Hi, my name’s Kate! I’m 10 years old, and my favorite color is blue. I absolutely love playing soccer, but what I love even more is going to school!

I know it might sound kind of nerdy, but I really do love school. Every day, I get to learn something new about the world. Like just the other day, I learned about bacteria, and it was so cool! I always try my best to do well, get good grades and not cause a ruckus, but lately... I haven’t been feeling so great.

    All my friends keep teasing me saying I’m acting weird, but I don’t see what their deal is. It’s not like I’m the only one feeling this way. I’ve noticed other kids at school acting like me, too. Some of them seem like they’re having an even tougher time. It can’t be anything serious… right?

    But I guess I’ll find out soon enough. My grades have been slipping, and I’ve been feeling off. Mom and Dad think it’s more than just a bad mood. That’s why they decided I should go talk to someone; a psychiatrist, a medical doctor who specializes in mental health and is trained to diagnose, treat, and prevent mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders.

So, I went to see the psychiatrist. After a few sessions, she told me I had something called a mood disorder. She called it depression, a mental health condition that involves prolonged low mood or loss of interest in activities. At first, I felt awful. I thought I was just a regular kid, and now I was being told I had an illness I couldn’t control. It made me feel weird... very different. I couldn’t hold it in; I cried and cried. But then, the psychiatrist explained it to me in a way that made me feel a little better.

    She told me it wasn’t my fault and that lots of kids feel this way. In fact, about 50% of children are likely to experience a diagnosable mental health issue by the time they’re 18, with depression and anxiety being the most common. Girls are also twice as likely as boys to experience/ have experienced a major depressive episode. These numbers weren’t always this high, but the COVID-19 pandemic made things a lot worse and complicated for a lot of kids.

    She told me it didn’t mean I was broken, it just meant I needed some extra help, just like how someone with a broken arm needs a cast. That made me feel a little better, knowing I wasn’t alone.

    After telling me how common depression was, my psychiatrist started to explain what causes it. She said understanding where it might come from could help us figure out what’s going on with me.

    She explained that depression can happen for a lot of reasons. Sometimes, it’s biological, like if it runs in your family or if there’s a chemical imbalance in your brain. Other times, it’s psychological, which means experiencing abuse or neglect can make it happen. And then there are outside factors, like stress at home because of money problems or big changes in your life.

    As she talked, I realized there were so many pieces to the puzzle. It wasn’t just one thing; it could be a mix of things that made me feel this way.

    I was so relieved that we finally figured out what was going on with me. It felt good to have a reason for all the things I’d been feeling. But then, something started bothering me. If she could figure it out so quickly, why hadn’t any of the adults around me noticed? Did they just not care enough to see what was wrong?

    The psychiatrist must’ve seen the worry on my face because she quickly shut down that thought. She explained that teachers and other adults at school do care, they really do. But the truth is, many schools struggle with not having enough counselors, not enough funding, and not enough resources to take care of every kid’s mental health the way they should.

     It wasn’t that they didn’t care, it was that they didn’t have what they needed to help everyone as much as they wanted to.

        Once I got those negative thoughts out of my head, it was time to figure out a plan of action, a way to help me feel better. Just like there are many causes for depression, there are also lots of ways to treat it. That made me feel so relieved! It wasn’t just one tough solution; there were options that could work for me.

    The psychiatrist explained two main routes we could take. The first was medication called antidepressants. These help to balance the hormones in my brain and make things feel a little less overwhelming. The second option was psychotherapy, which means talking with a mental health professional to work through my emotions and learn healthier ways to handle them.

    Knowing there were choices and that I wasn’t stuck feeling this way forever gave me so much more hope.

    I was so excited to get started with the plan—I just wanted this to be over. I wanted my depression to go away and never come back. But then my psychiatrist paused and said something that caught me off guard; it wouldn’t be gone forever.

    I stared at her, completely shocked. What did she mean by that? I thought once you got a diagnosis, went through treatment and felt better, you were cured for good!

She gently explained that it wasn’t quite that simple. Depression often works in episodes. That means I’d probably have times when I’d feel normal and happy again, but there might also be moments when another depressive episode could happen.

    It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but she assured me that with the right tools and support, I could learn how to manage it when those tough times came around.