42 LONGISLANDPRESS.COM • MAY 2019
FAMILY & EDUCATION
DEPRESSION DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, EXPERTS SAY
continued from page 41
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Holtsville
Huntington
Patchogue
Bay Shore
East Hampton
Glen Cove
The organization’s Project Forward
offers students counseling treatments
to work through topics like romantic
relationships, social media, and cyberbullying,
among others.
“There has been a huge increase of kids
in high school dealing with serious
depression and anxiety,” says Gordon
Gooding, a school social worker with
experience with elementary and high
school students in Baldwin who also
runs a private practice in Cold Spring
Harbor. “The amount of anxiety and
depression coming through the doors
has been staggering. It seems like it is
a majority of what we do now.”
He says suicide among young people
on Long Island continues to climb
and spread. Depression doesn’t
discriminate.
“I work in two very different communities,”
he says. “They differ in
economic status, ethnicity and school
systems. Yet both communities lost
young people to suicide this year
alone. Some of them were still in high
school, while others were recent high
school graduates.”
WHAT’S GOING ON?
The questions are endless.
Why are young people with so much
life ahead of them giving up? The reasons
are varied and complex. Lynn
Hugger, a clinical psychologist in
Manhasset, unloads a list of burdens.
“Developmentally, adolescents don’t
have a larger context with which to
understand their current stressors —
so many things feel more intense and
‘all or nothing’ than they might for an
adult,” she says. ”In addition, younger
people have a greater tendency towards
impulsivity.”
Hugger says some of her patients have
pointed out that threats of terrorist
attacks and mass shootings increase
fear, anxiety, and hopelessness. Social
media ups the peer pressure.
“Teenagers know pretty easily what
their peers are doing and what they
are left out of; retaliatory commentary
is also easy to do; regrettable actions on
social media and texting are common
and more public,” she says. “Because
of social media, suicide is more public,
and the option is more widely known
about and therefore considered.”
Then there’s the stress of performing
well in school and getting into college.
“The pressure can be enormous,”
Hugger adds. “Many students don't
understand how many options there
really are. They get burned out or
are afraid that they won't get into a
particular college and therefore all
their options in life are over, creating
a distorted sense of doom.”
Bullying online and off can push some
over the edge. In 2017, Angie Collazo
said her 17-year-old son Angelo, then a
student at Hicksville High School, who
suffered from scoliosis, killed himself
because of lifelong, vicious bullying.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
What’s happening with youth has
many people working overtime. Last
July, New York State began requiring
schools to administrate educational
classes that provide a range of resources
and skills to help students
recognize, cope with and understand
potential mental health concerns.
“Schools do amazing work on Long
Island,” says Gooding. “Lately there
has been a big push in schools to teach
mindfulness and provide students
with other tools for coping. Schools
are beginning to talk about drug
prevention, having wellness weeks,
and bringing a greater awareness to
mental health. For example, recently
Northport High School did a wellness
week where they talked about mental
health and taught mindfulness and
yoga practices.”
The issues are multilayered. Getting
teens to talk is no small matter.
“Sometimes parents have a difficult
time understanding what normal teen
behavior is, and what is problematic,”
he says. “They didn’t grow up with social
media, so they may not understand
the stress young people are under.”
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