Troubled Teens Resources

An issue that is a constant when working with youth in schools for troubled teens is evaluating for depression. Though depression is most usually associated with girls, recent reports cite teen suicide statistics that indicate that depression can affect both genders. Depression is not always indicated by sadness and dejection. Hostility, aggression and belligerence are also manifestations of depression.

The Penn State massacre has prompted closer scrutiny on teen mental health assessments, with some advocates suggesting mental health evaluations for teens be mandatory while others promote voluntary screening. Such a program has been made available to communities throughout the nation.

“The goal of the Columbia University TeenScreen Program is to ensure that all parents are offered the opportunity for their teens to receive a voluntary mental health check-up. The program’s primary objective is to help young people and their parents through the early identification of mental health problems, such as depression. Parents of youth found to be at possible risk are notified and helped with identifying and connecting to local mental health services where they can obtain further evaluation. No child is screened without parental consent. The results of the screen are confidential. Mental health screening can take place in any number of venues, including schools, clinics, doctors’ offices, juvenile justice facilities - in short, anywhere that a group of teens is present.”

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Teens at risk quite often experience depression and just as often parents throw their hands up in the air and exclaim, “What in the world do you have to be depressed about?”

Bad idea. First you discount their pain and if you do that often enough, troubled teenagers will start to hide that hurt or sorrow and then it will really start doing some damage hidden when away from the light of day. True enough, next to a mortgage and bills and a job that grinds your very life away, a teen’s problems can certainly appear insignificant to a parent.

That is when parents have to employ some empathy and remember that in the scale of a teen’s world, a rejection from a friend or a sneer from the popular kids is tantamount to the mortgage getting behind. Teens usually really do not “get” that they have much to be grateful for because a good percentage of suburban teens have had little understanding of poverty or disease or those experiences that makes one grateful to have just survived to live another day.

Even if the depressed teen has blown a mole hole of a problem into a mountain of drama, the resulting depression, untreated, can lead a teen to self medicate, and therein lies the path to teen age drug abuse. If your teen has expressed sorrow or even jokingly proclaimed that life is to hard and not worth it, take care to make sure that there isn’t a deeper root to explore.

Teen boarding schools have often proven to be the right environment for the depressed teen who is also emotionally alienated from their family. Such a teen has often erected defenses that even the most loving parents cannot permeate.

Often a teen can better come to grips with their depression away from the family . Enrolling a teen in a specialty school or troubled teen boarding school allows the teen to gain perspective and view their family from a safer place emotionally.

If you suspect that your teen son or daughter is suffering from depression, you will want to become familiar with some of the symptoms. The links following this abbreviated list will give you some guidance.

• Myth: It is normal for teenagers to be moody, because teens do not suffer from real depression.
• Fact: Depression can affect people at any age or of any race, ethnic, or economic group, so each mood change should be monitored.
• Myth: Teens who claim to be depressed are weak and just need to pull themselves together, so there is nothing anyone else can do to help.
• Fact: Depression is not a weakness, but a serious health disorder, and both young people and adults who are depressed need professional treatment. A trained therapist or counselor can help them learn more positive ways to think about themselves, change behavior, and cope with problems. The physician can prescribe medications to help relieve the symptoms of depression, because for many people, a combination of psychotherapy and medication is beneficial.

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When a teenager slashes their wrist, they effectively wound the entire family.

“When a child attempts suicide, emotions hit families like a Mack truck…. matter how a family deals with the aftermath of a suicide, they are forever changed by it.”

What makes teen age suicide all the more difficult for the teen and their family to recover from is that often the suicide is unacknowledged, with the teen in denial and the family unwilling to push the matter back into the spotlight.

“Many families don’t pursue treatment because they deny or minimize their child’s suicide attempt. Teenagers who attempt suicide may also not admit they tried to kill themselves. “Even when you see a young person in the emergency room right after he or she completed an attempt, very quickly the denial kicks in,” Hoover says. “She may say, ‘I never meant it,’ or ‘it was an accident,’ or denying she even made an attempt. Families do the same thing because of the intensity of the suicide issue.”

Often a teen suicide is blamed on the teen’s drug abuse without an understanding of the underlaying emotional factors that precipitated both the drug abuse and the attempted suicide. When a teen commits suicide their emotional pain becomes a family affair. Though healing takes time, denial only prolongs it, making the entire family vulnerable and weakened.

“Once the child who attempted suicide learns how to deal with his or her hopelessness and depression, and the parents begin to deal with their own anxieties and guilty or angry feelings, then they may be ready for family therapy. Family therapy helps family members learn how to communicate better with each other and express their feelings more constructively.”

(Source)

“im not depressed, not the happiest person inside tho but thats not the reason ive been thinkijng about my death.
[..]
me im nothing. no one could ever describe me as anything. ive nearly finished school and im going shit coz i dont care and i dont want to do anything in particular after school like UNI, ill never ever fall in love, and im just a waste of space..

i want to die becasue my whole life is going to be a shitty waste. dont really wanna die but i see no other option”

A troubled teen bulletin board had the above post which elicited sympathy from most but a burst of angry impatience from a few.

“if ur thinking of killing yourself ur weak
and
I’m ****ing sick of people who whine about not having anything worth living for, but don’t bother to try and find something.”

The path to teen age drug abuse most often begins with the depression and confusion displayed by this discouraged teen’s message.

This is what parenting is supposed to be about. Guiding the at-risk teen through the searing self-examination that typically accompanies adolescence. This is where an aware and active parent works closely to help the teen find an avenue that can give them a sense of accomplishment. Easy task? No, but possible.

In a perfect world, this teen would have parents who have the time and money to direct he or she into exploring every possibility;theater, sports , writing for the school paper, photography, learn a second or third language, conduct amateur scientific experiments.

In a perfect world a parent would guide the teen away from the unproductive habit of self-pity and coach them in finding solutions. In a perfect world, this teen would be talking to parents, not making anonymous pleas for help on the Internet.

“Hi every1. I haven’t been happy in a very long time. I have been crying and feeling very lonely. I miss my old school and don’t have a lot of friends. I realli hate my stupid fuckin life. I just saw my therapist and lately I have been crying at the end of my therapy appointments. My parents want me to try an after-school activity but I’m scared about dat cuz I ain’t good at meeting new ppl. I’m worried kids might make fun of me cuz I have Asperger’s Syndrome. I need to make friends and feel better soon or else my parents will send me to boarding school next year and I don’t want dat! What should I do? sum1 plz help”
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“…very lonely…miss old school…ain’t good at meeting new people…or else my parents will send me to boarding school.”

Loneliness, a sense of not belonging, fear of new people, fear of being misunderstood; all factors that could easily lead this troubled teen to abusing drugs or other self-destructive behavior.

A military school or placement into a teen therapy program at an accredited boarding school is the very plan of action that could save this at-risk teen from losing their life all together. Yet, it sounds as if the parents have perhaps used the idea of a boarding school as a threat as opposed to discussing it with their troubled teen as a positive solution for her loneliness and sense of ostracism.

It is very important that parents of troubled teens not resort to presenting a boarding school solution as a threat or punishment. For a trouble teen with this combination of emotional disturbances, it is the exact environment where she or he can safely work out their problems, safe from the lure of drugs or other destructive means of escaping emotional pain.

A good boarding school will be able to address all of a troubled teen’s issues, providing he or she with excellent coping skills, assisting the troubled teen in developing their talents and strengths, teaching them healthy methods of dealing with depression and loneliness. Unfortunately, the solutions teens may seek outside of an effective teen treatment program and without the protective isolation a good boarding school are all too often found in drugs or alcohol abuse. In a sound teen treatment program in an accredited boarding school, the at-risk teen is given an even playing field to heal, not subject to the additional pressure of being tempted to use drugs or alcohol as a means of coping.

A parent who is considering sending their troubled teen to a brat camp or boarding school would be well advised to present such a solution in a positive light, not as a threat, but as an empowering opportunity for growth.

“What do you have to be depressed about? You have everything you could possibly want,” is often the frustrated parent’s response to a teen who confesses that he or she is depressed. But the fact is, all that the teen does have materially is not necessarily what the teen actually wants or needs. An Ipod , tattoos, baggy jeans and mini skirts are what his culture informs he must have. Home, hearth, food and education are what his parents know are necessities to provide. So it is not without cause that a parent would, along with sorrow and fear, also feel a sense of outrage that their teen is struggling and struggling with drug abuse, no less.

Sometimes, when depression manifests as drug abuse, the reasons are far more complex than simple rebellion. Drug abuse in the depressed teen often begins as a form of self-medication, a desperate attempt to feel something, anything but the gnawing despair that haunts them.

“Episodes of major depression may occur suddenly or gradually and usually last several months. It is common for episodes to recur and suicide is a major risk.

The cause of depression is not known, but a number of advances have been made in identifying potential factors. Depression comes in many forms, from mild sadness to a mood disorders such as major depression. Most likely, it is a combination of genetic and environmental factors that are involved in the development of the disorder. Major depression tends to run in families, and it may be triggered by severe stress (e.g., abuse, death of a loved one). Depression is more common in women and people with chronic medical conditions.”
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It is very important that a parent does not make their troubled teenager’s depression and drug abuse about them. Most parent have done it all “by the book” and have indeed provided for their children - body, mind, and (sometimes) soul. A teenager’s depression and subsequent drug abuse can stem from any of several factors, and in many cases the origin of depression are totally beyond a parent’s control, but not, beyond their love and understanding.