The race to hell

KOCHI: Regular cases of teenage suicides, as reported every other day by newspapers, takes us to a much under-discussed topic of teen depression. The general idea is that youth is a happy time, where all is at your feet. It’s a time when you are healthy, beautiful and ready to take on the world. What then could possibly drive youngsters to a state, which prompts them to end their life?Along with cases of suicides, adolescent crime is also on the rise and social activists and psychologists point that these may just be symptoms of a larger problem of depression now on the rise in the state.Contrary to logic, some of the inherent positives of the state - ie having a high literacy rate, highly qualified population  could be partially responsible for the rise in the numbers of those going through depression, experts say.“There are two kinds of depression among adolescents, stress induced depression and bio-chemically induced depression. The latter is biological and remains constant across geographical and cultural backgrounds. But the former, stress induced depression is what is seen to be on a rise in Kerala. This deals with the depression induced due to various psychological and social pressures faced by children as they mature into adulthood. In Kerala owing to the high literacy rate and relative advancement, students face an increasing pressure to perform. If their family too isn’t supportive, it can easily lead to depression,” says psychiatrist at the Medical Trust Hospital, C J John.Maithri, an organisation working in the area of adolescent suicides in the State since 1998, too agree that academic pressure is directly linked to depression. “Ever since 1998 when we started, we have kept Helplines for children during their SSLC examinations. Adolescent suicide rates have always been higher at the time of the results. But the numbers had earlier gone down when the grading system was introduced in SSLC. But in the plus 2 the numbers have seen an a dramatic rise. The suicide rates preciously went up after the exam results, now they are going up right at the time of the examinations. It’s highest at the time of the engineering and medical examinations..”, says the Director of Maithri, Advocate Rajesh Pillai.Depression frequently can lead to suicide among youngsters, but the other fall-out is adolescent crime.“Adolescents may not display depression like adults, by being lonely or sad. They can be irritable and angry, take to drugs, go in for destructive activities, take to highly risky behaviors, suddenly ignore their studies etc, all these can be symptoms of depression. Studies have shown that a number of cases where single teenagers riding vehicles rashly and meeting with accidents is linked to depression. But parents often do not recognise these symptoms as depression,” says C J John.