The cases of depression have grown to higher statistics over the years. The perception that depression affects only adults is not really true. Depression is not limited within age group, it can affect every demographic groups, most commonly among adolescents and youths, child bearing women and persons above the age of 60. Tendency of depression begins at early teen increasing steadily through mid-20s. At present, we see an alarming rate of suicides among youngsters triggered by severe depression. As per reports stated by World Health Organization over 66% of suicides have depression as major factor and suicide as the second major cause for the deaths among the age group of 15- 30 years.
Globally, depression and stress have become more prevalent since Covid-19. In fact the depression rates have tripled due to the pandemic outbreak following lock-down, isolation and physical distancing from the loved ones. Further the situation drove into limiting access to seek medication, counselling or spiritual support for their mental health. It is crucial to understand the outcomes of depression in teenagers and youngsters causing them to be diverted on tracks.
In this blog we would know major disorder symptoms and reasoning depression among youths.
Symptoms and Signs in Depressive Disorder
Depression occurs in teenagers and adults alike and is primarily characterized by emotional and physical issues. Depression in the early teens and adulthood is probably a case of depressive disorders like mood disorder, Splitting or personality disorder. Some of these disorders carry self-harm or suicidal attempts. One may experience three to five of these disorder symptoms in daily life on a scale of mild, moderate and major. Major depressive disorder are well noticeable in a person that mostly requires medical treatment.
Mood disorder: Mood disorder causes are not specific to a reason. There can be number of reasons based on life situations or family traits. During the times of distress one can experience intense mood disorder that makes harder to manage the emotions. Some of the challenging situations for an youngster can be harassment, bullying, abuse, neglect, premenstrual period, self-esteem, family problems, and poverty. Further identified with symptoms of rebellious behavior, constant anger, irritability, and feelings of sadness or hopelessness, relationship issues, trouble with family and friends circle.
Splitting: Those with splitting behavior see world only in two extreme perspectives. Splitting tends to characterize themselves, objects, people, situations, beliefs only in a black and white view. One can identify splitting as they may describe the events as ‘good or bad, none or all, never or always.
For example; You can be either a good friend or a bad friend to them, not in the middle. Often splitting experience unstable relationships due to the traits of a person like struggle trusting others, fear of abandonment, shifting from intense love to hatred, fear of being hurt emotionally, separating or disconnecting themselves from wrong doers. Splitting can be understood as a defense mechanism due to past experience of traumatic conditions, physical or emotional abuse, abandonment, rejection or neglect.
Personality disorder: Personality disorders are a combination of a person’s genes and the surrounding environment. Personality defines thoughts, behavior and emotions in a person. Most commonly personality disorders begins in the early teenage and adulthood. Although personality disorders have various types one may have symptoms of other type. A personality disorder can be recognized when one has an excessive sensitivity to criticism or rejection, suicide attempts, exaggeration of achievements, fantasies about attractiveness, magical thinking, attention seeking, inappropriate emotional responses, feeling of intense hurt on certain actions of others.
An individual suffering from clinical depression may have difficulties maintaining their physical or mental functions, lack concentration, poor memory, no self-hygiene, difficulty in performing job, irregular diet routine, overly tired or sleepless. Along with these it is necessary to identify the nature of depression one may experience as chronic, recurrent or single episodes of depression. Moreover depression has multiple variations and factors.
Now many of you might have identified being victim of some of these disorders. To be true atleast once in life time every human being undergoes depressive disorders. Though sometimes we say ‘yes, I am okay’
In my upcoming blog I will be sharing is it okay not to be okay. Stay tuned till then.
God Bless You!
