Verme overcomes depression

Senior Katerina Verme has struggled with depression since she was 9 years old due to a serious turn of events in her life. She faced the death of loved ones, the divorce of her parents and problems involving her brother.

Photo illustration by Miranda Leung

“I was the one who was happy all the time, smiling, but inside I was breaking apart,” Verme said.

Depression is a disorder that can affect people in various magnitudes.

“Feeling depressed is a normal human emotion,” school psychologist Kristina Crawford said.

Depression in adolescents is common, especially in a stressful school environment, where pressures with grades, work and family all come together to create something adverse for an individual to overcome. Nearly five percent of teenagers will suffer from serious depression at least once in their lives, according to the University of Michigan Depression Center.

“You know, your friend moves away, your pet dies, someone in your family close to you dies,” Crawford said.  “If something like that happens, you do [feel sad], you feel depressed. Depression becomes a problem when it lasts too long and when it doesn’t seem to be getting better.”

Verme’s depression lead to self-harm. She cut her wrists as a method of coping with her feelings.

“I guess I was broken on the inside,” she said.  “I wanted to match the inside with the outside. I thought it would make me feel better. It did in the beginning, but it got to a point where I would just do it to do it. The last time I did it I told myself I can’t keep doing this. I was doing it four or five times a week.”

Some individuals are more prone to depression than others. The deficiency of the neurotransmitter serotonin can cause depression. Having this deficiency does not always mean that a person will become depressed.

“It could be that it never expresses itself,” Crawford said. “Most people can have a certain amount of stuff they can deal with pretty comfortably. We have adverse things happen all the time. We manage it, we deal with it, we cope with it. When it gets to be too much for too long, that can be the triggering event.”

Depression not only changes the life of depressed individuals but also their families and friends. It is important that friends and families are supportive and help in the recovery process.

“We realize now that we inadvertently did not pay as much attention as we should have to Katerina,” Katerina’s mother Sonia May said in an e-mail.  “We learned that every sibling in a family reacts differently to situations, and the impact may be different.  Our message to parents going through tough times is to make room for every sibling, to be watchful and to never assume.”

Katerina shared her feelings with her mother when it became too much to handle on her own.

“She started feeling extremely sad,” Sonia May said via e-mail, “and she could not see the light anymore.”

To identify depression, psychologists use the DSM4, the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual for Psychological Disorders. The signs of depression listed in the manual focus on being sad for an extended period of time, a lack of interest in activities, irregular sleep and a loss of energy. Katerina was displaying most of these symptoms, and her struggles affected her activity inside and outside of school.

“I would sit in my room all day and would miss two or three days of school every week because I didn’t want to go to school,” Katerina said.

Although depression can be severe, there are ways to treat the disorder.

“A lot of people think there’s a magic pill that will just fix it, and [say], ‘Let’s not talk about why I’m depressed,’” Crawford said. “Research would show that the best option for treatment would be medication management and talk therapy.”

Katerina opted to take medication as well as talking to a therapist. She attended an in-patient treatment in Chicago over the summer.

“Katerina learned positive coping skills, how to deal with stress, to include positive attitudes in her daily life; to communicate and express her feelings; and to think about her first in order to be well for others,” Sonia May said. “She learned more about her mind, her body, her spirit, her emotions and social relations; and to use the skills she learned to move forward to live a constructive and meaningful live with the love and support of her loved ones.”

Katerina found the treatment to be extremely helpful in her recovery from depression.

“I ended up going to treatment this summer, and it was probably the best experience of my life,” Katerina said. “I got diagnosed with major depression disorder and anxiety disorder and almost bipolar.  So I was put on antidepressants, which helped. It felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I’m so much happier now.”

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