In the eyes of a teenager
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- Published on Saturday, April 1, 2017
By Jessica Hare-Lawless
Submitted
How would you describe teenagers in society? Hooligans? Juvenile? Would you say they’re crazy and reckless? Irresponsible? How about over-stressed?
It is a common topic nowadays that the depression rate in teens has increased over the years. Studies by the American Psychological Association show that a normal child in society today has more anxiety than that of a psychiatric patient in the 1950s; this is due to less social connected-ness and a higher environmental threat. It is simple for adults to say for us to put down our phones and build better relationships, but it is common now for teens to have much better relationships with people half way across the world, than people who are sitting right next to them.
Stress is very impactful on teens because this is the time in our lives where we have to mature and actually grow up. Our whole future depends on this stage in our lives; our grades, the decisions we make with friends and our relationships with our family; and they all tie together. If we do something crazy with our friends that we think was fun, our parents could think it was irresponsible, which it probably was, and we could get into a heated argument. That fight with our parents could result in us thinking and over analyzing, which could potentially distract us from our schoolwork.
Lots of teenagers have anxiety and depression, and lots self harm, and even take it a step too far. A recent study from Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) in the US says that the depression rate in teens has risen to 11.3 percent in 2014 and is significantly higher in teenage girls, 17.3 percent.
Suicide is the third leading cause of death in North America, says the Canadian Mental Health Organization. At 4,000 people per year, it is the second leading cause of death for Canadians aged 15-24. Statistics Canada reports that one in five Canadian teens have had suicidal ideations in the past year.
A 2014 study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) found increases in the number of self-harm-related hospitalizations for girls and boys. While the rate for girls jumped from 78 to 164 per 100,000 girls, an increase of 110 per cent, the rate for boys increased from 23 to 32 per 100,000, a 35 per cent increase. The teens under such stress that they feel that suicide or self-harm is the only answer for, have been through something obviously traumatizing, it could be something as basic as bullying, but it could be neglect from their guardians, or even sexual abuse.
In school we learn about bullying and that isn’t right to bully people, but even if we don’t call it bullying, it is still being done. What isn’t right about this topic is everyone will talk about it, and some will participate in the acts, but when we should actually sit down at school and hold programs to talk about it and become more aware of how we can solve this issue, no one does.
Next time you want to call down a teenager and want to say they’re “messed up”, maybe ask yourself why, you can see them and may know who they are. But you don’t know their story.
