Personal Insights on Building Teen Resilience
Escalating pressures from varsity sports, Advanced Placement courses and the trauma of losing two teammates to suicide early in high school led a now 21 year old to be unable to communicate with his family and friends. Because “athletes don’t show pain,” he could not “show or comprehend what I felt. I put walls up and isolated myself. I didn’t know how to work through it or where to turn.”
Despite having nightly technology free family dinners and parents who regularly asked if he was okay and/or wanted to talk to a professional, the then high school Junior hid his feelings. Eventually, his parents received a text from his girlfriend’s mother, which prompted immediate action. The resulting conversation “may have saved my life” as he reluctantly began seeing a therapist. “I had developed unhealthy coping mechanisms and was thinking about suicide as a stress reliever.”
“Once I was diagnosed with depression, my situation had a name and I had to devise a plan of action.” It was “not a quick, one-time fix though and I should have sought help sooner.” For him, therapy is an outlet where “you can vent to an objective person that will help you come up with solutions. Sometimes your parents are too emotionally involved and, due to the generational gap, it can be hard for them to understand the challenges you are facing. Also, my therapist has always been good about calling me on my ‘BS’, which I need.”
His advice for parents is to “Be there for your child. Listen to and spend time and do things with him or her. If he or she is going through something tough, embrace the discomfort and work through it together. It is the only way to heal.” He believes that thanks to cell phones, there has been a social disconnect where it is much easier for teens and young adults to say things through a screen rather than in person. “Persist if your children say they are not upset and gently make them attend therapy [if warranted] even if they say they do not need to.” He cautioned everyone to “remember that it can take a while to feel comfortable with your therapist. If after three or four sessions you do not experience a connection, however, maybe you should consider seeing someone else.”
Despite 18 months of therapy before he left for college, his depression persisted and he began to self-medicate. A 9 month-long intensive outpatient program (IOP) followed. He and his parents struggled to balance his growing independence with the need for continuing care. However, the IOP ultimately allowed him to learn skills to help himself as well as his peers. As he noted, those latter connections can “get you out of yourself.”
Four years later, he is still seeing his therapist, in recovery and two semesters away from graduating from college. He believes his continuing return to health happened because “I finally got past the stigma. For over a year I was too scared to talk about what I was feeling and thought I just needed to ‘suck it up.’ There are perks to seeking and receiving treatment, however. Today my family and I are more resilient and have much more empathy for others. Remember it is not just you in a one man or woman battle. Millions of other people have mental health conditions and face the same daily struggle, including celebrities” that range from Kristen Bell to Lady Gaga and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. #BeWell #BeHeard #BeThere #TheRealityofDepressionIs