While girls typically show sadness through emotions, boys’ symptoms of depression may be swept aside as “typical” teenage behavior.

Teenage boys are drowning in just as much of the depression and anxiety that’s been well documented in girls. Experts warn that many young men struggling with their mental health are left undetected and without the help they need.

“We are right to be concerned about girls,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of the Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “But I don’t ever want us to lose sight of the fact that boys aren’t doing well, either.”

Depression in boys may go unnoticed, Ethier and other experts said, because boys usually don’t show it through signs of melancholytypically found in girls.

A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics found that while antidepressant prescriptions have risen dramatically for teenage girls and women in their 20s, the rate of such prescriptions for young men “declined abruptly during March 2020 and did not recover.

Dr. Kao-Ping Chua, a pediatrician at the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center at the University of Michigan, led the study. He said that his finding that boys weren’t accessing antidepressant medications once the pandemic hit has been “perplexing.”

  • macrocarpa@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Call a spade a spade, society doesn’t give a rats arse about vulnerable men of any age or in any demographic.

    • Shou@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      No one gave a crap about women either. Then society worked hard to change that. The time has come for society to do the same with men and help em.

    • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s why so many men are becoming incels and ultra-conservative. They can’t or won’t adapt and get help, so they take the path of least resistance.

  • Paradachshund
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    8 months ago

    To anyone in the US looking for more affordable therapy, look up Open Path Collective. It’s not free, but it’s much cheaper than normal.

  • BigFig@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I went undiagnosed until I was 27 years old. Don’t be afraid to talk to your doctor and don’t be afraid to try out medications (prescribed). I got lucky and the first medicine we tried was the one for me