how do adolescents define depression? - cIRcle - University of ...

CHAPTER V: DISCUSSION
Depression: A Voice of an Adolescent in Grade 8
Chapter V: Discussion
Depression. Such a simple word, yet it means so much...It's something small, but on the
other hand --- big and powerful.
It's when you're alone, and your whole world stops. Sometimes, it's good. You can look
at your past and see your mistakes. But most of the time you can't. You try to correct and leave
your problems behind. But they will follow you, like winter shadows. Every step you take,
they'll be there. And you can't run away.
It's when you fall, and there's no one to catch you. When there's no one you can lean on.
When the only person you ever trusted, let you down. When your heart has been broken, stepped
on, and finally thrown out the window.
It's when you become a stranger, to your own reflection. When you just hope you were
prettier or slimmer. When, even the best things about you start fading away.
When you sit in the rain, without an umbrella, praying for sunshine.
It's when you try to talk to someone, but they don't listen, and you have to keep it all
inside. When you try to let it all out, but no one takes you seriously, because you've been such a
goof before. It's when you go home every night and you cry until you just can't cry anymore. It's
when you think "Just one more day, one more hour, one more moment...," and when the dark
corner has been your favorite place to stay.
It's when you are your only friend.
The adolescent who wrote this poem slipped the neatly folded sheet that this poem was
written on into my hand, after survey completion on the way out of the classroom. One of the
aims of this study was to understand depression in adolescents from adolescents' own voices.
This poem represents one of the voices.
This study examined four research objectives to better communicate with young people,
and to enable early detection and intervention of depression in adolescents. In order to extend the
literature on adolescent depression, the first objective was to develop categories and
subcategories of adolescent depression generated from the adolescents' own conceptions of
depression. The aim of this objective was to clarify the adult criteria presently used to diagnose
depression in adolescents from adolescents' own voices.
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