Depression: Teens

Hi this is Bernie Dick and I'm Lori Miller. Welcome to the Salvation Army's wonderful words of life. Welcome back, everybody it's officially the last week of September and welcome back to Lori you think you are you having fun I'm having a good time this week will be discussing depression among teens and will also be joined by another counselor who works alongside the Salvation Army Marcy Camarillo. Lori had the chance to sit down with her and discuss this very topic, and offer some powerful advice to parents.

Hey guys, we are here today and continuing on with our mental health series and we're talking to Marcy Camarillo who I'm enjoying getting to know you know welcome thank you to be here, take a minute to get to know who you are, where you're from and what your background is in NASA. Can you share with us a little bit sir.

I live in Northwest Arkansas.

I have spent time in full-time ministry has been I were Salvation Army officers for 14 years and it definitely benefits what I do today. You definitely say say what you do today yeah that's perfect, it has tell us what you did today, and so on them.

Mental health counselor on my also a place therapist and I am licensed to supervise the new counselors and those in training for play therapy so I do numerous trainings steer busy it's busy.

I am glad to hear all about because you come to us right at the perfect time because I don't remember really enjoying this series on mental health. Any think it's really really important and it's so nice to get a perspective from a professional who's been connected in some way to the church as well. Tell him I know that today we really kind of wanted to start a really dig into the mental health of adolescents and teenagers. I'm wondering, I know it's difficult sometimes to gauge what is normal hormonal sure adolescents yes versus actual depression. So when I interviewed parents.

I'm trying to get a baseline of what the last normal was and then discuss the changes that have occurred so with depression and forcing symptoms that have lasted more than a few weeks than were starting to consider okay this may be something related to their mental health and not to their attitude so that's part of the difference having an attitude that parents don't like me or teachers don't like that that's not necessarily depression that could be that they are learning about themselves in learning about the world. If children or adolescents display symptoms that are little bit more troubling their conversations change they withdraw, they may appear to pull back from interests that they had before eating may change sleeping may change that when we are adults need to be concerned about that checking on them. I'm curious about the connection between parental mental health and mental health.

Children and adolescents is their connection dear so II would say that parent mental health sets the stage for the child's good mental health so good strong mental health now it is on a continuing shift on a continuum because we all have had season rises and falls in our mental health. Just like anything else I if we can have conversations at home or in the church with their own children about yes this is life.

Okay, it's normal to experience deep sadness. It is life because you look at Scripture at the conversation has to be there. It needs to be there. You have good normal honest deep conversations with one another. I think maybe when we do that is adults as leaders in particular and remodeling for adolescents that it's okay to be broken into God works through brokenness networks through broken people. It's also over Scripture absolutely reminded of the Old Testament Scripture that says morning last the night, but joy comes in the morning answering people struggle and it's absolutely okay to do so. That's right. That's where God meets us totally Agree and I think also the redemption of your pain in your stories by sharing needs connection with other people you know to remove that stigma's secrets and keep a stock attorney and sick and so being able to incorporate one's experience into a narrative into a story. There is nothing that we have experienced last the Lord cannot touch and be present in I so often feel the spirit of God in the counseling room you know it feels like a holy place. Many times you and I know that I sit in the sacred chair as I listen to the stories of others. We are people of transformation and we can be transformed into who God wants us to be in the here and now. It's not perfect but healed, or in the process of healing.

We are over cumbers we can do that in. Also, it just keep thinking to myself that conversation builds connection connection builds community. Yes, and so I love that idea and I've enjoyed my conversation with thank you so much. It is also much if you want to hear. An extended version of my conversation with Marcy today. You can go to Salvation Army simulcast.org this week really talk about mental health, particularly among teens and talk to us. Why is this a passion of yours. For instance, and defined we were talking the last segment we created a group within our church that focuses on teen girl specifically and I think the it burst out of just the societal pressures of having to be at 13 of a particular size, weight, height socio-acceptability and we created the group in terms to help try to eradicate some of those things. We started to notice more and more of them speaking about depressive episodes. Feeling lonely, even though I'm standing in a group of my family and my friend wanting to isolate themselves and so even though it started out as a way to build confidence in girls it really morphed into a discussion about mental health and where. How do we know the difference again between sadness and episodes of depression, how not to isolate yourself and how to identify day. I am not alone.

Going in this things and so we talk about depression. Amen. Teens were really looking at the age between 12 and 18 in today's society. We've got boys and girls, teenagers in my brain are always faced with the image crisis having to look good. Keep up with the Joneses is that is that the real thing. There is a perception of my know is is actually a real thing. 30% of all teens will experience some episode of depression as they matriculate through school. Even now, the American pediatric Association has started to give children age 10 and up or 12 and up they started to give a depression inventory when they come in for their annual physicals and so is something that we seen a need for particular because, as you just noted, they are the pressure to maintain depression to identify what a particular group or not.

Identify a particular group with in the school system and outside of the school system is just putting so much more pressure on our children.

They have much more things to deal with than perhaps you an idea what we do school. We have Boolean. We have sexuality concerns around sexuality. We have not being popular. We also have groups down to wash her dress code like do you have the latest iPhone or are you still of the android system so all of those things are really creeping up on our children and it's causing them to have these thoughts and conversations amongst themselves and are not reaching externally outside of themselves to even just do a litmus test to see if their thoughts are real with that.

So we seen a steady increase in depression with children and sometimes as I talked about those particular symptoms that we should be looking for while we are see them more readily in adults and teens there little bit more subtle and are subtle because for sometimes us as parents we thank all you know as teenagers we went through various things and we're just thinking now is their time, but we ran at when a different society. And so we should really kind of pull back from that knowledge. What I thought base if that's what you have, that my child is just going through. You know the normal existence and experiences of a regular teenager because today those existence. We have children who are cutting themselves to relieve pressure who are seriously thinking about harming themselves. They might not have a plan, but the thoughts of suicide, idea, and we've seen people who make Paxil particular things and so we really don't want to just leave kids to their own, and I hate to say demise, but that's really dig a directory that it's kind of goals sure is that if we leave them to their own thinking we really need to, come back as a family and really see what is it what are they thinking, because as I said 30% of all teens are affected by depression and so it might not be your tablet.

It might be your child's friends and sometime friends have more more influence on who they are who they are becoming damn parents to one of the things that all the other said earlier episode of the show was they put their devices down in their household at 7 o'clock this make sure that things like homework or getting the interaction and being present. I think that's got to be so important, particularly in the teens life.

Having someone who's present in their life, so that they can reprocess those thoughts of the pad which by the way art can be perfectly natural to you have an imagination that God gave us you can think about those things.

The difference is how we act on those things that I think that's where we really get to a stable mental health sort of place sometimes just talking about you know getting it in the open them. If you're not present. If you don't have some of the talk to that could lead to bigger problems all the glad you're here aware glad that you're here because you're helping us learn more about something that's so important in our society today. Mental health and so we hope that if you haven't seen the other episodes or listen to them on our podcast on this particular show that you go back and check them out can join us in the weeks to come. Salvation Army's mission doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army visit Salvation Army USA.org to offer your support. We would love to hear from you.

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