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The death of one of the brightest, most handsome and successful young rising film stars of our generation, Sushant Singh Rajput has left us all stunned. None of us can comprehend how could such wonderful and happy – go – lucky personality choose to end his life over a matter that we all dismiss as trivial. But the twist lies in the fact that if we think depression is something that should be all hush-hush in our society because it is a sign of weakness, it is a sure shot case of staying on life long medications, suffering from madness or ending life – which is what happened in this scenario.

In my opinion, depression is not something that one can escape by refusing to face the truth that one suffers from a low in life. It is the need of the hour to educate our youth about this.

Clinical depression- two small words that have together become a household term and combined have become a disease that is eclipsing the modern generation. We have seen a sudden spike in the number of deaths linked to depression in the last decade. We have forgotten how to be thankful and grateful for small things in life as a result of which we have forgotten that life is meant to be worked through and enjoyed. What surprises me the most is that even school children have learnt this term and they either end their lives for some absolutely trivial matter or they give suicide threats that they link to their depression.

Let us understand this one concept clearly- no school-going child has faced the true struggle of life no matter what they claim.  I am writing this article to shed some light on ‘depression in teenagers and adolescents’

The first thing to keep in mind is that even though we teenagers are at a pre-adult stage of our lives, we are not yet mature enough to comprehend the difference between ‘depression’ and ‘feeling upset’. This is often because we think that the quantum leap that we take from being children to adolescents gives us the advantage of using words like ‘depression’, and blackmails of committing suicide even when we ourselves know that we fear death too much to even attempt it.

Let us take a simple example-               

When we are children we associate getting less marks than our peers to the emotional aspect of ‘feeling upset’. But if we mull over any such situation we see that this was an evanescent concept. As children, we lead carefree lives as a result of which our sadness too was fleeting. We found happiness in the smallest of things which never really gave us time and space to accommodate sadness or any relations of it. But then came the pre-teen and the teenage state. Best friend with more marks ……. the common dialogue (you guessed it!) I am depressed…….. Same scenario, completely different reactions.

What I wanted to highlight from this is that anyone with an open mind will understand that what teenagers call depression is a fancy term for saying that I am upset. This feeling can be easily dissipated by the simple act of talking to someone close to you. We are at a brink of life when we are neither adults nor children. No matter how it may be to open up we must understand that we must have someone to talk to. 

The second part to keep in mind is that we must reverse this common mentality of -‘if someone calls us beautiful, we believe them for a minute but if someone says that we are ugly we believe them for a lifetime’. We need to understand that even though nothing in life comes free of cost, nothing can be worth the cost of one’s life.

We are a generation that places the importance of a like on Instagram, a mark sheet, looks, and relationships much higher than the importance of life. For example, when we aim high we tell our parents and everyone around us about our aims and ambitions. But if we do not manage to reach that goal we get disappointed. This is a natural feeling that will be accompanied by a sense of failure. But one must learn how to move on past the points of life that may not be as defining as you wanted it to be.

But nowadays many aspirants who could not make the cut in the first try say – I attempted suicide. these people not only undermine the efforts that they have made but in a way, they are insulting the essence of life when they say that life is so cheap that it can be bargained at the cost of a result and marksheet.                   

Keeping a positive mindset and holding onto two ideas can help anyone overcome this phase. 

The first idea is that we must remember that if things do not happen your way , then a greater force has something better planned you. This does not mean that we quit making efforts and just sit twiddling our thumbs and let the greater force do all the work for us. We must work towards this.

Always keep in mind that hard work will always pay off either in the way you want it to or in a way you never imagined that it would. Remember that whatever we have life will definitely come of some use someday. The time, effort, and energy that you have ever invested to learn something will always pay off.                   

It is important that we as teenagers learn to shut the door on depression when it comes to knocking. If we do not, it will take on dangerous manifestations. I know that experience makes a person wiser but the are some aspects of life that are best left unexplored.

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