A Word or Two on Addressing Depression
There are some topics and conversations that (whenever I engage in them) always leave me feeling like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. I know everything that’s going to be said, I can foreshadow every turn and argument that’s going to be made in the course of the conversation, and (unfortunately) I can predict how the persons I’m speaking with are going to misunderstand every point I’m trying to make. The topic I’m talking about is the issue of self-esteem and depression, and I’m learning that trying to have a genuine conversation (not just a feel-good pep talk, or a melancholy cry-fest) about such things usually goes nowhere.
The topic of depression lies fairly high on an educator’s list of concerns (okay, maybe I need to say that it ought to be a high concern), as we are expected to at least try and foresee if a student is having problems that warrant professional help (after all, throughout their week, kids spend more time in school than any other single place, hence we teachers are purview to more of their daily state of mind–and shifts thereof–than any old casual acquaintance). My problem is that the methods school administrators are looking to provide us with to address these issues don’t sound all that efficient in dealing with the underlying concerns of the topic.
As of late, bullying has been trending pretty high on everyone’s radar; not least of all school faculty and staff. Thus, as is to be expected, this morning’s faculty meeting dwelt into the topic of bullying and depression, and our roles in what to do (and what not to do) to make the school campus a safe place for all its “inhabitants” [My term, not the schools. I just like how it accentuates the caged atmosphere of high school for all parties involved 
]. From what I gathered at the meeting, the way we’re apparently going to create this safe space is by giving out surveys to the students, asking them to list and rank various aspects and concerns that they have. Then, going by the responses, we will–in some unspecified way–determine which students appear to be at a higher risk for depression. At first glance, this sounds like a decent proposal; yet, on further reflection, the whole thing sounds overly simplistic. I get that it’s better than doing nothing, but wouldn’t it be better to simply set-up within the school network the proper health services for the students to–confidentially–turn to if they need help or advice on anything in their lives (I know some schools already have this, but many still don’t). Because there are a lot things about a generic survey that leave the door open for unnecessary misunderstandings and dilemmas.
For one thing, the whole process is so impersonal that I don’t see why anyone would be willing to truly open up to a blank piece of paper like they would to a person seating in front of them (remember, a lot of people who have spent a long time living with their depression are often rather good at knowing what responses will keep others from probing too deeply into what are obviously too sensitive matters for them to discuss freely). My second issue is that some of the survey questions are too misleading to give a good enough reading of the student’s state of mind. For example, one of the questions asks the survey-taker to rank her/his appearance as Below Average, Average, or Above Average; the first answer is listed as indicating depression, and the last answer as a healthy level of self-esteem, however, the middle answer (the “Average” response) is listed as indicating a reasonable risk of early depression. Huh? Recognizing that you’re average looking means you have low self-esteem, and that you’re at risk of depression? I’m average looking. I am not depressed. Most people are average looking, and they are not depressed. The notion that time and energy is to be allocated on the basis of a far-off, pop-psychology hunch (thereby diverting an already limited resources of time and energy away from individuals who actually need the attention) just seems like an inefficient and asinine way to go about seriously dealing with this issue. Again, I’m personally convinced that a better route would be to invest in developing the necessary health services within the school network–make it part of the educational system–and treat each student in response to the problems and concerns they bring forward, instead of trying to guess and match who has what problem through the wisdom of a self-diagnosed pop quiz.
These are the exact points are raised at the faculty meeting. Apparently, I didn’t do such a good job explaining myself, because the feedback I got was a bunch of non sequiturs about how “teachers need to go the extra mile.” Yeah, I agree. Now tell me something I don’t know. In fact, I’m the one calling for a cure to be manufactured for the ailment, while you’re sitting around hoping that placing a band-aid on the skin will stop the internal bleeding. Detecting a problem is pointless, if there is no framework set-up to efficiently resolve it thereafter. What part of this is hard to understand?
It’s interesting how little or none at all has been done to address the issue of teen depression in the 21st century in our school system. I’m going to start with what you mentioned above about bullying.
Bullying started to be on the radar only when the number of kids committing suicide because of being bullied started to rise month after month. There were many campaigns with the most famous “It Gets Better” which even the President took part of, trying to give hope to those feeling they were at the end of their tether, but does it really get better? If those responsible for making schools and playgrounds a safe place for all kids are doing (as you mentioned) these little iddy bitsy test compartmentalized into “below average”, “average” and “above average” what are most kids suppose to write about? If you think how a kid sees his/her looks and therefore his/her personal dilemma is the key to effectively answer their depression or even worse suicidal problem, than you’re gonna have more dead kids on your hands than you care to handle. This is exactly the attitude towards issues such as depression and suicide that were the epitome of the 90s. We treated depression as something only crazy people suffered from, it was never talked about within families and friends and so on, and it was always the person’s suffering from these and more diagnoses who had to live in a “vow of silence” state just like some hermit.
Today we have TV shows, the media does its part by using each story to sell more as if they truly cared about the kid who jumped of a bridge after being videotaped having sex and than spread on the internet, books about self-help and how parents can help their kids, and of course we have the teachers who no as much about psychology as my pet did when he was 9 months old. One thing I’ve learned from all my years in school is that teachers as much as they want to help are unqualified or unwilling to dwell too deep into a kid’s life in order to understand his/her behavior and thus prevent a future front page cover story. I’m not blaming them for being inadequate, what my blame goes to is those who take it upon themselves to do something without a clear agenda on how to go about it, and when a problem is finally spotted how to handle it in the most accurate and professional way possible. There’s one more issue in how depression, suicide and bullying is handled by the school system which seems to be completely oblivious to fact most of these issues start at home. Yes ladies and gentlemen it does start at home. No kid wakes up one morning and goes; I’m gonna kick the shit out of some kid today. And no kid wakes up one morning and goes; today is the first day of my death. Teachers though seem not to want to know what mom and dad have been doing to make your life miserable to the point where your teen age brain sees no other escape but ending your life or going in with AK47 and taking out as many of your fellow students as you can just to finally say; I’VE HAD IT WITH ALL OF YOU BITCHES!!!
Yes, it’s true that doing something is better than not doing anything at all, but the way you are doing things must have the least common sense possible in order for it to work. It doesn’t take a professional psychiatrist or psychotherapist to understand where the issues lie, all it takes is an open mind and common motherfucking sense, which seems to be lacking from all sides.
“One thing I’ve learned from all my years in school is that teachers as much as they want to help are unqualified or unwilling to dwell too deep into a kid’s life in order to understand his/her behavior and thus prevent a future front page cover story.”
This is one of the main reasons why I think the educational system needs to implement the proper resources and infrastructure to deal with depression, if they are going to deal with it at all. Depression (whether clinical or otherwise) is first and foremost a health issue. Therefore, I don’t see how getting a group of people, who have no training and no education in the health field, to skim through some multiple-choice responses is in any way productive when it comes to addressing the problem here.
“We treated depression as something only crazy people suffered from, it was never talked about within families and friends and so on, and it was always the person’s suffering from these and more diagnoses who had to live in a “vow of silence” state just like some hermit.”
With the high increase in depression cases over the last few decades, I would imagine that we will need to start straying away from this superficial approach of the subject-matter. All the more reason why I believe that working to set-up a functioning framework now (partly so we can get any trial and error variables addressed and resolved as soon as possible), ought to be a serious consideration for not just educators, but society as a whole.
“Today we have TV shows, the media does its part by using each story to sell more as if they truly cared about the kid who jumped of a bridge after being videotaped having sex and than spread on the internet, books about self-help and how parents can help their kids”
It’s sensationalism, pure and simple. It’s also one reason why, when I write posts like this, I do my best to not mention specific news stories directly by name. I’m sure it would be great for page views, but I really see no substantive reason why I would need to name-drop real life individuals to “beef-up” the points being made. You’ll either know what relatable news bits I’m referring to (in which case there is no need for me to point it out) or you don’t (in which case pointing them out adds nothing to your ability to comprehend the main crux of my post). If an issue is truly endemic to a greater problem, there is no need to exploit and sensationalize the grief and misfortune of others (by parading their image and personal grievances around ad nauseum) in order to address it on a serious level.
As a person who has suffered most of his life with depression and depression related syndromes, I feel very strongly about these issues and through my life experiences I can bring countless stories of trial and error starting with the so called Trained-practitioners. One thing I’ve learned in my 10 years of going from therapist to therapist, from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, from case worker to case worker and being evaluated 4 times from scratch is first you have become your own medical practitioner, and second you must and I underline the word MUST read between the lines on what’s being said during a session with your doc. Research on line every term that you’re being labeled and thus “cured” for and research every medication you’re being prescribed by your doc, because once you sign that 8×10 paper before starting your new treatment and something goes wrong, there’s not much you can do about it besides ending up in the ER. Knowledge is indeed power, and the power must lay in the hands of those seeking help in order not to take every word being told for granted and walk blindly towards the latest FDA approved medication to later find out it does worse to you.
Sound advice. I would label the unfortunately too common method of just trying to “dope” people into a comatose state of bliss as part of the superficial (and harmful) approach that makes no concern to consider or comprehend any of the underlying reasons for an individual’s depression.
Indeed
Reblogged this on Infernal Deity of a Psychotic Mind.