Teenage Mental Health
SAAIM FARHAT
Depression, social anxiety, FOMO (fear of missing
out), these problems weren’t as common as they are today .Suicide is the 3rd
leading cause of death among 15-19 year olds. We get more than 10 million cases
of depression in India, a year. Well as complex as the problems are, the
reasons may or may not be that hard to understand.
First, let’s talk about social media addiction and its
impact. Now, people fail to acknowledge the nature of life and scroll down
social media, and the pictures of almost thousands of people having an absolute
amazing life have a serious impact on their mind. They start to question
themselves, “What is wrong?” Now as easy as the question seems to be, the
answer may differentiate according to one’s perspective. Asking questions is
good. It shows you’re self-aware that something is wrong. But some people go
all out and blame their work or their parents for this sadness. Sometimes, they
also blame themselves for the choices they made in their life. They experience
second thoughts about their decisions. The problem with teenagers is when they
see their friends have a good time, posting on social media and they experience
FOMO (fear of missing out) or just the fear and anxiety of being left out from
the society triggered by social media posts. FOMO may occur in adults too.
Then there are the cases of social anxiety, the fear
of being negatively judged by the people and interacting with people. Social
anxiety can be caused by:
- ·
Bullying
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Social restrictions by parents
- ·
Emotionally ,verbally or sexually abused
The social interactions which might be easy for us may
not really be easy for the anxious ones as they can’t just go and talk to
people without being afraid of being negatively judged. They actually feel good
and relieved when they’re alone. That’s why they’re targets of bullying and
they’re scared to complain to anyone.
You must be wondering that if I also feel relieved
when I’m alone. Yes, I do too. The difference here is that you and I get
‘tired’ of the crowd and want to get some time alone, but the ones who are
bullied are afraid of the world that’s why they seek refuge in their
loneliness. Understand the difference? Depression is a mood disorder that
causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest. It is estimated
that about 10 to 15% of children and teens are suffering from depression at any
given time. There are various factors which may cause depression.
But here’s the fact, it is caused due to “prolonged”
exposure to something negativity. So you can’t be depressed in a day or a week,
you’re probably just temporarily sad and you’ll figure it out.
The possible causes may be:
- ·
Negative impact on self-esteem
- ·
Bullying on social media or in real life
- ·
Bad relationships with friends or your
partner.
- ·
Unsatisfactory marks
- ·
Violence either verbally or sexually
I’ve got some new causes for teen depression: teen
pregnancy, lack of freedom or any type of gender discrimination, parents’
conflict or divorce; can have a serious impact on a teen’s mental health.
So, how can we overcome these?
The cure for social media addiction is simple,
effective, painful to hear but ‘take a break from social media’. The reason you
scroll down social media and rant about how you don’t have enough followers,
argue with someone in the comments, and getting sad that you’re candid profile
picture didn’t get enough likes is simple- YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING BETTER TO DO.
Just start, go outside breathe in, switch off your phone and just sit there and
listen to music(suicidal and sad songs won’t help). Go get guitar lessons, get
to the gym, play outside or just play games (not PUBG, but outdoor games). Just
cool down, and then find a hobby, anything, reading books, mountain climbing,
swimming just anything. Let me tell you something. I do things which matter to
me instead of taking drugs.
Next is, sexual abuse, this one’s hard to tell
because most of the time, the victim is too afraid to take a stand and confess
about something. Well, we can prevent it by paying more attention on a child’s behavior
than his/her marks. What we can do is talk to our children. If you’re a teen,
talk to your parents everyday about how school was. If they’re out of town then
call them (no excuses).What this will do is that it will develop a habit and
parents will gradually know how the child responds about school usually and if
something has happened with the child or he/she is sad about something, it will
show a change in his/her usual behavior.
Bullying is another problem, for which the school
should be responsible, but they’re not everywhere. So, in my experience, find
some friends who aren’t afraid of telling you how you’re wrong about something.
Find those precious idiots who get punished with you. Tell your parents. My
classmates used to bully me and tease me because of my speech problem. They
still tease me sometimes, but now I don’t care because I know I have overcome
my problem to a great extent.
After all of this reading, if you still can’t find
why you are sad, let’s just say “you’re sad because you’re not happy”. Yes, I
took that line from ‘Merchant of Venice’ by Shakespeare because it’s very
right. Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out, we all do, eventually.
Editor’s Note: “Your feelings are valid.
Make your mental health a priority.” This line says it all.
If you also have something to write about or speak about,
do it now. We encourage our audience to be the ‘voice of change’.
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