1 in 5 young people suffer from depression in NI and what’s worse is that many more are suffering in silence.
This was one of the terrible facts that Judy Colhoun from Aware Defeat Depression presented to Headliners volunteers. Some depressed young people are not coming forward for support, nor are they talking to anyone about their illness.
And when we talked to young people about depression it was obvious that the majority still don’t consider it to be a real or ‘normal’ illness among young people.
When asked, ‘What does the word depression mean to you?’ the majority of young people said ‘sadness.’ One person said ‘suicide’ while Saorla (14) said: ‘slitting wrists and all.’
Most young people do not realise the relevance of the illness or how many young people are actually suffering. Richie (16) was the only young person interviewed who had experienced depression. He said: “I suffered from depression really really bad a couple of years ago. It was just a really bad time in my life. It’s a time in my life I want to forget about now.”
The fact that Richie took a huge step by saying he was depressed is good but his reluctance to talk about it is very sad. Did he suffer in silence? For how long? Did he get support? These will remain unanswered questions as Richie doesn’t want to talk about it. Young people are more likely to see mental illness as something to mock, with friends jokingly calling each other ‘nutters’ and ‘loopers’. These labels add to the embarrassment and stop young people from coming forward for help.
Everyone interviewed said that if their friend was depressed they would want to help them but to help them the friend would need to be brave enough to tell them in the first place. All the young people spoken to knew of many reasons why people become depressed. Malla Campbell (14) and Neave (13) listed; ‘Something to do with the family, schoolwork or relationships,” as reasons for depression. Emma McSorley (14) thought that ‘not fitting in with your friends,’ would be a factor that would go towards becoming depressed. Shauna (14) was the only one who couldn’t think of any reasons to be depressed. Kyle (14) said that if his friend was depressed he would feel ‘disappointed and would want to help.’
Having spoken to Director of Quality and Development, Judy Colhoun at Aware Defeat Depression the sad reality could be that Kyle’s friend would not be brave enough to speak to him about his depression or he may not even know himself that he was depressed.
Organisations like Aware Defeat Depression are doing great work in schools but they realise there is a long way to go before the silent sufferers come forward for help. They know that as awareness increases, the official number of young people with depression in Northern Ireland will rise as more young people will come forward for support. Shannon (13) and Saorla (14) couldn’t believe their ears when they heard that 1 in 5 young people suffer from depression. Shannon was ‘sad and shocked’ while Saorla said: “I think it’s terrible. I think no one should be suffering from depression.”
Whilst in an ideal world no one would suffer from depression, the reality is that more than 1 in 5 are. The only ideal we can strive for is that everyone who is depressed gets help and breaks their silence.
About this article
This article was written by Jessie Browne (14) and Caitlin O'Hagan (13)
