TeenHealthFX - Answers - Want To Know More About Anti-Depressants

Depression / Question
Published: March 23, 2009

Dear TeenHealthFX,

Hi, I'm a thirteen year-old girl and...Well, my main question is I want to know more about anti-depressants. I am depressed and I go to a therapist. My best friend helps me a lot, and she gets really upset when I'm sad. She thinks it's her fault I'm not happy. I don't want her to think that. I don't want her putitng herself down because she thinks she's not good enough to help me. So, please, tell me what should I do? Should I ask my parents I want to se if anti-depresants will help? The therapist isn't really helping at all, and I tried to talk to my parents before abot talking to another therapist, but they don't really take this whole thing seriosuly. My mom yells at me when I cry and she's mad at me because the therapist isn't helping me. She says I need to "Stop being depressed", as if I haven't tried everything to be happy. My best friend is the only person I feel comfortable talking to, but sometimes it feels bad to talk to her because I know she'll be upset with herself. So I think if anti-depressants might help, then I want to take them. But I'm afriad to mention anything to my parents? Should I? And if so, how? And I would like to know a little more about them. Please answer!! This is really important to me! Please and thank you!

Signed: Want To Know More About Anti-Depressants

Dear Want To Know More About Anti-Depressants,

TeenHealthFX thinks the first thing that is needed here is education about depression – for you, your friend, and your parents. It is important that your friend and your parents learn that depression is not something a person can just “snap out of,” but is a mental health illness that involves certain chemical reactions in the brain. And because it is an illness with a biochemical component, it is something that requires treatment from mental health professionals.

Talking With Your Friend

As for your friend, let her know that this is not something she can fix for you. That depression is a mental health illness that requires treatment from trained professionals. Giver her the analogy to think of it as if you had diabetes – that she can be there for you with support and love, but that you need to see a trained professional to get the treatment you need for your diabetes. If you were having initial difficulties getting your diabetes under control, it wouldn’t be her fault and it wouldn’t say anything negative about her at all. It would just mean that you need to keep working with your doctors until you find the right course of treatment for you. It is essentially the same with depression – and it may help your friend to give her this analogy so she can think of things differently.

Involving Your Parents in Treatment

As for you and your parents, if you have not done so already, FX thinks that it is very important for you therapist to meet with you and your parents to discuss the following:

Education about depression – causes, symptoms, and the various treatment methods used with depression
Ways in which your parents can be supportive and helpful to you as you deal with your depression. Yelling at you when you cry and telling you not to “stop being depressed” is obviously not helpful to you. So therapy could help your parents understand what they do that is and isn’t helpful to you.
Relationship issues between you and your parents that may be contributing to your depressed mood. There are lots of factors that contribute to depression, such as genetics and environment, and it is possible that you have not experienced relationships with your parents that have felt strong enough and nurturing enough for you. It may be very important as part of your treatment for you to be in family therapy where relationship issues between you and your parents can be addressed.

When Treatment Isn’t Working

If you have been meeting with a therapist and you find that you are not noticing any positive changes as a result of being in treatment, then it is time to re-think the current treatment plan. Let your therapist know as soon as possible that you do not feel the therapy is helping you. It is important that the two of you talk about this and think of how the treatment needs to be altered so you can feel better. You and your therapist might consider the following:

As stated above, it may be necessary for your parents to be involved in the therapy so that they can be better educated about depression and so that any relationship issues between you can be addressed.
It may be helpful for you to meet with a psychiatrist trained in working with adolescents so that he/she can evaluate whether or not you would benefit from an anti-depressant. When people are depressed, there can be an insufficient amount of certain chemicals in the brain or problems in various chemical reactions in the brain – and anti-depressants are used to address these biochemical concerns. If you take the diabetes analogy we gave above, a person with diabetes may need to take insulin. It does not mean the person is weak because they can’t do it on their own, or isn’t strong because they can’t just snap out of it and get better – it means that something is going on inside the body that requires a medication intervention. And it is essentially the same with depression and anti-depressants.
There are different types of therapy – such as cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic – and you may benefit from being in a different type of therapy than you are currently. Again, this is something to discuss with your therapist.

Additional things that can help with the treatment of depression

If you do not already, FX strongly suggests that you engage in some kind of exercise on a regular basis. Exercising can greatly reduce stress and can significantly boost the mood – so people with depression often find that they greatly benefit from regular workouts. Since your friend is anxious to be helpful to you, this may be one way in which she can help you. She can be your partner in exercising regularly so you have someone to motivate you and to make the workouts more fun.
Some people with depression find that their moods are influenced by what they eat. Some with depression overeat, turning to sweets or fatty foods to temporarily feel better. And some find that they feel worse after eating unhealthy foods – whether they are “crashing” from too many sugars or carbs, or feeling badly about themselves because they are not physically feeling healthy. So an important goal for people with depression in helping the mind and body may be making a commitment to eat more fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains, and to significantly reduce the intake of sweets.

Signed: TeenHealthFX