The Psychology of Adolescent Depression: The Under Acknowledged Disease.
A symptom of the bad times is that you think that they will never abate. You convince yourself that you are doomed forever to a state of half-life. You awake to a sighing gloom and an inordinate effort of will is required to leave your bed. You know that you should get up to arrest the feeling of despair, but the listlessness which is a characteristic of the condition holds you there, gazing upwards in static stare, musing over the endlessness of the day ahead. Everything is an effort and is carried out in slow motion. The smallest task, such as going to school or being with friends, is a weight on you.Minor problems, such as disputes between friends, become issues of magnitude. Decisions are deferred and avoided. Simple tasks are shelved. Worst of all is the disintegration of your self-confidence. You fumble in speech and in action. The ringing of a telephone assaults you and you shrink from answering it. This is how my friend acted right before he committed suicide in 1988.
Most of us like to think of childhood as a happy time, free from worry and responsibility. But research shows that children, not only adults, can suffer from depression (Bee, 450). Sad things happen, people get sick and die, parents divorce. We try to shield our children from these troubles, but we can't. Sometimes, painful life events can lead to depression. Other times, childhood depression related to biological factors seems to occur for no apparent reason. Among both children and adolescents, depressive disorders confer an increased risk for illness and interpersonal and psychosocial difficulties that persist long after the depressive episode is resolved; in adolescents there is also an increased risk for substance abuse and suicidal behavior. Unfortunately, these disorders often go unrecognized by families and physicians alike (Bee, 450-452).
