Lori’s note
Lori’s psychiatrist asked her to write something describing her life:
“Everybody is hurt sometime in his or her life. For me it started with my parents. But let me start further back. I was adopted in 1986 by my parents. In elementary school, people were not very nice to me. They spread rumours about me that I was a lesbian, which by the way, I’m not. Anyway, I had very few friends and was what they call a nerd or a dork. I did not know fashion, and I did not know “anything” that was cool. So this girl decided to do a makeover on me which was not a total success. On a more serious note, home wasn’t going too well either. I was being abused both mentally and physically. My dad would grab me and cover my mouth so I couldn’t scream and hit me and my mom yelled at me. It was hell. I decided to deal with my school problems by changing schools. There I did well in the beginning but my grades began to drop as I got more depressed. Soon the abuse got worse, my temper got worse, and I got serious depression. I began going to a child psychiatrist who finally got my dad to stop physically abusing me but up until a few months ago, my mom mentally abused me. School life went downhill. I began to get very depressed and stopped talking to a lot of people so they stopped talking to me so I lost many of my friends. My grades also dropped. Eventually I started cutting myself to relieve myself of the emotional pain. It became an addiction. When I finally told my parents and psychiatrist they sent me to a hospital. I made many friends and got better. But they discharged me too fast. I got sick again. Now I’m sick and I’m still cutting myself and I can’t stop. I also tried overdosing but I spit it out. That’s my life.
Parents and teachers are key to recognizing signs of depression
– young people rarely say “I am depressed”
– they indicate it indirectly with other words and by their behaviour.
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“Our daughter was the joy of our life until she turned 13, then all hell broke loose. Rick helped us understand what was happening to her and we made some adjustments that helped us get through it. She’s now in University and doing well.”
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