Self Care
For those of you who are young and feel rejected and depressed, it is important to talk with an adult, your parents, a teacher, a friend’s parent or someone else you can trust. It often helps to talk about your feelings and it can be a means of early detection and possibly stop a depression. In addition, help is available from health care center.
Your parents always have a responsibility to make you feel good and get help if needed. A method for early detection and possible prevention of depression is to talk to them about what is difficult. Having the opportunity to put your feelings into words is the best method to process the setbacks and crises.
Sleep is important for all people but especially if you start to get depressed. Try to prioritize sleep. If it is not working at all, you need to seek help to get good advice and treatment.
If you go to school maybe there is a school counselor or school psychologist to talk to. The outpatient child and adolescent psychiatry, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, offers talks with a psychologist. You can also contact your youth clinic or medical center. The important thing is that you get help. Everywhere you turn, they will help you to get right. A severe depression can lead to suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, and it is therefore important to get professional help as soon as possible.
Survey
When you get to talk with professionals they will help you to get to a psychologist or psychiatrist. The psychologist or psychiatrist is talking to you and trying by this call to make a diagnosis, in order to propose an appropriate treatment.
There are various tools that the psychologist or psychiatrist using. For example, there are self-rating scales that you can fill in. Usually, the international diagnostic manual called the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
Treatment of depression in young people
Psychotherapy
If you have a mild depression, you can get going at intervals along the so-called psychotherapeutic conversation. It may be sufficient. Often it is useful to combine so that you both individually and together with your parents may be able to help you manage your situation. It is also important to have knowledge about depression so that both you and your parents can see early signs of a possible deterioration or if you would become depressed again.
Social support
In addition to psychotherapy, it is important to adapt the activities and requirements for those who are depressed. For example, it may become necessary to reduce the number of lessons in school so that it is a reasonable burden in terms of homework and school day length.
Physical activity
Regular physical activity has proven beneficial for many different conditions and diseases. It may be that cycling, walking, swimming and more. In adults, regular exercise is preventive against anxiety and new periods of depression. One can expect that it also applies to young people. Physical activity during the day also makes it easier to sleep at night.
Pharmaceuticals
If you have a moderate or severe depression, you may need both psychotherapy and drugs (antidepressants). Treatment must be done in close cooperation with you and your parents and with frequent return visits. Sometimes anxiety and concern by the beginning of the treatment period. There is the risk of side effects, which means that you have more suicidal thoughts and possibly try to harm yourself, but this tends to decrease after a few weeks. It may take four to six weeks before we know for sure if the medication has any effect. It continues to be in contact throughout the treatment period. When it is time to end it is done by appointment and with a gradual tapering of the medication.
