If you think you have a suicidal teen that is experiencing depression problems, see if the following is what your teen is experiencing. Maybe your teen feels sad, discouraged, alone, and tired. These feelings may seem scary, confusing, and overwhelming, especially if they think they're the only one feeling this way.
An A student can experience severe depression?
A star athlete can experience severe depression?
Someone who's handsome or beautiful can be under severe depression?
Anxiety and helplessness are symptoms of teen depression?
A change in appetite can signal teen depression?
A sudden drop in your teen's grades or trouble in school could be a sign of teen depression?
If you're teen is often angry and irritable, they might be depressed?
When your teen feels like nothing matters anymore, they're probably depressed?
Teen depression causes a variety of serious problems and can affect any teen at any time -- no matter who they are, what they look like, or where they live. Any teen male or female can be depressed. Teens of every race, gender, ethnic heritage, and religion can be depressed. Even teens that come from rich, famous, or successful families can go through severe depression that can lead to a teen suicide.
Teen depression is growing at an alarming rate. About 18 million Americans or more experience depression. Anywhere between 112,000 and 2,324,000 of them are teens. Some mental health professionals believe that as many as 20 percent of high school students are deeply unhappy or have some kind of psychiatric problem. Teens who seem continually sad, angry, confused, misunderstood, or rebellious are probably depressed. Teen depression affects more young people today than ever before.
If your teen is feeling down, tired, anxious, angry, overwhelmed, hopeless, helpless, guilty, and/or worthless -- and if these feelings have affected your teen for some time ? they're probably severely depressed. If knowing they're depressed makes them even more depressed, take heart:
Severe teen depression is the greatest prerequisite to teen suicide. If you have a teen that is experiencing a combination of three (3) or more of any of the above in the previous 2 paragraphs, you very well may have a suicidal teen. Teen suicide attempts are growing at an alarming rate that first shows itself through states of depression in teens.
How can teen depression be so hidden where the symptoms appear suddenly and are hard to mistake. Depressed teens can feel awful for weeks, months, or even years before understanding that something is seriously wrong.
There are many different kinds of depression, too: melancholia, endogenous depression, exogenous depression, reactive depression, Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), and postpartum depression, to name a few. The Oxford Psychiatric Dictionary could help you find up to twenty-five types of depression; they vary in the number of symptoms and how severe they are.
Teens are most likely to experience:
Major depression,
Dysthymia (pronounced dis-THIGH-mee-a), or
Bipolar disorder. The symptoms aren't always obvious -- to other people or to the person who's depressed. Depression isn't like the flu.
Major depression (also known as clinical depression) is the most widespread type of teen depression. Major depression isn't something your teen can grow out of, and it usually won't go away on its own. Untreated major depression can last a year or two -- or more. Your teen's symptoms might bother them for a long time, making it hard to keep up in school, have fun with their friends, get along with family, and enjoy their life.
The major contributing escalating factor with suicidal teens is depression problems. Teen depression is typically moved to suicidal attempts when teens spend too much time alone.
Although feelings of sadness and depression can disappear as quickly as they came, they can also build to the point that an adolescent thinks of suicide as the only way out. Be careful not to assume that your teen's problems have been so easily solved.
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