Depression

What is Depression?

Depression is a state of mind where you are constantly feeling "down", lack of energy, unable to concentrate and are often feeling sad and hating yourself and your life. You have no interest in living life, or doing anything for that matter. It changes the way you think and act, into negative thoughts and emotions. It is not something you can merely get out of, by thinking happy thoughts, it's something that requires a lot of attention and help rather than suppressing emotions.

How Common is Depression?

 About 20% of teens experience depression before they reach adulthood.  Some teens with depression may develop bipolar disorder, and many other illnesses of the mind and body.

Depression can affect anyone, the levels of depression may vary due to the intensity of the causes. It is proven that teenage girls experience depression more than teenage boys. This may be due to the fact that most females value their social settings and physical appearances compared to males.

All teenagers experience some sort of depression during their teen years. This may be, because at this age, teens are growing, hormone levels change as well, and they may be emotionally unbalanced. adolescent years, are the years of developing a persons decision making skills,when they are affected with depression, it leads to poor decision making skills leading to many other problems.

Depression is very common in teens, and if its not treated, in these years, it can lead to some unhealthy choices that will affect their futures.

Types of  Teen Depression?

Reactive Depression:

-temporary depression
-feelings that come from a specific life situation
-symptoms may be severe
- lasts 2 weeks to 6 months

Major Depression:

-serious condition
-inability to function
-attempts at suicide
-may get over it, but comes back
-treating it can make it go away faster and come back less

Dysthmia:

-constant depressed mood
-less intense symptoms than major depression
-lasts longer than major depression
-often mistaken for major depression and only identified when it consists of two years
-you should still seek help even if you don't know its dysthmia

Bipolar Disorder:

-major depression alternating with really energetic activity
-people with bipolar disorder don't need much sleep and have many ideas
-after an energetic period, they ultimately crash deep into depression
-also seen as having two personalities consisting within one person

Atypical Depression:

-not constant
-deeply depressed for a few days
-then fine for a while or anxious/ cranky

Seasonal Affective Disorder:

-psychological and physical reaction to lack of sunlight
-usually experience it in late autumn
-mild or major, and clears up in spring
- Revolves around the seasons

Teen depression is different from other depression because at this age teens still cant make decisions properly, and are going through emotional and physical changes making them in an unstable condition that can lead to many harmful things (check "what it can lead to" tab for more information)