What a Depressed Child Thinks and Feels Part 1

Depressed children think and feel differently than children who aren’t depressed.  Their pain affects how they see themselves and the world.  The darkness they carry eats away at their insides until there is little goodness left.  Their terrible thoughts and feelings run circles in their mind.  Depression is a heavy load to carry on the tiny shoulders of child who doesn’t belong.   

 

Like I said, how a depressed child thinks is very different than how a non-depressed child thinks.  The depressed brain tends to think in 3 ways.  It thinks everything is negative or bad, there is nothing it can do to make things better and nothing will ever change.  Life will always be bad. 

 

The depressed brain is full of automatic negative thoughts.  When a depressed child thinks about something they automatically think negatively about it.  No matter what it is, the first thing that pops into a depressed child’s brain is negative.  It’s just easier for a depressed brain to think about and remember anything bad or negative but I’ll talk more about the brains of depressed children in future posts.  These terrible thoughts of childhood depression can influence us every day.   

 

Thoughts, feeling and behaviors are all connected.  Our automatic negative thoughts effect how we feel and what we do.  An example could be a child thinks he is stupid.  This thought makes him feel bad and makes him think there is nothing he can do to be smarter or get better grades so he may not study.  Then when he makes a bad grade he uses that as evidence that he really is stupid.  We all know that if a child doesn’t study he will make a bad grade but the depressed brain doesn’t see that.  It only sees pain.       

 

The depressed child will constantly think about one bad experience and tell themselves everything else will turn out just as bad.  The depressed child sees a positive experience as a fluke and thinks nothing positive will ever happen again.  When the depressed child thinks about the future, he predicts bad things will happen.   

 

The depressed child looks at a bad experience and blows it out of proportion, like thinking one rejection is the end of the world.  One rejection means rejection for the rest of their lives.  The depressed child thinks in should terms, “I should do this or I should be that. Why can’t I be like everyone else?” 

 

That is one of the most painful things about childhood depression; seeing other children laughing, playing sports, making friends so easily.  Depressed children desperately want to be normal.  They know there is something wrong, something different about them but they don’t understand what it is.     

 

I know from experience the turmoil of childhood depression.  My suffering began when I was 5 but what I thought and how I felt changed as I got older. 

 

At first I thought everything was my fault, I was bad and I was being punished.  I was actually a very good child but I couldn’t see that.  As I got older my thoughts became even more negative and damaging.  I still thought the same as when I was 5 but I also thought, “I’m stupid. I’m ugly. No one cares about me. No one will ever care about me. No one will ever like me”.  These thoughts caused a sorrow that consumed me. 

How can a parent help give their child hope? 

My thoughts continued to get worse the older I got but I will talk a little more about that in my next post.  I just ask anyone who comments be respectful of others.  Thank you so much.