Most of the time, you can find ways to handle your sad feelings or they go away pretty quickly. When sad feelings stick around, though, they can stop you from doing the things you want or need to do—like eating, going to school, being with friends, or getting exercise. When that happens, you might be depressed.
Denny, age ten, feels sad a lot. When he got home from school today he just flopped on the couch to watch TV. His friends called to ask him to join them for inline skating, but he didn’t go. He even blew off his homework—he just didn’t have the energy. Even though he has lots of friends and does fine in school, he can’t help but feel down in the dumps most days. All he wants to do is sleep or watch TV.
Keisha, age thirteen, is always grouchy. Most days, it takes very little to set her off. Today she screamed at her friend for tagging her out in softball, her teacher for assigning too much homework, and her mom for asking her to vacuum the living room. She thinks everyone hates her.
Being depressed is like trying to drive a boat with the anchor in the water. It holds you back so that you don’t have enough energy to move forward—you feel stuck. You might have a few good days when you start feeling better. But then the bad moods come back.
Studies show that at least 6 percent of kids and teens may have depression. This means that in a group of one hundred kids (about three classrooms in school), six of them may be depressed. There are many kinds of depression. Some are more severe than others, and some last longer than others. All forms of depression stop you from feeling good and enjoying life. That’s why it’s so important to get help—so you can feel good again.
If you’ve been feeling depressed or irritable almost all of the time for at least two weeks, you may have major depression. This kind of depression can come on quickly. You don’t feel like yourself at all and you probably have a very hard time going about your usual activities. You don’t feel like doing things you used to think were fun. You also may have some of the following problems almost every day (you have to have at least five to have major depression):
not feeling like eating OR eating too much
sleeping too much OR sleeping too little; not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep
feeling antsy, having too much energy OR moving more slowly
being tired, not having any energy to do much of anything
feeling like you’re not worth anything
feeling guilty, even if you didn’t do anything wrong
not being able to concentrate or think clearly
having trouble making up your mind
thinking about death or about hurting yourself (see chapter 9 to learn more about suicidal feelings)
Sometimes depression affects boys and girls in different ways. Boys are more likely to feel grouchy or angry, while girls often get quiet and want to be alone.
If you’ve been feeling sad for a year or more, you may have a kind of depression called dysthymic disorder (say it like this: dis-THIGH-mick). This type of depression can develop slowly, so you don’t even realize anything is wrong at first. And while it isn’t as serious as major depression—you can probably go about your day as normal—it can still cause lots of problems.
Most people with dysthymic disorder usually feel sad most of the day, though not every day. Sometimes kids feel more grouchy or irritable than sad. They may feel better for a while, but this doesn’t last more than a couple of weeks or months before they start feeling bad again. Here are some other signs of dysthymic disorder:
Only a doctor or therapist can tell for sure if you are depressed. That’s why it’s so important to talk to an adult and get some expert help.
not feeling like eating OR eating too much
having trouble falling asleep OR sleeping too much
not having much energy, feeling tired all the time
not feeling good about yourself—having low self-esteem
having trouble paying attention or making decisions
feeling hopeless—like nothing you do will help
The tricky part of depression, especially with dysthymic disorder, is knowing the difference between being depressed and being temporarily unhappy. That’s because a lot of people have these kinds of feelings and problems from time to time. Ask yourself how strong your sad feelings are. Does it feel like the feelings are taking over your life? Are they keeping you from doing well in school or at home? If so, you may be depressed. Only an expert can tell you for sure, though.
Does your mood seem to drop during the dark days of winter? If so, you may have a kind of depression called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD. It’s called “seasonal” because it is worse during certain seasons, usually the winter. People with SAD often start feeling sad in November and don’t start feeling better until March or April. Scientists think SAD is caused by the lower amount of sunlight during the winter months. This is why one way to treat SAD is to spend time under special lamps to replace the sunlight you don’t get during this season.
The symptoms of SAD are the same as those for major depression. People with SAD may also sleep a lot, feel hungrier than usual, and gain weight.
Bipolar disorder is when a person swings from being depressed to being extremely upset or happy. When people are in the depressed phase, they have the same feelings that are described in this chapter. When they are in the upset or happy phase (known as the manic phase), they have too many thoughts at one time, they have problems with having too much energy, and they have trouble controlling their anger. See chapter 6 to learn more about bipolar disorder.
If you have depression, you probably wonder where it came from and why it came. You might be embarrassed to be depressed and think it means you’re weak in some way. But depression doesn’t have anything to do with being weak or strong—it’s an illness that can affect anyone. If you’re depressed, what matters is that you get help!
Some people get depressed because of things that happen to them. If a lot of bad things happen, more than you can handle, you might become depressed.
The way your brain works also can affect whether you become depressed. Some people’s brains protect them from getting depressed. If your brain chemistry doesn’t protect you this way AND bad things happen, you are especially likely to get depressed.
Your brain has a number of parts. Each part communicates with other parts, and all parts need to work together for you to do your best and to feel happy. When certain brain chemicals called neurotransmitters are out of balance, you’re more likely to become depressed. Medicines can help people with depression balance these brain chemicals.
Many famous people have been depressed. Terry Bradshaw is a Hall of Fame quarterback who was called Pittsburgh’s “Man of Steel.” He led four Pittsburgh Steelers teams to Super Bowl titles and won the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player award in 1978. Yet after games, he would break down into tears. He became even more depressed after he retired from football. Finally, with the help of counseling and medicine, he was able to beat his depression.
Depression can also be inherited. If someone in your family has problems with depression, you might, too.
Some medical problems also can cause depression. For instance, your thyroid gland, which makes growth hormones, also helps control your moods. If it’s not working right, you may get depressed. Diabetes is another illness that can cause depression. A healthcare professional can do tests to find out if you have any physical problem that could be causing depression.
Some medicines people take for other health problems can have a side effect of depression. If you’re on any medications and you start feeling sad a lot, ask your mom or dad to schedule a checkup for you.
Scientists are working hard to figure out all the causes of depression so they can find better ways to treat it. Even though you can’t control whether you get depression, you can decide what to do about it.
You need the help of an expert to know whether you’re dealing with depression. If a doctor or therapist says you have depression, what might happen next?
You’ll probably begin meeting with a counselor to talk about your feelings. Your counselor can help you with the exercises in this book and suggest other ways you can help yourself. Read chapter 10 to learn more about what it’s like to work with a counselor.
Even if your feelings don’t match all of the symptoms of depression described in this chapter, if you’re feeling down, please still get help. Sad feelings can get worse with time, so don’t ignore your sad feelings. Do something about them. Begin by talking to a caring adult.
A counselor can also help figure out what kind of depression you have and whether you might need medicine. Medicines that help people with depression are called antidepressants. They change how your brain chemicals work, often by making them work harder. For some kids, the depression can only get better with antidepressants. If your doctor prescribes a medication for you, be sure to follow the directions. It won’t help if you refuse or forget to take it.
Besides meeting with a counselor and maybe taking medicine, you can do lots of things on your own to help you deal with your feelings of depression. Try the ideas in this chapter to see which ones work for you. It might take a while before they start working. But don’t give up—keep at it!
Warning: Although it doesn’t happen often, medicines that usually help kids with depression can sometimes make them feel worse. They might feel more edgy, too sleepy, or more depressed. If any of these things happen to you, tell your mom or dad right away! Your parent can call the doctor to figure out what to do.
Also, don’t stop taking a medicine for depression without talking to your doctor first. Since these medicines change how your brain chemicals work, stopping suddenly can be dangerous. Even if you don’t think the medicine is helping, stopping on your own can cause your depression to return—sometimes after just a few days.
Using a calendar or your journal, rate how you feel each day. You can find out if there is a pattern to your moods. Maybe you feel worse during the week, which might be a clue that school is adding to your problems. Or you might discover that you feel better on the days when you exercise. This tells you that exercise helps!
The first thing is to rate your feelings on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 meaning you feel good and you’re happy, 10 meaning you feel as depressed as you can imagine, and 5 meaning you feel somewhere in the middle.
Sometimes, it’s more helpful to rate yourself two or three times a day. You can give yourself a number for the mornings, afternoons, and evenings. Maybe you feel bad in the mornings, but feel better as the day goes on. This is common in people who are depressed.
You can make your chart more interesting by using colors if you want. For example, use black to mean you’re very sad that day, blue to mean you’re moderately sad, and yellow to mean your day is a good one, filled with sunshine.
If you’re taking medicine for depression, keeping a mood chart can also help your doctor figure out if it’s working. After you’ve been keeping a chart for a while, bring it with you to your next checkup. Maybe you need a higher dose or a different medicine. Maybe you need to take your medicine at a different time of the day. Be sure to let your doctor make those decisions. NEVER decide on your own to change how much medicine you take.
Many people who are depressed think about things in ways that aren’t really true, which makes them feel worse. By catching yourself when you think this way, you can help yourself feel better. Look through your journal for twisted thinking, then practice untwisting those thoughts. Here are some examples:
If one bad thing happens, everything else will turn out bad. Of course this isn’t true. Just because you fail one test doesn’t mean you’ll fail every test for the rest of your life! It’s just one test.
Good things that happen don’t count; bad things that happen count a lot. If something good happens to you, do you think it’s just an accident and that good things won’t keep happening? Or maybe you don’t even notice when good things happen because you’re so busy looking for bad things. For instance, if you have this kind of twisted thinking and someone tells you that you look nice, you might think the person is lying. Then if someone makes fun of you, you might make a big deal about it and let it ruin your whole day. A better way to handle it is to make a big deal of anything good that happens.
Everyone has to like me, otherwise I’m worthless. Not everyone will like you, just like you probably don’t like everyone you meet. It’s okay if people don’t like you. Maybe you just don’t like the same things.
I have to be perfect. If I make a mistake, it means I’m a failure. No one is perfect! Everyone makes mistakes. It’s important to learn to laugh at your mistakes and tell yourself it’s not a disaster to goof up. Remember, all famous inventors in the world made lots of mistakes before they got it right. Imagine if the Wright brothers, the inventors of the airplane, gave up after their first plane crashed. They learned from each mistake. Mistakes teach us what we did wrong, so we can do it better next time.
Fighting depression takes time and work, but you can do it. Use the ideas in this chapter and work with your grown-up helper to find experts who can help you get started. You can find ways to overcome your sad feelings and feel better again.