Being an adolescent is the most important part of your life psychologically. It’s important for understanding the nature, course, and treatment for depression. Depression is a complex disease. Nobody knows what causes it, but it’s common in people, and there is no known cure for depression. Depression can come from a variety of things like: Moving away from your hometown, death in the family, being made fun of, physical and verbal abuse, etc. Anything could affect your mood, so it’s real easy to become depressed and it’s harder to get out of your depression. It’s real easy for teens to become depressed. Teenagers are under pressure everyday because they’re being prepared for the adult world, yet they’re still treated like children. Their body is changing, their voice is getting deeper, and they’re trying to figure out who they really are. Teenagers also develop their own opinion instead of listening to their parents’ all the time.
With that, there will be different people with different opinions in the same household and that would lead to more arguments. Teens exposed to a negative household will be more likely to become depressed than people in a positive household. Substance abuse can lead to depression, even though drugs and alcohol give you a buzz and make you feel good temporarily, but it will end up hurting you long term. The majority of teenagers will be introduced to drugs and alcohol around late middle school, or early high school. Even good events like getting a new job, graduating from high school can lead to depression. Teenagers will be emotional the day the graduate because they will be leaving all of their friends behind and entering the adult world. Bad events from school like failing a test, or getting yelled at by a teacher can trigger some depression in your mind. However, the syndrome of clinical depression is never just a normal response to stressful life events.
Researchers have seen differences of people who have clinical depression as compared to people who do not have clinical depression. For example, the hippocampus, a small part of the brain that is vital to the storage of memories, appears to be smaller in some people with a history of depression than the people who have not had issues for depression. A smaller hippocampus has fewer serotonin receptors than the bigger hippocampus. Serotonin is one of the many brain chemicals, also known as neurotransmitters, that allow communication across circuits in the brain that connects different brain regions that are involved with human emotions. Scientists do not know why the hippocampus is smaller for people with depression. Some of the researchers have found that the stress hormone cortisol is produced in excess in depressed people. The investigators believe that cortisol has a toxic or a shrinking effect on the development of the hippocampus. Some of the experts have a theory that depressed people are simply born with a smaller hippocampus and are therefore inclined to suffer from depression. There are many other brain regions, and pathways between those specific regions, were thought to be involved with depression, and likely, no single brain structure or pathway fully accounts for clinical depression.
Depression can sometimes run in families. This suggests that there’s at least a partial genetic link to depression. Childre, siblings, and parents of people with severe depression are more likely to suffer from depression than members of the general population. Multiple genes interacting with one another in special ways contribute to the various types of depression that run in families. Yet despite the evidence of a family link to depression, it is unlikely that there is a single depression gene, but rather many genes that each contribute small effects toward depression when they interact with the environment. Depression can affect your mood, behavior, ability to sleep, health, and your concentration. The main treatments for depression are: therapies, medications, specialists, and medical procedures.
The symptoms holdens exhibits are the inability to concentrate and anhedonia. Anhedonia is the lack of interest in almost every topic. He also seems to be a psycho and a manic.I do agree with this because the story of holden is narrated in a mental institution. He may not engage in acts of sex as some manic people do, but he drinks, smokes, and swears too much. Holden has denied sex from a prostitute, but he drinks, swears, and smokes throughout most of the story. There isn’t a page out of the whole story where holden is either attempting to drink, or actually drinking.
An example of holden being psychotic is when he read the magazine article at the grand central station. He read an article which was about a man with lousy hormones. The, he read an article about how sores in your mouth can lead to cancer. He gets real depressed when he read those articles. He thought the articles were sending him a message to mess with him.
Holden will always be known for talking down on phonies, but he has shown acts of kindness throughout the book. He filled up a donation box of two nuns, he balanced a see saw for a little kid so the little kid doesn’t fall off. He also generously tipping a woman at the coat check. He gave a boy his own turtleneck sweater, and he bought his sister, Phoebe, a record even though it slips through her own hands easily and breaks.
I feel like holden is a good kid overall. He is like the typical teenager. Teenagers go through a phase where they do what they want, and not what other people want. He struggles with depression like most teenagers, he just needs a way to deal with the depression. He needs good people in his life to help him through his phase.
Works Cited
Salinger, J. D. The Catcher in the Rye. Little, Brown, 2019.
Bhandari, Smitha. “Causes of Depression: Genetics, Illness, Abuse, and More.” WebMD, WebMD, 18 Mar. 2019, www.webmd.com/depression/guide/causes-depression#1
Jaffee, Robert David. “Holden Caulfield: Depressed, Psychotic and All.” HuffPost, HuffPost, 25 May 2011, www.huffpost.com/entry/holden-caulfield-depresse_b_522499.
