I Survived Depression - so can YOU!

Depression affects every aspect of a person’s life and nothing could be truer when it comes to teenagers. Originally research showed that up to 8 percents of teens are affected by depression, but just yesterday the government came out and reported that more than 2 million U.S. teenagers have suffered a serious bout of depression in the past year, including nearly 13 percent of girls.

Of course lower numbers are always better, but in one way this is good. Now that these numbers have been released maybe more emphasis will be placed on teenage depression. The teenage years are so important because it is then that a person’s life begins to take shape. And until now most teenage depression went untreated and most never even diagnosed.

Reasons for Teen Depression

There are many reasons that can lead to teen depression including stress from school or athletics, peer pressure, the influence of sex hormones, a disturbing event, conflicts with parents and even just the normal maturation process. Although the teenage years can be the best in a person’s life, the teenage years can bring on new situations such as the death of a friend or relative, a breakup with a boyfriend or girlfriend, or failure at school.

Adolescents with low self-esteem, that are highly self-critical, and who feel little sense of control over negative events are particularly at risk to become depressed when they experience stressful events.

So how do you tell if your teen is depressed?

Signs of Teenage Depression

Teenagers face a lot of pressure just trying to figure where they fit in life. So it can be very difficult to tell if your teen is depressed or just suffering from simple moodiness and many times teen depression will vary from adult depression as teens will not always show outward signs.

Here are some of the symptoms that may indicate teen depression, particularly when they last for more than two weeks:

Withdrawal from friends and family
Sadness and hopelessness
Lack of enthusiasm, energy or motivation
Difficulty concentrating
Feelings of not meeting other people’s expectations
Poor self-esteem or guilt
Feelings of worthlessness
Restlessness and agitation
Substance abuse
Problems with authority
Thoughts of death or suicide and sometimes actions
Changes in eating and sleeping habits
Poor performance in school

So what do you do if you think your teenager is experiencing depression?

Helping Your Teenager Overcome Depression

If you think that your teenager may be depressed you need to take action quickly before the depression can do too much damage. The first thing is to get professional help. You need to seek out a qualified therapist. If money is a problem many communities have clinics that work on a sliding scale based on your income. And don’t always settle for the first professional that you meet. A good relationship with a professional is very important so make sure that it is someone that you can relate to and that your child can relate to.

Another treatment that can be used with teenagers is anti depressant medications although not to the same extent as they are used by adults. Anti depressants were designed and tested on adults, so their effects on teenagers are not completely understood. Teenage brains are developing and some professionals feel that medications can have negative effects. Lexapro however was just shown this week to be very safe when used by teenagers and hopefully this will change people’s thinking.

There are some other lesser known treatments, but like medication not much testing has been done with teenagers and their long term effects are unknown.

Conclusion

Research has now shown that depression affects the lives’ of many teenagers especially girls and the long term effects of depression can be devastating. It is important to know the signs of teen depression and if you suspect hat your teen is depressed to get help fast.

Tags: signs+of+teenage+depression

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 15th, 2008 at 3:18 am and is filed under Teenage Depression | . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.