Many family doctors and pediatricians are skillful in prescribing antidepressants. If you take antidepressants, you will look like you are on a tranquilizer, and everyone will know. Confidentiality laws ensure your friends and the kids at school will not be told by your doctor if you see a psychiatrist or are taking medications. One out of five teenagers has suicidal thoughts. Teenage suicide is four times higher today than when today's parents were teenagers.
People can look and act normal on the outside and still be experiencing depression.
In 1995 more teenagers and young adults died from suicide than died from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, pneumonia, influenza, birth defects, and stroke combined. Ninety to ninety-five percent of people who commit suicide had a diagnosable psychiatric illness. Fifteen percent of people with severe, untreated depression commit suicide. Alcohol and drugs used to contend with the pain of mental illness more often worsen it. The combination of alcohol and depression is implicated in the majority of all suicides.