How to Help Depressed Teen With Help Of Youth Counselling
- Youth
- Counseling
- Depression
Youth
Youth means the period of your life when you are young, especially the time before a child becomes an adult or the state of being young. The youth of any individual means the period between childhood and adulthood. We can also define it as freshness, appearance, spirit, etc. Characteristics of an individual who is experiencing a youthful period of his/her life. We cannot define specifically youth, for example, the specific age range specific activities or having sexual relations.
Counseling
It means professional advice and help given to people with problems. Many of you must have experienced that at a particular point in time in your lives you advised others being a friend or colleague. But there is a major difference between a person giving professional advice and a person who just uses some Counselling skills. We perform the role of a counselor without knowing it’s a concept or what exactly is the role of a professional counselor.
“A talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you
And helping you to deal with emotional issues “
Depression
Types of Depression
- Anxious Distress: This is a depression where youth shows restlessness, loses control or worries about everything.
- Melancholic: When the youth has a worse mood in the morning, morning awakening, cannot handle rejection and feels heavy in arms or legs, they minimize states that the youth is in severe depression as their response to something that brings pleasure.
- Atypical: It’s a type where youth shows symptoms like being too happy by minor events, an increase in appetite, sensitivity to rejection, etc.
Symptoms
Depression symptoms can vary in severity, but the change of teenagers’ attitudes from previous behaviour can cause problems at school, home or in other activities of life. Some change behaviour of youth can be-
Emotional Change:
- Crying for no specific reason, affecting sadness
- Temper issue, cannot control anger on minor matters, becomes violent.
- Feeling of low self-esteem, hopelessness or emptiness.
- Frequently having conflicts with family or friends.
- Always in an irritating mood.
Behavioral Changes
- Feeling of tiredness and low energy.
- Insomnia.
- Consumption of alcohol and drugs
- Social isolation.
- Suicide attempt.
Depression is not just a weakness or illness that can be overcome with medication. Youth depression in particular can have serious repercussions in the long term. We need a combination of medications and counseling to uproot the depression. But before this, we need to study the causes that may lead to depression in the youth.
What may cause depression in the youth?
- Hurt to self-esteem: Obesity, long-term bullying, academic problems or peer problems may negatively affect the self-esteem of the child. This may make them feel inferior and defeated. The sense No self-confidence and constant pressurization may trigger depression in them.
- Physical abuse: The teenage girls particularly fall prey to physical and sexual harassment many times. Not only this but they are also blackmailed by taking an MMS or video, etc. This is the worst state of mind the girls can imagine. Fear of being rejected, harassment, mental torture they faced etc create panic in their minds and they end up depressed.
- Health Conditions: Having persistent pain or a chronic illness such as asthma, diabetes or cancer may also cause mental tension to the teens. Some people suffer from disabilities because of which they feel rejected and inferior. Being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender in an unsupportive environment is also very depressing.
- Family history or issues with family: stressful life events in a family-like parent divorce, death of a beloved, loss in business etc cause a serious impact on the mental state of the youth. As they are too delicate and immature, they may become sad and feel lonely and separated. This may add up to the anxiety and sense of loneliness in the youth.
- Academic pressure: The parents, teachers, and the community give a lot of expectations from the academic results of the youth. They want them to excel and get a prestigious job. But these expectations can become a pressure for some. This pressure may be very injurious to the mental state of the youth. excess ambitions may also become a cause of depression for them. We must leave them free to pursue whatever they want.
Benefits of Counselling
There are no sure shot ways to prevent the cause of depression, but Counselling can help youth to overcome it. The counselor is a very trained and friendly person in front of whom the youth can put his heart out and share all his desires and feelings. He also gives them unbiased opinions and ways to sort out the problem.
Counseling helps to increase the self-esteem of an individual, boosts them to deal with issues positively when those arise rather than running away from the problem or neglecting it. Counseling helps the youth to break their self-isolation and reach out to their friends and make new ones. This gives them a sense of social belongingness and supports them morally.
Conclusion
Youth depression is a serious mental health problem that gives rise to the feeling of sadness and loneliness. It affects how the youth thinks, feels and behaves which may lead to various emotional, behavioural and functional problems. Although depression is evil, no matter what age it occurs; counselling and proper treatment can help you come out of it easily, happily and faster.
