How Do I Tell If My Teenager is Depressed?

Do you think that there is a chance your teen may be depressed? Do you need help deciding if he or she is depressed? In this article, I will list some of the signs you can look for to tell if your teen is depressed. Most teens that are depressed will show some of the signs in this article. After reading this article, if you feel that your teen is depressed, you should immediately get help. A depressed teen is nothing to mess around with. If they get too depressed, they will often hurt themselves or someone else. These signs that I am listing in this article are from personal experience I have had with my teen. So, I have been there and I know the signs.

Feeling Symptoms

The first we will take a look at is the feeling symptoms. These are signs of how your teenager is feeling. If you have noticed that your teenager always looks sad, never smiles or laughs and cries a lot. Then this is a big sign of depression. They may also back away from doing things that they normally do like play sports or hang out with their friends.

Written or Drawing Symptoms

Another thing to monitor is what the teenager is writing or drawing. If you find drawings of death, suicide, or anything like that, that is a sign. Another thing you might want to watch is their cell phone and Facebook, assuming your teen has these two and most teens do. If you find negative post on Facebook by your teen like, "No one loves me", "I'd be better off dead", "Life ain't worth this" and so on, you should take this as a sign. You should also check the text messages, these sometimes will throw up a flag as well.

Sick Symptoms

These symptoms will be things like headaches, stomach pains, throwing up, losing weight, gaining weight and so on. If you are seeing these along with some of the signs above, then you may have a real problem. Most of the time when teens get depressed they will either start gaining weight fast or dropping it fast. If they are dropping it fast, they may not be eating or they may be making their self throw up.

If you are seeing one or two of these symptoms in your teenager, then you need to watch them closely. If you are seeing more than that, you really need to get your child some help before it is too late. I have been through this and it is a hard situation, but in the end, the both of you will be better. If you leave it untreated, the teen could go as far as harming their self or someone else and you surely don't want that. If you see these signs in your teen, get help. I can't stress that enough.

Sources: Personal experience