ey and Birhamer 4). The depressed mood is felt and experienced widely from adolescent years. But what is more depressing here is the fact that depression is difficult to be clearly identified especially to the adolescent people. In life, I believed, sadness is not uncommon. Being unhappy, at one point of one’s life, is perfectly human. Young ones as well those who are feeling young significantly encounter a certain feeling of unhappiness. Adolescent people, however, are more prone to depressed mood rather than the old folks. In fact, roughly 5 to 15 percent of adolescents experienced symptoms associated to clinical depression (Kaplan, Aguirre, and Rater 48). Kaplan, Aguirre, and Rater present a fascinating list of symptoms marked in adolescent depression. Now, I may not be a teenager but I am categorically a young adult. To my mind, real or imagine, I am still in my adolescent period. Borrowing from the list made by Kaplan, Aguirre, and Rater, below are two signs -- they call it warning signs, and that’s disturbing -- that I have encountered from the past few days: 1. Noticeable changes in eating and sleeping habits. 2. Difficulty concentrating or making decisions. Considering this sort of reality, I am wondering if whether or not I have a clinical depression. (Except for the term depression, I like the word clinical.) Sounds interesting. Thinking it more deeply, though, I doubt it if I have one. On Causes By nature, depressions either in adolescents or in non-adolescents are hereditary (Gullotta and Adams 206). Why young people have symptoms characterized in clinical depression is because such disorder, whether one likes it or not, is inherited from generation to generation. In fact, roughly 50 percent of people possessing depressed mood are largely attributed to “genetic predispositions� (qtd. in Gullotta and Adams 206). Meaning to say, depression is unavoidable especially when one’s parents have this mood disorder. Like the inevitability of death, unfortunately, mood disorder is part of the human life. But there is a good news here. According to certain studies, there is ample evidence supporting the theory that depressive symptoms are, in fact, “less strong [in terms of] genetic association� (qtd. in Gullotta and Adams 206). That is to say, depression is affected by the social environment in which the person having a mood disorder is immersed into. Today, there are two major views concerning the cause of mood disorder: genetics and environment. On Solutions There are solutions to the problem inherent in the disorder called depression. In relation to hereditary as the cause of depressed mood, solution is barely available. It reminds me of one famous Darwinian biologist who proposes, although in jest, an extensive operation of persons who have genetic problems; for instance, a criminal convict can be a law-abiding citizen if his “bad� genes are replaced with “good� ones. That is not a bad ideal, is it? Well, what I am going to propose for a solution to the problem associated to depression in young people is greatly social in orientation. Depression can be lessened, if not prevented, especially when
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