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Millennials often get a bad rap in the media for being “entitled,” “lazy,” and “narcissistic.” While these young adults do enjoy advantages such as greater connectivity, like every generation they face unique and difficult challenges--among theirs are a cultural of unrelenting overachievement, stagnating wages, and huge personal debt. These factors can cause serious stress, and trigger or exacerbate depression in those prone to suffer more from mental illness.  By understanding Millennials’ particular stressors we can better identify when to help them get the most appropriate treatment, whether it’s career or financial counseling, psychotherapy, medication, or brain stimulation therapies.

More than 70 percent of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their life. Living through a distressing situation can cause common reactions in people that usually go away over time, including fear, shock, anger, nervousness, sadness, and possibly guilt. However, for 7.7 million American adults in a given year, these feelings don’t go away, and even intensify, affecting their quality of life and causing PTSD.

Witnessing or being part of a traumatic event is difficult for any person to handle. For 7.7 million American adults in a given year, it can be more serious. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a condition that can develop after a person has experienced or witnessed a traumatic or stressful event in which serious harm occurred or was threatened, causing intense fear, helplessness or horror. It can affect people of any age, as well families of victims, emergency personnel and rescue workers.

Twelve-year-old Portia Baptista had just come home from school when she heard soft sobs coming from her parents’ bedroom. Her heart sank. Her mom was in bed, crying yet again. Portia poked her head in the door. “What’s wrong, Ma?” she asked. “Nothing,” her mom replied, pulling the covers up, embarrassed that Portia was seeing her distraught. “No, please tell me,” Portia said. She knew it was not all that healthy to serve as her mom’s confidante. She also knew her mom didn’t have anyone else to talk to, so she insisted. Her mom paused. “Well, I just feel so bad. If it wasn’t for your father’s income, I’d be homeless on the street. I can’t take care of myself.” “No you wouldn’t end up on the street, Ma” she said quietly, trying to sound sure of her statement. “We’d find a way.”

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a type of depression that’s related to changes in
seasons, is estimated to affect 10 million Americans. For most people, symptoms appear during late fall or early winter, making you feel blue around the winter holidays, or sad and disappointed after all the celebrations are over. While it’s normal to experience the “winter blues”, feeling sad, hopeless or lethargic for days or weeks at a time can be symptoms of something more serious, including depression. A smaller number of people experience symptoms in the spring or early summer.

Do the irregular warm weather days get you excited for summer, but leave you feeling sad or depressed that winter is still here and there are more cold days to come? For many people, Seasonal Affect Disorder (SAD), a type of depression that’s related to changes in seasons, can be a serious issue to overcome every year.

Approximately 6 million American men have depression each year, but fewer than half recognize, acknowledge, or seek treatment. Unfortunately, many men feel like they need to be “strong and silent” about their mental illness or society will look down on them, leading them to not find the correct treatment.

Depression is a serious illness that can affect anyone at any age. For many men, there is the added stigma that men with depression are weak or less than other men. This leads to men trying to be “strong and silent” about their mental health challenges and not seek the correct treatment. 

Postpartum depression (PPD) affects approximately 13 percent of women and is brought on by a change in hormone levels after childbirth. Being a new mom can be overwhelming and feelings of insecurity are normal. Unfortunately, for some women these feelings turn into extreme anxiety or sadness and can inhibit a woman’s ability to care for herself and her new baby.

Postpartum depression (PPD) is a treatable medical illness that’s brought on by a change in hormone levels after childbirth. Affecting approximately 13 percent of women, PPD can cause extreme feelings of anxiety or sadness and can interfere with a woman’s ability to care for herself or her new baby.

PPD can develop anywhere from a few weeks to a year after delivery, but it’s most commonly diagnosed during the first three month after birth. For some women, PPD can be difficult to diagnose since many of the symptoms can be similar to the “baby blues” or other illnesses. It’s important to talk to your doctor at the first signs of sadness or depression to get properly diagnosed and discuss treatment options.

Without treatment, depression can have long-term consequences for you and your baby, including inadequate mother-child bonding. Without this special bond, research shows that children can later have behavioral problems and developmental delays.

There are several treatment strategies for postpartum depression. For many women, utilizing all of these strategies together brings them the most successful outcome.