You are listening to Take Out Therapy, speedy sessions for everyday problems. This is your host, Rebecca Hunter. In my role as a private practice therapist, I don't really just tell people what to do, but in this podcast, I'm doing things differently.
In the next few minutes, I'm just going to be straight up with you about what to do in certain situations. Keep listening for awesome tips on how to live a more intentional and less reactive life. Clearly, this is not a substitute for therapy, but I guarantee it might help you.
Listen up. Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me for my third episode of my depression series.
Today's going to be a short episode. I wanted to just highlight the problem of teens and depression. Doesn't that sound like fun? No, but it's serious, you guys.
One out of five teenagers is having the experience of having depression that gets in their way of a functional life. We are seeing some of the highest suicide rates right now in the teen population, which is scary. The other thing is that with all the stigma, teens aren't going to therapy as much as they probably could be.
There's amazing people out there doing great work with teens in the therapy world and actually online as well, which is great. Teens don't feel that comfortable accessing resources. I'll get into why that is the case.
We need to talk about teens and depression because they are experiencing anxiety and depression at alarming rates. These people, these teenagers, they're going to be adults soon. They're really struggling.
They're growing up in totally different times than I did, for sure. It's super hard to understand, but what we need to understand is they are our future. They are also, I'm not going to go on a rant here, but I'm just going to say our teens and what's happening to them is a symptom of a huge structural change that's needed in our country around mental health, just saying, and education, P.S. I know there's a lot of people out there working on this, but it ain't good right now.
We need to be talking about it. It's very, very important that we all be talking about it, but we're not. I don't necessarily think that we're talking about it.
We're on Facebook and we're posting cute pictures of our teenagers and we're kind of complaining about the silly things they do, but we're not really getting a lot of help to deal with this kind of declining mental state that they're in. The world is a lot for them. Sometimes their symptoms, teen depression symptoms are very confusing.
I just want to say that teens do not behave the same way when they're depressed as adults do. That's something that we can look into. There's tons of resources on that, by the way.
I'll put a one in the show notes that I appreciate. One of the things is teens with depression, they get super pissed off and act kind of ragey sometimes, and that's part of the deal. That feels not like depression.
Doesn't that feel like the opposite of what somebody who's depressed would do? But it's not. In the teenage brain development and the way depression lives in their body, that's a lot of times what it looks like. That's just one example.
There are many. We need to get educated about this. The other thing that I want to point out about teens and depression is that part of the reason that they're kind of drowning in mental health disorder right now is because the adults in their lives are not willing to get help themselves.
The adults in their lives maybe haven't healed from their own stuff, and that's not saying it's our fault that our kids are suffering, but it's also like, listen, we need to start healing as adults so that we can bring our kids along on that healing journey and we can model good self-care for them. Because say it's like a parent with depression, and then a kid is just like, frankly, biologically inclined growing up in a house with depression and having the genes of depression, they're going to probably have a little bit of depression. So if the parent is really stuck and not getting anywhere, then they're not going to be able to help their kids.
I just want to say if you're an adult and you're really suffering and you have kids and you see them suffering, that's okay, but get help for yourself and then start just talking about what that's like for you. Whether you're going to read a book on anxiety or depression or you're going to start listening to a podcast, report back in your household. Start normalizing a conversation about self-help, mental health help, growing as a person, personal growth.
That will really be helpful in, number one, reducing stigma. So the way we reduce stigma, stigma is kind of things that we hide and don't talk about. So the way we reduce it is just start normalizing, which means like mental health problems are pretty normal, actually.
But we do this thing where we're like, oh, that's not normal. Like there's something wrong. And I'm just saying like that's actually not altogether accurate.
So it's very common for people to struggle with their mental health at one time or another. The other thing with teens and depression is that, and this is true for adults too, and if you listen to the last episode, this might feel a little repetitive, but it's important that we just be really open and curious. I don't know about you, but I don't really like people asking me what my problem is and then telling me how to fix it.
That bothers me. It just gets on my nerves and I shut down. And so a better approach is to kind of just ask teens open-ended questions like, oh, well, how is that for you, right, to feel that way? Be open, ask questions to which they can kind of process their own life and their own experience.
We don't need to process it for them, right? And then also just be curious. Instead of being super fearful and kind of shut down, we can just open up a little bit and just be a little bit more curious. Like, gosh, well, what might help with that, right? Like I see you struggling to get up in the morning to go to school.
What can we do together here, right? Do you need some accountability? First of all, because I can do that. I can do that all day, right? But like there's a lot we can do in between there, right? It's not all about like, and now here's the punishment. It's kind of about just being open to the fact that there's another person living with you or in your life somewhere.
Maybe you're an aunt or an uncle that's really struggling. And just being open and curious to talking about that. Super, super helpful.
And then the other thing is like with teenagers, you guys, I will just say this a million times. Let's avoid fixing for them, right? If they're over a certain age, and frankly, even if they're a younger teen, we can empower each other to solve our own problems. And if you heard the episode on like, no one needs your advice.
If you didn't hear that episode, go back and listen to it. But this is what I'm talking about is like, there's a way to empower the people in our life, including teenagers to solve their own problems. If they think there's a problem, then there's something to solve, right? So we have to figure out kind of how to hold space for somebody be open and curious, right? And be able to just hear what their experience is.
And then like, there's definitely ways to empower teens to get some help, right? Or to ask for what they need. That's the other thing is we can just kind of help them ask for what they need by, you know, what can I do to be helpful? Right? And then at a certain point, when things get, you know, kind of down the road, then it might be that we need to ask them to get some help, right? And there's so many different ways to do that. And they can, they will choose the best way that's there for them.
But I think it's important just to have this quick conversation about how it's not just adults, you guys, our teens are really suffering. This is just such a tough setup for them with technology and the way they're growing up. The media is kind of scary right now, right? And the world kind of looks grim if you have a certain view, frankly.
As adults, hopefully you're taking care of yourself and you could put your head up and look around and see that actually the world is pretty awesome and beautiful. And there's just a lot of good here. But a teenager with their, you know, having to go to high school, frankly, the worst place ever, right? Having to go to the school and deal with comparison and the social media crisis that I think we're in.
It's a good, it's a setup. It's a setup for them. Let's help them out.
Let's take care of them. You know, when we start to take care of each other, we're creating community. You guys, we're creating connection and we're opening the door for each other to heal.
Teen, adult, kids, I don't care. Let's all work towards healing together. Thanks so much for listening to this three-part series on depression.
Um, it's important. I want to talk about things that are important. Even if it's a little bit hard, stick with me.
You'll learn some stuff. You guys know I'm a total anxiety activist. Well, did you know that anxiety is the most common mental health diagnosis in the U.S.? Almost 7% of our population has a reported problem with anxiety.
And let me say only around 35% of people get treatment for it. You guys, here's what I want to tell you. Anxiety is highly treatable.
You can absolutely get, get through it, get over it and heal from it. I created a little group on Facebook. If you have any interest in learning more about how to heal from anxiety, I'm like all fired up giving people lots of information and resources on that.
Come join us, the Anxiety Recovery Club on Facebook. Thanks. Thanks so much for listening.
This podcast is not meant to be a substitute for therapy, but I hope it was super helpful for you in any case. I want to be part of some much needed change, but I'm going to need your help. Please subscribe and review the podcast.
Recommend it to your friends and family and share it on social media. We're living in the digital age, people. Let's do some good where we can, all right? Visit my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com to have access to resources, videos, and the show notes if that interests you.
And again, I'm so grateful you're listening to Take Out Therapy. Thanks.
