issues and hormonal issues could also cause depression.

Now to the fun part, how do you cope with depression?

Depression can be managed by counselling from and medications from a mental health practitioner.

If you suffer from depression, pay extra attention to caring for your physical and mental health. Eat good food, carry out exercises, sleep well. These activities could release chemicals that will improve your mood.

A few years back I came across something called First Aid Kit for Emotions. This was developed for people suffering from depression to help them keep their spiraling emotions in check.

Contact information of people to call when down, a journal containing your positive thoughts and experiences you enjoyed, mementoes to remind you of people that love you, favorite songs that are uplifting(no sad songs, they tend to pull you down more), inspirational articles and sayings are all items in the kit.

And guess what? There’s room for more mood uplifting items in the kit!

Whys that? Its simply because for every individual there are several triggers and so it is important to recognize those triggers and create a suitable plan that helps you. Lifestyle changes could help you combat depression too because our mind and body are connected.

Do not give in to that feeling, depression can be beaten.

So when next you feel that trigger and you’re about to slide into depression; do the needful, remember your kit or just go online and feed your eyes happy things. That feeling will go.

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