If you became suicidal when you entered puberty you will never recover

[Amumu]

I've been depressed since childhood, so it's unlikely I'm going to recover. Maybe pills will enable me to go through a few more years, but that's it.

 

[BeansOfRequirement]

Getting btfo'd by depression, physical illness, life circumstances, etc instead of experiencing teen love, learning stuff and getting set up for the future sure is a pain. Unless you have a lot of counter-weight it can't be recovered from, sure. I missed out on all of the "milestones", myself.

 

[untimelydemise]

yes probably first got ill around 12 (puberty) first tried to ctb at 13. now 18 and had 3 psych ward stays abiut 15mnths. tried cbt dbt family therapy psycologist about 5 different antid 5 antipsycotics. not a difference. now in suported living under council care and not allowed out bymyself and all post checked :( im doomed

 

[ready 2 go]

I think attributing teenage depression solely down to puberty/hormones completely takes away and diminishes the struggles that teenagers face. That one couldn't possibly be able to make to decision to cbt, or even be allowed to, because their brain isn't fully developed. Pressures to perform academically and socially have a huge impact on mental health. Wanting to fit in. The sudden loss of childhood and innocence. 24/7 bombardment of social media and negative news. The environment we live in. All of these contribute to depression and suicidal ideation in young people. Not just hormones.

My depression as a teen wasn't at all related to puberty. What got me down the most was seeing how pointless everything was. Coming to the conclusion that life had no meaning. I had no place in it. Or at least that I didn't want to be part of whatever sick joke life was.

Edit: I'd also like to add that despite being more connected, we're also more divided. Having the ability to stay in contact 24/7 at the touch of our fingertips doesn't decrease the sense of isolation one may feel, as people spend more time online arguing, rather than spending quality time with others irl. Leading some to feel alienated from their friends and disconnected from the "real world". More young people live in a state of fear as the media they consume exposes them to massive amounts of negative news. Seeing such awful things going on around the world all the time, could definitely lead a person to think that all of the world is going to be like this. Further adding to stress, depression, mental issues and an increase in suicides

 

[Breakout92]

I think attributing teenage depression solely down to puberty/hormones completely takes away and diminishes the struggles that teenagers face. That one couldn't possibly be able to make to decision to cbt, or even be allowed to, because their brain isn't fully developed. Pressures to perform academically and socially have a huge impact on mental health. Wanting to fit in. The sudden loss of childhood and innocence. 24/7 bombardment of social media and negative news. The environment we live in. All of these contribute to depression and suicidal ideation in young people. Not just hormones.

My depression as a teen wasn't at all related to puberty. What got me down the most was seeing how pointless everything was. Coming to the conclusion that life had no meaning. I had no place in it. Or at least that I didn't want to be part of whatever sick joke life was.

I really agree with this. I think that our teens are super formative years, and depending on the kind of experiences we have it can have nearly irreversible effects on our mentality when we're old. When you spend your formative years with suicidal ideation, it's all you know and it's impossible to see the world without it. It's not only about hormones in the brain, although I'm sure that can contribute, but about the life experiences you develop especially because of the hormonal changes, or because of whatever other hardships you become defined by in those years.

 

[Celerity]

I made a poll on this forum a long time ago and most of the members got depression and/or became suicidal in their early teens some even in childhood which surprised me and I think it is safe to say that if you became suicidal in your early teens you will never recover; whenever I hear about a person recovering from "depression" or being suicidal it´s typically adults (20+) who have just experiencing depression for some months or maybe even longer but for them it´s due to life changes for the rest it was predetermined by hormonal changes caused by puberty usually in our early teen years.

Most members here have had a good or at least decent childhood mine was paradise on Earth I feel I might have had the best childhood in the world but enough about me the point is most of us were happy living life to its fullest in our childhood it was only with all the hormonal changes puberty caused we became depressed and suicidal I mean think back at your childhood and think how happy you were for so many years and all of a sudden life started to get darker and it´s not a coincidence, my puberty started at 12 but at the end of 13 I started to become depressed and suicidal and all because of the hormonal changes to the mind by puberty because for those past 11-13 years life was amazing.

Yeah, when people say they got "so much" out of therapy and meds, I know their problems were always temporary and recent, not the lifelong, crippling struggle I and many others here have faced.

 

[lofticries]

lmao well I'm fucked then since suicidal ideation began at 6 and full suicidal thoughts began at 11. Honestly in order for me to not be depressed and suicidal is to basically become an entire different person. I know this sounds over dramatic but I would need a new brain because this one is honestly damaged af.

 

[WornOutLife]

I had an awesome childhood but been suicidal since I was 12. Since then, CTB has never left my mind in spite of having experienced some great moments such as finding love more than once.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

Speaking from both personal experience and what I've observed from others- alongside the literature I've read for my degree- childhood trauma is pretty much a ticking time bomb.

You can examine the life outcomes of individuals who were traumatized and abused during their formative years then compare them against a "normal" population, and the difference is utterly staggering if you look at things like the ACE methodology. See this paper for figures on increased suicide rates in childhood abuse and neglect victims: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24629481/

I agree with the other posters that it isn't simply a matter of endocrinology. While hormones certainly do fluctuate during puberty and adolesence, one's exposure to different stimuli and experiences is what determines the trajectory of brain development for the most part, assuming we are ignoring complex factors like genetics.

In our minds, we have very intricate webs of neurons, many of them intertwining in ways that are not well understood yet. Over time, synaptic plasticity becomes more or less settled, as our existing neuronal connections strengthen due to repeated exposure to a stimuli. Or, these connections may weaken, if a stimuli becomes irrelevant and we never come across it again.

In early childhood and adolescence, these complicated networks are beginning to form and solidify, as our brains subconsciously catalogue each and every one of our lived experiences.

A tumultuous home environment, lack of attachment to caregivers and peers, bullying at school, poor health, abuse, traumatic events, etc can start priming your brain for a lifetime of misery/fight or flight programming.

For many of us, it's no wonder that we never recover. Adverse childhood events, in addition to sickness and intrinsically poor mental health, seem to have a snowball effect. When no one intervenes during these crucial developmental periods, you have to stumble through life with no guidance, attempting to navigate a world that has refused to offer you any sort of direction.

As a child, it is far too easy to slip through the cracks of the system. These broken children become adults who cannot function. The world is cruel and unkind to those who have suffered, and there is practically no support out there for people who have been deprived of proper nurture and support thus far. It only reinforces the pain we endured in childhood.

It makes me wonder if there is a point of no return for those in this position. I certainly think my ptsd will be a permanent fixture of my life for as long as I choose to endure this hellish existence. Of course, no one talks about this much, because it would soil the idea that every obstacle is surmountable and expose the gaping holes in the epistemology of our mental health industry.

 

[wait.what]

I can tell you that with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the earlier the onset, the more likely the disorders are to be severe and lifelong. That's something I've heard several times from mental health workers. I didn't demand sources from any of them, but I imagine they got their data from somewhere more reliable than a user poll on a site full of suicidal people.

I don't recall hearing anything predictive about the age at which someone first becomes depressed, so it's possible that outcomes for that disorder are more variable. It wouldn't surprise me at all if early-onset depression was more common among those who eventually ctb, though. I had my first clinical depression in 1981, at age eight. That was well before puberty, so it wasn't sex hormones that messed me up. Mood disorders are rampant in my mother's family, so it's probably something genetic.

 

[Alex_The_Artist]

Its interesting how things went to crap for most people around 12/ puberty. I started to suffer then to. Not with depression or SI, but anxiety and some borderline schizophrenia.

btw, can you change a cringy username?

 

[lofticries]

Its interesting how things went to crap for most people around 12/ puberty. I started to suffer then to. Not with depression or SI, but anxiety and some borderline schizophrenia.

btw, can you change a cringy username?

If you're on a desk top/laptop:

Go to your profile (by clicking on your username), click settings, click account details, and from there scroll down carefully until you find username. It'll give you a date in which you can change your username. At least for me it did.

 

[disillusionment]

Things were ok for me up until around like 9 years old which was when I hit puberty and also when my life started to fall apart all at once? A whole lot of traumatic stuff happened all at once and I remember promising to myself at that age "if things get any worse I can always just kill myself". I thought killing myself would be simple. I had heard about my uncle killing himself. Anyway I don't see how I can recover now, my brain is so messed up from all the trauma. and my life is so messed up.