Where Is The Love?

"The young and depressed often don`t get the talk therapy they deserve and may be getting medication they don`t need for a range of reasons, specialists say."
-Depressed Youth Shortchanged

"Talk Therapy?" They don't need talk therapy, they need love, stupid!

It seems as if today teenage depression has become like sticks and stones, the two terms go hand in hand. And yet despite the phenomenon of young people hurting and taking their lives being given epidemic status, the worlds leading researchers and experts have come up with only one viable solution.

Pills.

Lots of different types of pills for lots of different "patients." Different creative therapies to relieve the symptoms of distress. Parents and friends give into the lull of supposed "experts" and send their children off to strangers who "know better than they would as to what to do." Depression has afterall been dubbed a chemical imbalance in the brain, and controlling the flow of those chemicals would no doubt alieviate the pain of the person in suffering. God forbid the chemicals actually be triggered by negative thoughts and feelings, which are triggered by real life experiences.

"Well all the reserch points to physiological imbalances in the brains hormonal system that bring about negative feelings as a result of the chemical imbalances, and controlling the flow of chemicals has yeilded results in controling the patient's depression," say leading experts.

ohmygodyouranidiot!!!

Supposedly the onslaught of puberty and adolesence brings about an unavoidable bout of depression that every teenager must experience as a right of passage. "Every teenager feels this way," say mentors and teachers...whoa, depressing in and of itself! And while young people cry for love and support, authority figures stand back and take it as common-place. They all go through it and they all live without anyone stepping in. They grow out of it.

Unfortunately, no. Not all simply out-grow it and certainly not all even survive it. In 2020, suicide will be the 2nd leading cause of death in this country next to heart-disease. It is already the leading cause of death world-wide among people 15-24. While it's true that teenagers do experience certain hormonal changes that make them more suseptable to moody spells and irrational decisions, it's also true that teenager's make up only about 1.7% of the figures for people suffering with depression. (NIHM)

Studies show that over 60 million Americans suffer from depression, and only about 1 million of those are people under 18. This figure is skewed though because most young people who suffer with depression slip under the wire and are never diagnosed. 60 million American adults suffer with depression, and the figures only rise each year despite numerous new drugs available on the market. Studies also show a 70% increase since 1996 of people over 18 who report that they have no close friends.

My dad always tells me that a person is lucky if they die having one true friend. Unfortunately, I'm finding that to be true. The most common reason for people developing depression is because of peer relationship issues. Being alone or ostracized more often than not leads to suicidal thoughts and depression.

It doesn't take fancy therapies or dangerous medications to solve depressed moods, all it takes is love. Love from friends who put their arm around you and support from mentors who guide you in the right direction. Unfortunately, in today's age, a good friend doesn't dump their issues on their friends and mentors are driven away legally seeing as many mentorships are abused. Most adults simply have their hands tied and most friends aren't really friends at all. The result is the harsh reality that the depressed person is all alone with a gun to their head. The responsibility is placed on the family to handle their depressed members, however it is often the family that is the cause. Most adults simply don't want to deal with the commitment a suicidal teenager demands, and most people hold the attitude that they made it through adolesence, everyone else will too. Often times amid lectures and scolding and endless reasoning, all it usually takes is a hug to bring a lost young person out of their dark place. No one hugs anymore.

America's youth is crying for help and no one is helping for fear of being stigmatized. Love is a weird concept to Americans for some reason, and love of a teenager is often concidered perverted before it is concidered sacred. The result is an entire generation left cold and unloved, and dead.

Rest In Peace Stephen Loafing.