Antidepressants In Adolescents

Halls of Spring Tears Everything seems gloomy and void of hope when foreboding clouds hang over one’s head, particularly for the young. Mostly, those clouds dissipate after a while, but for some, it takes stronger methods to force them away before they let loose their torrents of premature rain. This same situation holds true with countless cases of adolescent depression that can not be driven away by therapy and placebos. Antidepressants can be imperative for teenagers with depression through reassurance that their disease is curable, benefits not offered by other forms of treatment, and preventing possible fatality. Dysthymia, or chronic depression, is a mental disease characterized by a lingering sorrow, self-loathing, and immense feeling …show more content…
The issue that was given out that antidepressants led to an increased risk of suicidal thoughts, actions, and behavioral patterns was accompanied by an increase in adolescent fatality caused by depression (Friedman 1). This warning came at the expense of depression running its course ill-treated in adolescents. Depression is also known to resurface in children in the following years without the use of antidepressants. While therapy can help a patient learn to cope with the symptoms of self-loathing and lingering sadness, it can not prevent the disease from resurging in the case of another tragedy since the chemical imbalance is never addressed and …show more content…
An estimated three million adolescents suffering from depression do not receive adequate treatment (Wingert 1). Parental concern is one of the main causes for the reason “antidepressants, which can be lifesaving, are probably being underused in young people” (Friedman 2). Parents are typically the ones who decide whether or not to put their child under medication, sometimes not even discussing it with their adolescent.This is mainly due to the human concern for the daunting side-effects that are associated with these medications.It may also be due to disbelief of their child’s depression and refusal to accept their child’s condition as anything short of normal. Young patients are often misinterpreted when they confess to their parents that they may be depressed; the bout of gloomy behavior is dismissed at first by parents as typical teenager behavior. This reduces the chance of treating the depression in its early stages and places the patient at a greater risk of major depression. Acceptance by parents may be restricted by a fear of seeing like an incompetent guardian for their child for letting him or her experience deteriorating sorrow, though depression is caused by no single factor. Parents play a large role in deciding the treatment for their teenager, so communication may mean life or death for the young