Entertainment Tonight recently reported that TV and music star Marie Osmond’s 18-year-old son, Michael Blosil, committed suicide last Friday in Los Angeles. In his suicide note, he described a life-long battle with depression, the reason for his suicide.
Osmond said Michael became depressed after she and her ex-husband, Brian Blosil, separated, and that he entered rehab in November 2007.
According to suicide.org, a teen takes his or her own life every 100 minutes. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24. Approximately 20 percent of teens experience depression before they reach adulthood, and between 10 to 15 percent suffer from symptoms at any one time. Only 30 percent of depressed teens are being treated for it.Some teens are more at risk for teen depression and suicide than others. Among them:
- Teen females develop depression twice as often than men.
- Abused and neglected teens are at risk.
- Adolescents who suffer from chronic illnesses or other physical conditions.
- Teens with a family history of depression or mental illness. Between 20 to 50 percent of teens suffering from depression have a family member with depression or some other mental disorder.
- Teens with untreated mental or substance-abuse problems. Approximately two-thirds of teens with major depression also battle another mood disorder like dysthymia, anxiety, antisocial behaviors, or substance abuse.
- Young people who experienced trauma or disruptions at home, including divorce and deaths of parents.
Some experts speculate that, after a decline in the 1990s, the number of teenage suicide began to climb again about five years ago. According to a piece in the Kansas City Star by Laura Bauer and Mara Rose Williams titled “‘A Very Dangerous Time’ Drives Up Teen Suicides After Years of Decline,” there is more hopelessness and helplessness among teens today. Tony Jurich, professor of family studies and human services at Kansas State University, says, “Teens think they are invincible, so when they feel psychological pain, they are more apt to feel overwhelmed by hopelessness and the belief that they have no control over their lives.”
A new study released in January of this year, led by Jean Twenge, a San Diego State University psychology professor, finds that five times as many high school and college students are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues as youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era. Twenge, author of Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before, analyzed the responses of over 77,000 college students who took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory from 1938 through 2007.
Some experts say that we have raised our children with unrealistic expectations, the same message perpetually fed to us by media: we should feel good always. Some say parents haven’t taught kids the real coping skills they need in today’s turbulent world … I suspect the guys who have never had a kid puke up strained carrots on them.
In my opinion, it’s all of the above and more.
Most experts would agree with me that there is more stress today than in previous generations. Stress triggers depression and mood disorders, so that those who are predisposed to it by their creative wiring or genes are pretty much guaranteed some symptoms of depression at the confusing and difficult time of adolescence. I think modern lifestyles — lack of community and family support, less exercise, no casual and unstructured technology-free play, less sunshine and more computer — factors into the equation. As well as our diet. Hey, I know how I feel after a lunch of processed food, and I don’t need to the help of a nutritionist to spot the effect in my eight-year-old son. Finally, let’s also throw in the toxins of our environment. Our fish are dying … a clue that our limbic systems (brain’s emotional center) are not so far behind. Maybe the same amount of people have genes that predispose them to depression as in the Great Depression. But maybe the lifestyle, toxins, and other challenges of today’s world tilts the stress scale in the favor of depression. My hypothesis for what it’s worth.
In the pages of Beyond Blue, I describe my own depression and alcohol abuse as a teenager. I could have very easily become one of the statistics — one of those deaths from teenage suicide that happens every 100 minutes. What saved me? The loving intervention of a few adults in my life at that time. They saw the red flags, such as these, warning signs of teen depression that scream, “Wake up! We have a problem on our hands”:
- Sadness or hopelessness
- Low self-esteem
- Sluggishness (less active)
- Substance abuse
- Spending more time alone (this includes time alone from you as parents and time away from their regular friends)
- Decrease in desire to do things they used to like to do (sports, activities, hobbies)
- Physical ailments (headaches, appetite problems, sleeping problems)
- Problems in school (falling grades, getting into trouble, not paying attention in class)
- Talking about death or suicide (never to be taken lightly)
- Not caring about appearance
- Running away from home
Now let’s get to the hope. According to teendepression.org, 80 percent of teens with depression can be successfully treated if they seek the right help. I am part of that statistic. Teen depression doesn’t have to mean a lifetime of struggle, and it certainly doesn’t have to end in suicide.
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Links to This Article
AGORAPHOBIA » Blog Archive » anxiety and depression blog (3/4/2010)
Why Are So Many Teens Depressed? | Teen Suicide Talk (3/5/2010)
8 Comments to
“Why Are So Many Teens Depressed?”
this is really good info.
Alex at 3:32 pm on
March 4th, 2010People, particularly teens tend to communicate more via facebook or text messages. Technology is dehumanizing people. On top of that there is the culture of cruelty; teens can have a tendency to be meaner to their peers. No wonder teens feel and are more depressed. People do not care for each other as much as they used to.
its so sad to hear this, glad i am taking part in helping teens feel part
I truly feel compassion for people who are living through a depression right now and get to suffer the psychological stress that a depression brings with it.
The best thing that such a person can do, if they are reading this, is to accept complete responsibility for the way they feel (which is the hard part because when we feel depressed we tend to blame somebody else for our own state of mind), then to acknowledge that they have a small issue that needs fixing (a problem defined is half solved) and finally to seek out ways to help themselves (being proactive about it).
This process of recovery might include either networking with people who have been through the same depressive period or studying psychology and trying to understand your own problem better in order to be able to tackle it yourself.
Doing it on your own is a rough road to walk though and it takes many years, but the upside is that you learn how to maintain a positive and joyful state of mind no matter what is happening in your life so you become in a sense immune to depression for the rest of your life.
Then again, isn’t depression simply a part of being a teen? 
It’s only temporary and if you just hold on tight and let the time pass until you are about 19-22 then your depression will vanish completely and you will find yourself enjoying your life more than ever before.
You forgot to mention one big reason teens are in a depressed state of mind that causes them to commit suicide. Being “Bullied”!!! When a child/teen gets bullied so much and their parents and/or school administrators are not doing anything to curb the problem, these kids are getting fed up and commiting what we call, “BULLYCIDE”. Look at the case in Mass. just last month. Phoebe commited bullycide because she couldn’t cope with being bullied anymore because no-one in her school stopped that other girl from bullying her. 2 days before Phoebe commited bullycide, the girl in question chased her around the school grounds yelling at her that she was going to kill Phoebe. At that point somene should have stepped in and did something. Please go to our website listed here and see for yourself the cause and effects of bullying it has on kids. You’ll be suprised.
deep~rest at 5:54 pm on
March 10th, 2010being sensitive, having a LOT of thoughts and feelings about this world gone crazy where i don’t really belong, mixed with a deep fascination of what is at the ‘end’ of it all and whats the point to it all, is why i have been riding life with so called ‘depression’. The difference between making it and not making it, on this journey, in my opinion is finding another soul that ‘hears’ you. Being ‘met’ or ‘known’ deeply in spirit. Some of us find a ‘god’ to hear us, some find ‘imaginary friends’, ‘real friends’, ‘professional friends’ or ‘management strategies’. BUt they are all guides to walk WITH us out of this mess. Remember that EVERYTHING you feel is OK and probably ‘NORMAL’ in this crazy and messy world. We must Talk freely about our struggle with life and any ‘depression’ and NOT as if its an illness. If we become at ease with it, it will not become a disease. For me it is becoming a guide to healthy living. KNow that you are loved !
Drakus at 11:49 am on
March 12th, 2010It is the music they listen to. If you had to listen to the music that is aimed at the teenager market then the chance the you’ll be thinking of suicide as well goes much higher.
Just go read the lyrics of popular groups like My Chemical Romance (just one example, there are many). Nearly all their songs are about suicide.
Songs like “the ghost of you”:
I never said I’d lie and wait forever
If I died, we’d be together
I can’t always just forget her
But she could try
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
And all the smiles that are ever ever…
Ever…
Get the feeling that you’re never
All alone and I remember now
At the top of my lungs in my arms she dies
She dies
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the things that you never ever told me
And all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me
For all the ghosts that are never gonna catch me
If I fall
If I fall (down)
At the end of the world
Or the last thing I see
You are
Never coming home
Never coming home
Never coming home
Never coming home
And all the things that you never ever told me
And all the smiles that are ever gonna haunt me
Never coming home
Never coming home
Could I? Should I?
And all the wounds that are ever gonna scar me
————————————————
What you spend most of your time reading, listening watching will fill your thoughts.
Giacomo at 1:28 am on
May 19th, 2010I am a student from the International School of Bangkok. In my English class I am searching information about depression for a project: I read the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson and I interviewed my counselor. I agree that one of the main causes of depression is the abuse of substance such as alcohol and drugs. I believe also that another big cause of teen depression is school; a lot of students get depressed and feel stresses from their school projects and assignments.
Join the Conversation! Post a Comment:
Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 4 Mar 2010
