Everything you ever wanted to know about teen depression is on the Internet. Just type in the words “teen depression,” and it’s all there. In a website entitled Teen Depression, I found the following:

Depression is the most common mental health disorder in the United States among teens and adults, and can have a serious impact on the lives of the many teens who suffer from depression.

Teen depression can affect a teen regardless of gender, social background, income level, race, or school or other achievements, though teenage girls report suffering from depression more often than teenage boys. Teenage boys are less likely to seek help or recognize that they suffer from depression, probably due to different social expectations for boys and girls — girls are encouraged to express their feelings while boys are not. Teenage girls’ somewhat stronger dependence on social ties, however, can increase the chances of teen depression being triggered by social factors, such as loss of friends.

Note that the depression suffered by these teens is serious enough to require medical intervention, which generally includes psychiatric therapy and taking drugs to alleviate the mental pain caused by depression. Apparently there are also many depressed teens who manage to cope and don’t seek medical treatment. Some of them commit suicide to alleviate the pain of being alive.

Here is a list of symptoms of teen depression as given on a website for the drug Abilify:

Click here to read the entire article.

Sam Blumenfeld (photo)