Depression And Mental Health Issues In Youth

People today, especially the younger generation, are so fed up and tired of life, peer pressure, societal pressure, parental pressure, and have to live up to so many expectations from people around them, that they sink into a depression. Everywhere you look these days, people are stressed or depressed, finally sinking beyond their breaking point. It goes so far, that the suicide rate is higher than it has ever been in the past. According to a study, every 100 minutes, a teen takes their own life.

Depression has always been considered a taboo, people who are depressed tend to need people, to talk to someone, and need a source to which they can attach themselves. Drugs like heroin, cocaine, LSD and such are some of the drugs teens turn to, in their times of solidarity.Many depressed individuals turn to drugs or alcohol as a way to lift up their spirits or be numb towards their own feelings, which then turns into an addiction, further fuelling their depression.

A lot of reasons contribute to the rising stress levels in teenagers and millennials today. Parents play a huge role in their children’s life, and it is their constant pressure, financial problems, family problems, and other problems at home that sometime leads teenagers to turn to drugs. There are more reasons that lead to depression. In this generation, our ties with the community is weak and our communication poor. People are also more focused on money, fame, power and status, that they forget to attend to themselves, and get such high expectations that are hard to fulfil for themselves.

Depressed people are usually not taken seriously, and are called out by people in India, for going to see a psychologist. Comments like, ‘arrey, yeh toh pagal hai!’ are made towards these people, which ultimately discourages them from seeking medical attention. It is this mindset of the people in India that stops them from developing, and from the affected people to cure themselves.

As children, teenagers are not taught coping mechanisms for their emotions, so when they feel overwhelmed by something. About 20 percentage of teenagers face symptoms of depression, and almost 50 percent of college students are too overwhelmed by their emotions to understand them. The side effect if this are drop in grades, low self-esteem, laziness, unhealthy appetite, and such other which affect their physical health.

Depression is such a serious ailment, that many people take their lives to not feel anything. Hopelessness and helplessness is a trigger for suicide, and the signs need to be recognized by the people surrounding a depressed person, to get medical intervention immediately. Depression has become such a youth culture that they joke about it on the internet, about dying and killing themselves. Mental disorders are among the strongest predators of the world.