Treatments for Teens with Depression.
Scott was always "the best son anyone could as for." But when he turned sixteen his life took a turn for the worse. First, his dog, which he had for 11 years, was hit by a car and killed. A few weeks later his best friend moved to another state. At his play-off basketball game, he missed a foul shot that could have won the game. That same week he failed a chemistry quiz and had a huge fight with his girlfriend. Convinced that no one cared about him, Scott hooked up a hose to the exhaust pipe on his mother's car and slid it into the car window. He locked the garage door and turned on the car. His younger brother came home, heard the car engine, and broke down the door. Paramedics came and resuscitated him (Hales 73). Incidence of more severe depression like this occurs in less then ten percent of all teenagers although many of the symptoms, such as sadness, poor appetite, physical complaints, are seen in one-third of all teens. Depression can be life threatening. Every day twenty-six teens succeed in killing themselves. The suicide rate for teens has been tripled in the last thirty years (Wolff 6). Because teen depression is increasing in our society, we as a nation do more to promote mental health in our youth. .
Depression, one of the oldest human problems, is defined as the inability to enjoy oneself, loss of appetite or weight, lack of energy, and excessive or inappropriate guilt (Hales 13). It can appear at any age. More than eighty percent of depressed teens fail to recognize their problem nd get the help they need to recover. Instead, they blame their fatigue and aches on the flu. If they can't eat, sleep or enjoy pleasure they tend to blame it on stress. More than half of the people who experience one episode of major depression will have another at some point in life. About twenty to thirty-five percent are chronically troubled (Hales 14-15).