The Two Depressions of Youth

 

 

"A dark cloud hangs over many of our youth today..."

Yesterday, I read an article about the depression of youth. No, this article had nothing to do with the medical diagnosis - it had to do with the economy. The article said whereas the overall unemployment rate is a "recession like" 14.0% (U6), the unemployment rate for youth is a "depression like" 24%. For black youth, the news is even worse. Their rate is stuck at an astonishing 40%.

Some might ask "who cares?" - they are just kids and can live with Mom and Dad. The "who cares" comes from this - many of us learned the rudiments of work skills from our first part time job. Working not only gave us spending money, it also gave us additional learning and purpose we could not get from being in school. In short, having the mix of being a student, taking part in extra curriculum activities, and working part time was an excellent way to learn the basics of time management.

The other depression which seems to plague our youth today is the medical diagnosis of depression. I will be the first to admit I don't really understand this disease, but I am getting smarter. It is not just feeling sad - it is much deeper, and much more serious. I have been amazed as I have aged the number of people we know, both adults and youth, that have been diagnosed with clinical depression. Not just diagnosed, but also treated with some hefty medications.

The question which had bothered me for a while now is "why?" Why are there so many people today with depression? Why had it hit our youth so hard? I think back to when I was in high school - I did not know of anyone who had depression. Was it because depression existed but was not diagnosed? Did people just "mask" it or self treat it? I don't know. All I know is this. In my opinion, today we have an epidemic of depression, bi-polar and a slew of other mental health disorders. It is a big and expensive problem not just for the families of those affected, but our society as well.

I have said before, it is not easy being a kid today. Whereas the future looked bright when I was young, the future today can look somewhat murky. We have depression in portions of our economy and clinical depression in sizable portions of our youth population. My generation can help two different ways. First, we can fix this stubborn economy which will allow everyone, especially our youth, to find employment. Second, we can get smarter about clinical depression. Chances are someone in your family or a family you know has it. We need to know it, and we need to understand it better so we can be of positive support to those (and their families) who suffer from it.