The Divine Crash

According to To Write Love on Her Arms

• 121 Million people world wide suffer from depression
• 18 Million of those cases are in the U.S.
• 2/3 of those with depression never seek treatment
• Untreated depression is the never one cause of suicide, addiction, and self-injury
• 20 percent of teens will suffer from depression at some point.
• 8.3 percent of teens suffer from depression for at least a year
• Popular culture says it is mostly girls but the facts say it is about 50% each gender

Untreated depression leads to unhealthy ways to treat that depression.  Like self-injury.   I’ve worked with depression and self-injury in youth, adults, and even older-adults, but now I have my own daughter.

So often I see the people I work with that are depressed and I wonder what happened to them?  Now I have my own daughter and my own son and I’ve gotta ask, how do I raise them right so that it doesn’t happen, or at least gives them the best chances?  What do I do so that instead of 20% chance of them being depressed it is 5% or 1%?? I pray so much and I try to make them eat right but if I say no to much will they rebel, turn from God and be gone forever?  If I say yes to much will they feel like life has no meaning and become depressed?

This is enough to drive me crazy!!

What is a parent supposed to do? How am I supposed to make an informed decision about raising my kids so that I don’t mess them up later on? Is that even possible?

I guess, the only thing I can do is take a page from AA and admit I can’t do this on my own and let God do this.  I guess I can only really take it one day at a time and pray for the best and if it works out I know it wasn’t because of me and if it doesn’t work out I did what I could with what I had and gave my kids the best shot.

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Family by RevBT