(Click here to listen to the radio piece)

Introduction: Until recently depression was thought to be an adulthood illness. Researchers now know that teenagers and even children can suffer from severe depression. In any given six-month period more than 6 percent of America's children and teens are struggling with some type of depressive illness. But many of them never talk about it, and are not getting the help they need. The most tragic result is suicide. It's the 3rd leading cause of death for young people between the ages of 15 and 24, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. In this report, Laurie Udesky profiles three young people who wanted to end their lives in their teens, but now are trying to reach other troubled adolescents and encourage them to seek help.

Laurie Udesky: In September 2000, John Kevin Hines, assured his worried father that he was going to be fine and would go to school. Instead, the 19-year-old headed to a high suspension bridge, spent twenty minutes sobbing uncontrollably, and then hurled himself over the rail:

John Kevin Hines: The second I hit free fall, I said what have I done. I don’t want to die….

Udesky: Hines was taken to the hospital with shattered vertebrae and quickly developed pneumonia. Doctors, he later learned, gave him a 50 percent chance of making it through the night. What stands freshest in his mind is the reaction of his younger brother:

Hines: My brother came into the room that day and said what the hell did you do that for, and he was really, really angry, my little brother. He looked up to me and I could have ruined his life if I died.

Udesky: Such remorse among teens who have tried to kill themselves is typical, says Dr. Samuel Judice, assistant director of the Outpatient Clinics for Children and Adolescents at the Langley Porter Psychiatric Institute at UC San Francisco.

Dr. Samuel Judice: The vast majority of the teenagers who I've spoken to who've attempted suicide…have told me that afterwards that they really regretted what they did…that they had felt in a great deal of pain, and that in time with therapy, they realized that there were…much better ways to deal with problems.

Udesky: Hines and his family knew he had problems. He’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder or manic depression at 17. It's an illness that can cause suicidal depressions and moods that swing from lethargy to a speedy, euphoric state with racing thoughts, rapid talking, little need for sleep and sometimes paranoia and hallucinations. In a teen or child, such changes in mood can occur swiftly in a single day. That was the case for Hines. But although he was diagnosed correctly, he wasn't on the right medication:

Hines: I was on 13 pills a day for the depression and the mania and it only seemed to make me worse…Everyday I'd wake up… be paranoid,. I would be hearing voices. I would hallucinate. I would be very, very high and happy at one point, and then very sad and depressed at another…it was just chaotic and unpleasant and unpleasant for my entire family.

Udesky: While Hines was in the hospital recovering and learning how to walk again, doctors were finally able to find the right combination of medications to stabilize his moods. But often the issue is recognizing what the problem is in the first place. A 23-year-old named Jenny was first diagnosed with major depression when she attempted to kill herself at the age of 18. She had been angry and miserable for years, but never really understood what was wrong until she learned that her illness had a name. That was in a therapy group:

Jenny: It just made me grateful, really helped me learn about myself…there were a lot of things I didn't know about myself…just about the depression and what to look for so that I know when I'm getting really depressed.

Udesky: Jenny says besides not understanding what was wrong, she really didn't know how to talk to anybody about what she was feeling:

Jenny: Now that I look back and can see that I was depressed in high school. Sometimes I'd get so wrapped up in it and thought nobody cared, wanted to hear me. When you play the victim role, you're not going to go to somebody, because you don't think anyone's going to care.

Udesky: Another reason teens may not want to talk is because of the stigma of being different. Twenty-five year old Ross Szabo has had bipolar disorder since he was 15. But it didn’t stop him from being a leader at his high school. He was president of his class in his senior year, an ace basketball player, and a volunteer at the Special Olympics. He had many friends, but none of them knew that he wanted to die, nor did his parents, until he told them and they checked him into a hospital. The experience he had in the hospital was profound, but says Szabo it didn't prepare him for his return to school:

Ross Szabo: I was the loony. I was the quack. I was the psycho. I was the crazy kid. I was the kid that people stopped talking to and stopped talking about. I was the kid who lost friends and I was the kid who had all the rumors about him.

Udesky: The cruelty and ridicule he faced distressed Szabo. But even more disturbing was a presentation on mental illness that a psychologist gave to his class. Rather than truly educating his peers, the psychologist gave examples of mental illness that made them laugh. Szabo decided he had to do something about it. His response was to come out in the open and speak to his class about his mental illness:

Szabo::I was shaking violently. And I was sweating in areas I had no idea could sweat, and it was March. But when I finished my speech nobody laughed. When I finished my speech, people came up to me and said that happened to my mom, my aunt, my uncle, my dad, my dad took his own life, my cousin took his own life, I'm going through that -- where can I seek help?

Udesky: Szabo has made it his life's work trying to end the stigma associated with mental illness. He talks to teens and young adults all over the country about his descent into depression, his struggles with mania and how talking about it and his feelings helps keep him well. John Kevin Hines also talks publicly with a similar message. Both young men speak openly about how it took time and work for them to learn to like themselves. And like Szabo, Hines wants to reach young people who may feel as desperate as he did when he tried to take his life in September 2000.

Hines: There is nothing on earth worth killing yourself for, nothing, no matter what the situation is, no matter where you are, no matter where you go…because even if you don't think it there are people that love you and you have to live for them and once you live for them, you can learn to love yourself…you can feel alone with all the friends in the world and all the family in the world. You have to know they love you.

Udesky: Both young men hope that by telling their experiences that other young people who've felt cut off and isolated can ask for help. Additionally, they say that parents too need to listen closely to their kids. Dr. Judice agrees, and says that close monitoring is especially important if a child is suicidal:

Judice: Sometimes "close" means in the hospital, sometimes "close" means asking your child twice a day how are they doing and how are they feeling. Sometimes it means seeing their child psychiatrist every day or being in a partial hospital program where they go during the day to the hospital but come home at night.

Udesky: What's most important, Hines and Szabo say, is that parents speak openly about emotions with their children, and get help from a professional if they can't.

Udesky: For Consumer Health Interactive Radio in San Francisco, I'm Laurie Udesky.

First published December 30, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Consumer Health Interactive