These days, the dialogue about mental diseases like anorexia, depression, and addiction among teens has been brought up more than ever before thanks to school education programs, awareness conferences, and the movies and shows developed from the mainstream media. Television series like the new “13 Reasons Why” is a prime example of what factored into this resurgence, as it depicts a teenager who struggles with depression from her environment and being angry at her peers. While it’s based on a fake story line, the issues it shows are extremely realistic since many kids go through social pressure, stress from school, and adapting to puberty. Studies show that at least one of every eight teens in the U.S. are diagnosed with depression, which is shocking. That means that out of a normal sized class of 32 students a high school, 4 of those students will be going through depression at the time. Depression can build up to a boiling point for many reasons, but it’s a given that adequate treatment is crucial for the health and safety of someone if they have it.

Forming Depression

Depression can be caused for a great deal of reasons, from feeling extremely insecure compared to others, experiencing emotional or physical abuse from a friend or parent, feeling consistently hopeless, or not being accepted by the people around you. For a teen, being teased in school or flunking tests, feeling left out from friends, and being extremely dissatisfied with their body, social status, etc. all play a role. With these events bringing constant stress, depression can develop and spiral into an abyss of negative emotions and idleness for an individual.  

Spotting someone with depression may be difficult, but it’s generally agreed that a change in personality and behavior will be apparent. Look out for red flags like seeing someone being less interested in activities they once enjoyed, sleeping a lot more, eating a lot more or less, and not being able to focus at school or at tasks. They could also have bad memory, underperformance, or may even turn to addictive substances to get through the pain. That’s definitely a dangerous plan and could lead to much more harmful consequences in the future.

Getting through Depression

There’s a lot of professionals who can help a teen with their profession. Spending time with them to hear their fears, stress, and hopes will help you gain their trust to pursue help and hopefully start a rehab program. Make sure to let know that their emotions are okay to experience, but their idleness and reluctance to change at the moment is not. After some time, you can move on to approaching the topic of seeking therapy and telling them that it will be a positive impact to their health and future years.

Receiving Treatment

It all comes down to what their lifestyle and personality is like to choose what therapy will work best. However, helping them acknowledge the problem is the most important step so they can take action on it. If they are extremely stubborn at this stage, you may even have to resort to taking a medical test which shows concrete proof of depression being active. One example is doing a blood test to identify genetic markers associated with depression. With the test’s help, doctors can get to the cause of their problem way quicker and reach a much quicker diagnosis as well. From there, they can recommend what type of therapy to take and changes they can make to their sleeping habits, nutrition, and physical activity to aid the process.

Persistence is Key

Depression is a great mountain to climb, but with a team of help and dedication to getting better it can be tackled. Instead of taking no action or turning to unhealthy addictions to cope, asking for help will bring quicker results and better health overall. Combined with using holistic therapy that includes aromatherapy, massage therapy, meditation, better nutrition, and more exercise, awareness of the body can be increased so the person can prevent spiraling into the illness again in the future.