A Special Word for Teens and Their Families

Nobody talked about depression being a problem for teens when I was a teenager. I recently found out that a girl in my high school class tried to commit suicide during our Junior year. At age 59, it was the first I’d heard of it.

Nowadays, we see a lot of media attention on depression in teens, and its adjunct, cyber-
bullying. I googled “suicide depression cyber-bullying” and was struck by the number of hits. Take out the word “suicide” and the number multiplies geometrically. A recent study reports that teen suicide victims who are bullied often suffer from depression as well. Really? Amazing that it takes a research study to figure that out. (It’s hard for me to resist a shot at the psych community.)

I am fortunate to know a marvelous writer who makes cyber-bullying and depression
among teenage girls her focus. I was advised to read Lili, a novel by Michelle Lane, by a friend who told me it was a great book and that the main topic was cyber-bullying. Once I started the book, I could not put it down. While cyber-bullying is a big part of the story, Lili is about so much more and spoke to me on so many different levels: coming to terms with myself and developing a positive self image; having one adult who came through for me when my parents didn’t; the redemption of the parent-child relationship and using food as a (maladaptive) coping mechanism. The end is so lovely and the grandmother character so moving.

Without giving it away, parts of the book remind me of the wonderful movie, Easy A. I wish I had been more like Olive (the main character in Easy A) and Lili, and I take heart in the thought that teens can read Lili and find inspiration to take charge of their own lives in the face of challenges from parents and peers. Yes, depression is a fact of life for many teens. It doesn’t have to be the fact of life. If parents and their teenage children will read Lili and books like it and talk openly about the issues raised, they will create an opportunity to tackle the issues head-on and work through them. Thanks, Michelle Lane, for this wonderful book, for not dodging the hard issues and for creating such a great role model for teens.