WHY TEENS ARE DEPRESSED NOWADAYS:-
By: Khizra Kamran
Tags: Teenagers, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Health, Teen Depression, Depression

WHY TEENS ARE DEPRESSED NOWADAYS:-

Have you ever looked in the mirror and found someone who’s trying to hide behind the fake smiles? Do you ever feel like something is killing you and that thing is your emptiness?

Well let's discuss it here..

………….. The majority of children and adolescents who attempt suicide have a significant mental health disorder, usually depression.

In present society, instead of learning about depression and anxiety, people ignore it. It's dangerous that the graphs are changing every year, but instead of decreasing in the rate of suicides, it's rising… Looking at this sudden increase its hard not to find it disturbing

Many doctors and psychiatrists will agree with me that there’s more stress in youth nowadays than previous generations. This stress triggers depression and mood disorders.

*Short note for parents : (instead of finding your kid annoying and disrespectful, try to understand them and try to solve their problems)

Let's continue…

Dangerously increases in teens suicide numbers:

About every 100 minutes, 1 teen takes their life. The figures starting increasing between 1950-1990 and still increasing, here you can see this in the graph provided by reliable source

That was the matter of the 90’s but what about now?

From 2007-2017 number of suicides among 10y/o — 24y/o suddenly increased at alarming pace of 56%.

. Suicide is a 3rd cause of death for young people.

In the survival’s point of view :

When I asked one of my friends who suffered from depression about why teens are more depressed nowadays, what makes them think that taking their life might solve their problems? The reply she gave was “I think it’s because of hormonal changes, but I do belive it’s more because as a kid we are given too much attention and love without any expectations any demands in return from them but the more we grow up the less we get the required attention and the more we demanded to do as they have started expecting from us, the sudden change is hard to accept so it take years to understand the change of deal and then to start acting as we are expected.

Deep down we still crave the affection we get as Childhood but gradually we lose hope of getting it at all so we stop sharing our real feelings, we start faking it because we think no one cares they are just curious about our situation and the fear of being judged is enough to mute us, that’s the first step towards depression, the stress of studies, family problems can kill a person mentally, inferiority complex does play a major role which is also followed by self hate later

Most importantly our society have no concept about depression they don’t even know about its existance and when a depress person gets a little bit courage of sharing their situation instead of helping they laugh at them make fun of them infornt of others by revealing their thoughts and calling them crazy and weird, the feeling of hopelessness, loneliness and not being understood as one wants to be makes a person believe that their presence and absence never mattered to anyone which leads them to suicide.”

Social media and depression :

Do you think social media is one of the reasons? Yes you are right because it is. Teens find the sites interesting, they become obsessed with the bright world inside their mobile phones, their goals change, they want likes and comments from strangers and slowly start building fences around them that keep them away from real life. But there’s a limit to everything… Not everything is as you’re seeing.. Cyber bullying exists, friends.

Other main reasons of depression :

Besides social media there are thought to be many causes of depression.

Traumatic life events:

such as the loss of a loved one, parents divorce, or remarriage. Any event that causes distress or trauma, sexual harassment is one of the major causes, all can trigger depression in an individual.

Family situation :

Unfortunately, There are teens who live in difficult circumstances. Domestic violence, substance abuse, poverty or other family issues can cause stress and contribute to depression in a teen.

Genetics/biology:

It has been found that depression runs in families also .

Medications/illegal drugs:

Some legal, prescription medications can have depression as a side effect. Certain illegal drugs (street drugs) can also cause depression.

Here when we’re discussing drugs, why not discuss it properly?

Illegal Drugs/street drugs and Alcohol :

Mostly youth are suffering from emptiness and fear, to overcome this situation mostly fell prey to drugs in early ages, some found them because of their bad company and some found them because of trying to be cool but they end up in serious trouble.

The freedom and ease of experimentation of doing drugs can be both exciting and scary, teens might feel prepared before but after that they become a whole different story.

So I guess, it’s better to stay away from this kind of stuff.

But how are we gonna find out that someone is suffering from depression? Yeah-Symptoms, let's talk about it.

SYMPTOMS :

In an article for World of Psychology, Borchard lists these common indicators of depression among teens:

Sadness or hopelessness

Low self-esteem

Sluggishness (less active)

Spending more time alone (this includes time alone from you as parents and time away from their regular friends)

Decrease in desire to do things they used to like to do (sports, activities, hobbies)

Physical ailments (headaches, appetite problems, sleeping problems)

Problems in school (falling grades, getting into trouble, not paying attention in class)

Talking about death or suicide

Not caring about appearance

Running away from home

Behavioral changes

(Tiredness)

(Insomnia or sleeping too much)

(Use of alcohol or drugs)

(Social isolation)

(Angry outbursts)

(Self-harm) —

Take every single one of them seriously. We never know how much someone is suffering inside.

Solution :

There’s no sure way to prevent depression. But you can:

Try to change your regular routine, it might be difficult, but a little effort turns your life upside down.

. Taking proper sleep

. Take good care of yourself.

. Yoga and exercise.

. Get proper food, avoid junk food.

. healthy meal is what your body needs.

. Reach out to family and friends when times get hard. If you continue keeping every matter inside your heart, slowly it will get worse.

. Get regular medical checkups.

. Little help from psychiatrists.

. One thing I personally want to advise you is avoid taking sleeping pills. It won’t help you in this situation.

. Talking isn’t that hard, you can do this, once you find someone who listens.

Give yourself some space, don’t over use social media, don’t study if you don’t want to, if you’re a teen other hobbies might help you in this situation, what about learning something? Reading books? Painting? Enjoying music? Yes there’s a lot a person can do. Figure yourself out.

“ You’re only here for a short visit. ... Get yourself together”

Websites to visit for help :

https://www.befrienders.org/

https://www.talkspace.com/assessments/depression-test