Amy, 16, attended her school counsellor, Ms Briggs, saying she was ‘depressed’. She couldn’t sleep for worrying, woke early, was off her food, couldn’t concentrate in class, and said she had thought she would rather be dead.
This had been going on for over a month, triggered by her boyfriend, Josiah, breaking up with her.
Ms Briggs, trained in Mental Health First Aid (MHFA), recognized Amy’s pattern of distress earned the label of depression. Many in her place would have referred Amy to her GP or an Emergency Department. In both places, on average, depression would have been accepted and Amy likely started on antidepressant medications.
But Ms Briggs probed further, suspecting an extreme reaction to the end of a relationship of only six months. She looked for complications in Amy’s relationship with Josiah or the break-up but found none.
Amy’s family situation was more informative. Amy’s parents had always fought a lot. Amy’s relationship with her mother was also strained. Shortly after the relationship with Josiah began, her father disclosed he was having an affair and was moving interstate.
Amy displaced her distress at this abandonment by the parent she regarded as being ‘on her side’ with immersion in a new relationship and busy social, academic and sporting life. Normally she could have dealt with the break-up, but the distress related to her father suddenly flooded back, without Amy recognising why she felt so bad.
Understanding Amy’s distress didn’t make it go away, but it did change how she and Ms Briggs felt about what was needed. Amy needed support to grieve, perhaps some mediation with her mother, and an opportunity to tell her father how he had disappointed her – all things that Ms Briggs could help with. A medical referral, and drugs, were not required.
Amy wasn’t suffering from depression caused by abandonment. Rather, she was suffering from abandonment in a way that fit the pattern of depression. Depression was the manifestation, not the explanation.
