San Francisco [US], December 16 (ANI): A 16-year-old Indian-American teenager reportedly died by suicide after allegedly jumping off the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. According to various media reports on Thursday, the parents and US Coastal Guard authorities stated that the teen’s bicycle, bag and phone were found at the bridge. And the guard also said that the incident happened around 4:58 pm.
The Coastal Guard team began a rescue operation after they saw “a human” jumping from the bridge. The operation reportedly stretched over two hours. The recent suicide case raised eyebrows about the common cases of depression. According to psychiatrists, depression in children and adolescents is harder to detect than in adults and is often seen as anxiety, disruptive behaviour and personality disorders in younger people.
The symptoms of depression in adolescents, say experts, can differ from the adult population with adolescents tending to have more frequently somatic symptoms, anxiety, disruptive behaviour and personality disorders “Children don’t present with anhedonia and sadness. They look completely normal. But they have strong suicidal ideation,” says Dr Arati Rao, an oncologist in San Francisco.
A New York Times report from earlier this year details how American teenagers feel anxious, depressed and even suicidal.
Stating that American adolescence is undergoing a drastic change, the NYT article points out that while three decades ago, the gravest public health threats to teenagers in the United States came from binge drinking, drunken driving, teenage pregnancy and smoking, the new public health concern is that of soaring rates of mental health disorders.
In 2019, 13 per cent of adolescents reported having a major depressive episode, a 60 per cent increase from 2007. Emergency room visits by children and adolescents in that period also rose sharply for anxiety, mood disorders and self-harm. And for people, ages 10 to 24, suicide rates, stable from 2000 to 2007, leapt nearly 60 per cent by 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A total of 25 people ended their lives here last year and almost 2,000 suicide cases have been reported since the bridge opened in 1937, said Bridge Rail Foundation, a non-profit organisation that works to end suicides on the Golden Gate Bridge. According to Middle East Current Psychiatry, “Depression in adolescence is a relevant condition to the medical community, due to its uncertain clinical course and underdiagnosis worldwide. General practitioners can provide early identification, treatment initiation and referral to mental health specialists when necessary.”
There are five signs of depression in teens that can’t be ignored -Unusual sleep habits, mood swings, changes in appetite, lack of interest in activities they enjoy and low self-esteem. Some tips that are helpful in coping with depression are to find a therapist that can talk to, give them support whenever they need it, maintain good health and give them a nutritious diet, to let them express their thoughts with the help of a journal, maintain an exercise routine and daily routine for overall fitness, mood and to give them a hope to move forward. Nowadays, many effective resources are available to help teenagers cope with depression. (ANI)
