DEPRESSION

Teenage depression is a growing problem in today’s society and is often a major contributing factor for most adolescent problems. The statistics about teenage runaways, alcoholism, drug problems, pregnancy, eating disorders, and suicide are alarming. The common link to all of these crises is often depression. The path into adolescence is a difficult one, and the choices a teen makes can leave lasting scars on the lives of an entire generation of young men and women. There is a growing realization that teenage depression can be life changing, even life- threatening.
Depression can be described in many ways. Its main description is that it is a serious mental disorder in which a person suffers long periods of sadness, loneliness, and other negative feelings. Teenagers have always been vulnerable to depression for a variety of reasons. It’s a confusing time of life because a teen’s body is changing along with their relationships. Teenagers constantly teeter-totter between striving for independence from family and still trying to be a child and depend on it. But today’s teens face an additional challenge: They’re growing up in a world quite different from that of their parent’s youth. Adolescents today are faced with stresses that were unknown to previous generations and are dealing with them in an often self – destructive way.