Mood disorders - Information For Parents

Symptoms of depression in teenagers

In adolescent depression, the thing people tend to notice first is:

· withdrawal, or when the teenager stops doing things she/he usually likes to do.

· Other changes in her mood, including sadness or irritability.

· Changes in behaviour, including, appetite, energy level, sleep patterns and academic performance.

If several of these symptoms are present, be vigilant about the possibility of depression.

This is especially important because by the time family members and other people around a teenager note his /her lack of interest in most things, or what we call anhedonia, she / he has usually been depressed for some time. Depression is an internalizing disorder, i.e. one that disturbs a patient’s emotional life, rather than an externalizing one, which manifests in the form of disruptive or problematic behaviour. As such, it takes a while not only for others to recognize it, but often for the patient him / herself to realize that their thinking, and emotional responses, are disturbed.

Note that there are actually two kinds of depression.

Major depressive disorder—the most familiar form of depression—the cluster of symptoms that define depression occur in what may be severe episodes that tend to last from seven to nine months.

Dysthymic disorder - in which the symptoms are milder, but they last longer, measured in years. So while the experience of dysthymia may be less debilitating for the child at any given moment, the risk is that there is more accrued damage, more time in which the child is kept out of the healthy development process.

Symptoms of Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal adaptive system that lets the body know when it’s in danger. But anxiety becomes a problem when it’s out of proportion to the situation, and interferes with a person’s ability to function. An overly anxious teen might withdraw from activities because he /she’s too scared or anxious, and his/her anxiety doesn’t go away with reassurance.

A teenager who has been anxious since childhood may have a lifestyle built around his/her anxieties: the activities and environments he/she chooses and those he/she rules out, the friends he/she is comfortable with, the expectations and limitations he/she has trained family, friends, and teachers to accept. That’s why it’s more challenging to treat anxiety the longer a child has lived with it, and developed unhealthy coping mechanisms to manage it.

Why early intervention is critical

When a child is depressed or anxious, their suffering isn’t the only reason it’s important to get help.

In addition to the disorders themselves, there are add-on effects that may cause lifelong issues. With depression comes low energy and poor concentration, two factors that are likely to have a significant impact on social and academic functioning. Anxiety, and the withdrawal that may accompany it, is likewise a detriment to social and academic progress.

It’s easy to see the effects of poor academic functioning: falling behind in school undermines a child’s confidence and self-image, and can impact their future if it’s prolonged. But social learning is just as critical as academic learning in childhood and adolescence. This is a time when teens would normally be learning such things as how to be a daughter, a son, a sister, a brother a friend; with either depression or anxiety, they may miss or fall behind on these critical kinds of learning. These deficits not only put them behind their peers, but in themselves they can compound the depression or anxiety.

Other disorders

It’s important to understand that anxiety and depression often occur in the same teenager, and may need to be treated as two separate disorders. Anxiety is more likely to occur without depression than depression without anxiety. It may be that depression leads to anxiety—the negative state of mind of a depressed teenager lends itself to uncertainty. If you’re not feeling good about yourself, or confident, or secure, or safe, anxiety may find fertile ground. It may also be because the regions of the brain affected by anxiety and depression are close together, and mutually affected.

Two serious problems that are directly associated with teenage depression and anxiety are suicidal thinking (or behaviour), and substance abuse. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24, and we know that most kids who commit suicide have been suffering from a psychiatric illness. Especially at risk are teenagers who hide their depression and anxiety from parents and friends. That’s why it’s important to be alert to signs of these disorders—withdrawal, changes in school performance, eating habits, sleeping patterns, things teens enjoy doing—even when teenagers aren’t forthcoming about how they feel. Similarly, the majority of teenagers who develop substance abuse problems also have a psychiatric disorder, including, most commonly, anxiety or depression, which is another important reason to get treatment in a timely way.

Two other problems associated with teenage girls—that is, occurring with greater frequency in girls than boys—are eating disorders and self injury, or cutting. While both of these can overlap with depression, the common assumption that they’re caused by depression is not borne out by research. Girls who have eating disorders often show no signs of depression; indeed, they are often very high-functioning, competitive girls who have a distorted body image, but not the symptoms of depression. Similarly, self-injurious behaviour is a kind of dysfunctional coping mechanism kids get into to alleviate emotional pain, or numbness they’ve developed as a result of that pain.

Adapted from: https://childmind.org/article/mood-disorders-and-teenage-girls/