Teen Depression: Advice from Ms. Lindsay

How much does teen depression impact our community? Adolescent depression, more commonly referred as teen depression, is when young adults face both mental and emotional disorders due to various reasons. Teenagers constantly fight about their future, relationships, grades, and more, which leads them to anxiety and pressure. In some cases, teen depression can be extremely serious and can lead to worst possible scenarios like suicide. Depression is not a condition that people can simply forget about and move on nor easily recover from.

Adolescence is an unsettling time period where people face many physical, emotional, and psychological changes at a particular stage of life. Teenagers can often overreact when things go wrong, feel confused, get easily and deeply disappointed, and feel stressed out in general. Ms. Lindsay, one of our AISG high school counselors spoke up to reach out a hand to those who experienced or are currently experiencing depression. She said, “The best or the easiest advice I can give is to try and talk to someone. This doesn’t have to be a counselor or a therapist, just someone who you feel comfortable talking to. I think that’s why in the counseling office, we really appreciate that students and teachers talk to the counselors if a person has symptoms of depression. For instance, withdrawing from activities and friends, seeming sad, and not seeming to get enough sleep. It is really helpful for people to keep an eye out on and help each other.Going to therapy is very powerful in fighting depression. Of course, a small percentage of people will combine therapy with medication if they are diagnosed with clinical depression.” She continued and mentioned that this doesn’t seem like a major issue in our community, but it can be an issue in every community. “I’m from North America and 15% to 20% of high school students experience some sort of depression. We should extend ourselves to help them whether those are major or minor issues.”

The following question was also asked, “how many students experience teen depression in our community?” She thought thoroughly and said, “I think we follow the US and Canada in statistics, where about 10% to 20% of students experience depression at some time. We don’t have a high or abnormal rate of this issue in our community which is a good sign.” Ms Lindsay thought the primary reason for teen depression can be caused by multiple types of stress where different types are combined and students get overwhelmed and unhappy.

Teenagers constantly need adults’ guidance and advice so they can cope with certain emotions that disrupt them. They may need encouragement and support from people that surround them.