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My friend is going through depression.
Hi, I am from Australia and my 14 year old friend has recently told me that she's going through depression. She is self-diagnosed. I don't think it's serious, but she told me she just feels sad. I kind of feel bad because I kind of took it like it was nothing. I did show sympathy and asked if it is something particular that's making her feel depressed or if she just feels sad. She told me she just feels sad. It's been a few months since she's told me and I want to try to help and see how she's going, I just don't know what to say.
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Your friend needs to understand that a big part of girls feeling more sad or more angry or irritated when they used to be is often related to when her hormones of puberty began to be produced. In time, by late teens, the effects of this should go away as the hormones level out on their own. Make sure she lets you know if her sadness and being weepy or prone to crying for no good reason, actually becomes a feeling of wanting to self harm like cutting or feeling depressed or feeling suicidal as these things are the extremes that can come with ones hormone changes and means the hormones are dangerously out of balance and need a Dr. to check for, diagnose and treat with medication which is usually only needed during the teen years until ones one hormones level out later. So if this is the case, and you believe her to be not merely sad but depressed, then her mom needs to know so she can take her to a Dr. to have her hormone levels checked. She may not want to tell her mom. I know my oldest never told me and I wish as her mom that she had so I could get her help. I feel robbed of that opportunity to do so. Her mom would too. And while she could get angry at you for telling her mom, her anger for a period of time is the easier thing to live with compared to the guilt you would feel if she got to the point of commiting suicide and knowing you could have preventing your and her familys heartache by saying someething. If you think it helps, show my answer to her mom. She needs to know to take serious the fact that it is becoming a serious problem these days when young girls bodies begin to release hormones that they end up with an overload, not because their bodies produce too much but all humans pick up and absorb from their environment plenty of synthetic female hormones from the pollution and toxins on our planet. It is a problem of the times that didn't exist so much when your friends mom or grandma was the same age as our environment was cleaner at that time. Thats why often moms don't tend to think anything is wrong until a daughter cuts too deep or commits suicide and thats too late. I know its hard to say something. but try your friend first, sharing what I've told you and if she won't talk to her mom, then you need to as it may save her life if shes truly depressed.
If its discovered her hormone levels are okay, then she will need some therapy to deal with her negative depressing thoughts. Either her parents will get her into therapy or if for some reason they don'tt, she can get some self help by reading a book on depression and how to change the cycle of negative thinking. If thats the case and she's willing to read such a book, let me know and I'll give you the info and a website of the person who writes these books.
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