Depression in children and adolescents article on the topic

Adolescence is one of the most difficult stages in the life of every person.
Radical changes in the body, changes in hormonal levels and social roles are often difficult for adolescents to bear. During puberty, a child's character, habits and manners change dramatically; he often becomes uncontrollable and conflict-ridden. All these manifestations are quite normal, but there are cases when parents should pay close attention to the health of their offspring - a mental disorder may be hidden under the student’s unusual behavior. Svetlana Grigorievna Netrusova, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor, psychiatrist of the highest category, psychotherapist, tells how to determine depression. You can watch other videos on this topic on our YouTube channel.

Teenage depression

Often, parents and loved ones mistake poor academic performance, unusual temperament, and moodiness for ordinary problems associated with hormonal changes, which appear in every teenager in one form or another. But according to data provided by various sources, from 5% to 11% of children of high school age suffer from depression - a serious mental illness that requires timely correction.

Children at risk for developing teenage depression are those in the so-called. stress, those who experience a lack of attention from parents, those experiencing the death of loved ones and unsuccessful students. Separately, it is necessary to note the increased risk of teenage depression in schoolchildren who are somehow different from the majority of their peers - for example, representatives of national minorities or overweight children. Depression is more common in teenage girls than in boys, since girls at this age are more emotional and dependent on positive attitudes from others.

The biological mechanisms of depressive conditions in adolescents and adults are similar. But due to unstable hormonal levels and the characteristics of an immature psyche, the course of the disease can differ radically, which significantly complicates diagnosis.

Types of depression

Often young people fall into autumn depression, which may pass over time. When summer ends and it's time to start studying, many schoolchildren feel stressed after the long holidays.

The child does not want to go to school, throws tantrums, and tries to feign various illnesses. After studying, many children find it difficult to start doing homework. There is tearfulness and decreased appetite. This form of depression can be treated at home.

It is necessary to talk with the teenager and offer all possible help in completing homework. During this period, parents should organize a nutritious diet and ensure that the child rests more and spends time in the fresh air. After 1-1.5 months, the body will get used to the new conditions and autumn depression will pass. Specialists should be contacted if a teenager is withdrawn and unwilling to communicate.

The child may respond to any conversations with impudence, be rude, and not respond to attempts to get closer. If the process is delayed, you need to find a way to show the child to the doctor.

Often children do not want to go to a psychologist, so you need to invite a specialist home or meet on neutral territory. An experienced psychologist can determine a depressive state even by indirect signs.

In severe cases, especially if a young person has thoughts of suicide, special help may be needed - hypnosis, various psychotechniques, and medication.

You cannot do without the help of a psychologist if depression pushes a teenager into demonstrative aggressive behavior. A young man in such a state can attack any person with his fists and insult him. It is not uncommon for depressed teenagers to commit crimes. This situation cannot be ignored by either parents or teachers. The sooner educational work begins, the greater the chance of preventing a crime.

Symptoms of Teen Depression

To diagnose depressive disorder, a psychiatrist checks for the presence of characteristic symptoms. The main signs of depression, which develops during adolescence, are:

• Long periods of depressed mood, fatigue and depression. As a rule, teenagers suffering from depression feel lonely, abandoned and convinced that no one wants them and cannot understand them.
• Isolation, desire to isolate myself from social contacts, reluctance to communicate with peers and loved ones. Such teenagers often abandon previous friendships, try to spend as much time as possible alone, and do not make contact.
• Loss of interest in activities that the teenager used to enjoy. A student who suffers from depression stops engaging in hobbies, does not attend parties, and refuses to have fun.
• Excessive criticism of one's own appearance. Teenagers see themselves as unsightly, ugly, and not conforming to the accepted canons of beauty. Subsequently, such a negative attitude towards oneself leads to manifestations of sloppiness, carelessness, and neglect of hygiene rules.
• Disappointment in the results of one’s activities, excessive criticality, and constant dissatisfaction with the results influence the teenager’s refusal to do anything.
• Feelings of guilt appear. The imbalance of enzyme and hormonal metabolism, which causes depression, manifests itself in a teenager in the fact that he perceives the opinions of others about himself as condemnation.
• If a student is depressed, his academic performance deteriorates sharply. This is due to the fact that the child loses the ability to concentrate and attention drops. The disease deprives the student of motivation to study and interest in getting good grades, up to a categorical refusal to go to class.
• Increased attachment to one of the parents. Often, even older schoolchildren begin to strive to constantly be close to their father or mother or to hold on to them. This is one of the serious signs of teenage depression - children are afraid of being left without parental care because adults will abandon them or die.
• Changing eating habits. In depressive disorders, these changes can manifest themselves differently even in the same child: from complete refusal of food to episodes of binge eating.
• Problems arise with the sleep-wake cycle. A depressed teenager may suffer from insomnia, early, painful awakenings, and restless and shallow sleep. The teenager’s body does not get enough rest, and as a result, the general condition worsens.
• There is excessive irritability, which turns into aggressiveness on minor occasions, unreasonable fears, increased anxiety,
• A feeling of soreness in the back muscles or in the abdomen, headaches, a feeling of heaviness and loss of balance, which are not caused by any organic diseases and do not go away with the use of appropriate medications. Girls may experience discomfort and pain during menstruation and suffer from cycle disorders.
• There is a passion for melancholic music, writing melancholy poems. Such children feel their own doom, choose a wardrobe of gloomy tones, and abandon everything that previously usually gave them pleasure.
• Youthful rebellion and delinquent (hooligan) behavior can be one of the pronounced signs of teenage depression, since at this age the disease manifests itself with increased aggressiveness. This is a distinguishing feature of depression in adolescents from depression in adults. Rebellious behavior often consists of breaking social or family ties, participating in dubious companies, joining radical youth movements, hooliganism or promiscuous sexual relationships.
• Attempts to independently improve the condition through the use of alcohol, tobacco or drugs.
• The emergence of ideas (or attempts) to leave the family. Depressed teenagers thus try to reject their family before the family rejects them.

Relatives who are new to the symptoms of teenage depression usually find it difficult to recognize the disease that has arisen, since children remain silent about their experiences, do not share and refuse to discuss their feelings, and reject any help. And most manifestations of the disease are perceived by parents as inevitable changes associated with puberty and the socialization of the child.

Treatment of neuroses in adolescents

The disease must be treated with the help of the following specialists:

1. Neurologist. It will help cure neurological disorders. If necessary, he will prescribe special sedatives and carry out the necessary diagnostics.
2. Child and family psychologist. It will help restore the psychological health of a teenager and a favorable climate in the family, and will choose the most appropriate model for raising a child in each individual case.
3. Psychotherapist for psychotherapy of neuroses in adolescents. This doctor treats obsessive disorders and can conduct several hypnosis sessions if necessary. In the treatment of adolescent neurosis, it is the psychotherapist who plays the most important role.
4. Other specialists of a narrow profile. You may need to consult a psychiatrist or endocrinologist. Neurosis can be treated with the help of an acupuncturist, massage therapist, or reflexologist.

If you approach the treatment of teenage neurosis in a comprehensive manner, you can completely get rid of all the present symptoms. But you should always remember that the vulnerability of the nervous system is a property that will haunt the child throughout his life. Psychotherapy for neuroses in children and adolescents can effectively get rid of this illness.

During puberty, the behavior of all children, without exception, changes; some endure hormonal “storms” more calmly, while others fall into real depression, and, very often, it seems to the parents and those around the teenager that there is no reason for such a disorder and there should not be Maybe.

During this period, emotional sensitivity sharply intensifies, and the lability of the nervous system does not make it possible to calmly react to all kinds of stimuli that “fall” on the teenager’s psyche. Lack of life experience, inferiority complexes, self-doubt, cruelty and aggressiveness in the teenage environment cause neuroses that can cause depression.

While depression develops over several months or years in an adult, depressive neurosis can occur in adolescents in a matter of weeks or even days. In turn, parents do not even realize that their child has any problems.

Teenage depression occurs against the background of 2 main processes occurring in the body and mind of a teenager:

1. Hormonal changes - during puberty, a teenager’s nervous system withstands enormous stress. Due to hormonal instability, children cannot cope with emotions, attacks of irritation, melancholy or anxiety. At this time, the teenager is hurt by everything - a word spoken at the wrong time, an irritated look, excessive care, lack of attention and much, much more. Teenagers learn to cope with their emotional states within 2-4 years, and before that, hormonal imbalance can cause the development of severe depression.
2. The process of self-awareness, rethinking and understanding the environment - the child rarely thinks about what is happening in the world around him, he accepts everything - both negative and positive. But when children enter adolescence, they begin to rethink everything that surrounds them. At this age they are distinguished by egocentrism and categoricalness. The whole world is divided into black and white, good and bad, and revolves exclusively around a teenager. It is because of this that constant quarrels arise with parents and teachers. Teenagers suddenly discover that the world is not at all what they previously thought, adults also make mistakes, deceive, and their own future will not necessarily be fabulous. Sometimes the fragile psyche cannot tolerate such dissonance, and the teenager escapes from the unpleasant reality - into computer games, drug addiction or depression.

Anything can provoke the onset of depression in adolescents; the exact causes of the disease can only be found out after long conversations with the patient and monitoring his condition.

Most often, teenagers suffer due to:

1. Loneliness. For most teenagers, there is no worse punishment than being unaccepted or rejected by the “community” of their peers. “Outcasts” in teenage society can be any teenager who differs in any way from the accepted “standards”: too smart, stupid, obedient, beautiful or has an external defect, or someone who does not want to obey established rules and informal leaders. The absence of friends, ridicule and insults from peers should definitely alert parents - for such teenagers, the risk of depression is several times higher.
2. Problems with appearance. It doesn't matter what a teenager actually looks like, what matters is how he perceives himself. If a child’s appearance, physique, or general image during puberty differs greatly from the generally accepted “standards” in their environment, this can cause severe trauma and distress. This is especially worrying for teenage girls who want to look attractive and compare themselves not with real women, but with “glamorous” images from TV or the Internet. The period of teenage maximalism is especially difficult for children with noticeable external defects or who differ in some external characteristics - with freckles, red hair, dark skin, overweight, scars, and so on.
3. Social status of a teenager. Unfortunately, social status and wealth are becoming increasingly important in the eyes of modern teenagers. Often the cause of depression is the desire and inability of a teenager to have some fashionable gadgets, dress appropriately, or vacation abroad.
4. Family environment. During the period of rethinking the world around them, teenagers perceive any problems in the family very hard. The departure of one parent from home, divorce, constant quarrels, hypocrisy or coldness of parents - all this can trigger the onset of the disease.
5. Personal relationships. First love experiences, disappointments or separations can also cause depression, but, according to psychologists, this reason occupies one of the last places “in the ranking”, since teenagers usually experience problems in their personal lives very violently, but get rid of them quite easily and quickly suffering, if there are no other psychotraumatic factors.

Diagnosis of teenage depression and its treatment

A qualified psychiatrist, familiar with the characteristics of depression at a young age, diagnoses the disease based on complaints from the teenager himself or his parents and teachers, also analyzing the hormonal state of the body. Based on the results of a comprehensive examination, a teenager diagnosed with depression can also be prescribed antidepressants, which will help significantly improve their condition, improve their mood, remove increased anxiety, resolve problems with sleep and appetite, and relieve somatic manifestations of the disease.

For complete recovery, the help of a psychologist or psychotherapist is often necessary, but it is almost impossible to cure severe depression without the use of medications.

At the slightest suspicion of teenage depression, the child’s parents should immediately contact a psychologist or psychotherapist, who will refer, if necessary, to a qualified psychiatrist. Depression may also be one of the first manifestations of severe mental disorders such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.

Diagnosis of teenage depression at its early stage, adequate drug treatment and qualified assistance from a psychologist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist guarantee a complete cure for the disease with virtually no side effects. Don't leave your child alone with his problems - help him return bright colors to his life palette!

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