In recent years, there has been a rise of teens suffering from depression. More teenagers are having suicidal thoughts and planning out how they are going to leave this world. There are various factors as to why this is happening. One cause could be that stress from school can become overwhelming. Teens are also killing themselves or depressed because they get bullied; people are making them feel worse about themselves which creates a permanent dark cloud over them.

Miami Herald released the results of their annual surgery they have children take at their own will and the results show that about 25% of teens in both Miami-Dade and Broward reported having “sad or hopeless” feelings that lasted a while. Also 11-12% of the students have thought about suicide and have made a plan as to how they would kill themselves.

School can be one of the factors why students are going through these depressive episodes. Teachers and the school environment stress the students so much to the point where is becomes too much to handle. Students are constantly thinking about their grades and being competitive with their peers. There is more pressure on students now because the big colleges want the best of the best; the students will want to stand out than the others. Some of them think that they will never be good enough when they see that others are doing better so they keep that mindset which in turn makes them sad. If they continue to think like that, those feelings will not go away.

Classmates are also a a huge factor as to why students go through depression. Bullying can rip someone to shreds. The hurtful words and shunning and peer pressure can push somebody to think hopeless thoughts. Kids can be very mean; they spout hurtful words to their so-called friends making them feel horrible about themselves without thinking about how that person is feeling.

Alyssa Gutierrez, a junior at Everglades High School, has been diagnosed with chronic depression. When asked how she would describe her thoughts during one of her major depressive episodes she said, “It’s on and off; there are days that I just feel really sad and tired. When I’m in one of those moods, I just want so sleep and be alone. Even when I’m spending time with my good friends, I don’t want to be there; I just want to go home. I can’t even do the things I love because I’m just not in the mood.”

“It all started around the 7th grade when I broke up with my boyfriend and the people I thought were my friends judged me for so long; all the way up to sophomore year. They made me think that if other people were degrading me, I should degrade myself as well. People that I hung out with made me feel bad about my self,” Alyssa said about when her depression began.

Alyssa has changed the group of people who she hangs out with and states, “I do like who I am and I don’t want people to tell me otherwise.”

Adults don’t think that teens are able to go through depression so they brush it away and tell them to “Get over it” and that “It’s a phase.” This will only hurt the teenager because they are not getting help regarding their mental disorder. Parents need to get aware that when their child tells them that they are possibly going through depression that they need to get them help. This is a serious problem in teenagers; the rates of teens going through depression should be lowered because no teenager should be going through these feelings.