Depression in Emerging Adulthood

Depression takes a toll in today's world of emerging adults because of being depressed in the past or currently going through it. Emerging adults are those who are currently entering adulthood; ages 18 through 25. Many teens and soon to be adults are already going through depression and don't like to mention it. Others may like to be open about their depression and receive help. However, for those who remain quiet about it allow their depression to eat them alive. Not literally, but it is unhealthy for their well-being. Depression may occur from genetics, transitions in life, not getting support from friends and family, abuse, and not getting enough sleep. Everyone's depression may be major and some are minor. However, no one should ever be going through depression. Help can be found anywhere for those who are currently going through it and no one should keep quiet about this mental illness. In today's world of emerging adults, some may have received their depression from the transition from high school to college, going from dependent into learning how to grow and become independent, or from making big life decisions that predict their future. Also, their depression may have occurred when they were in high school or back when they were younger. Depression affects many aspects of an individual's life such as their cognitive, emotional, social, and physical identity.

The cognitive aspect of an emerging adult consists of their intelligence, perception, attention, memory, and the ability to think and solve problems. Depression blurs all of these aspects and messes up the way a person perceives things. As emerging adults become depressed and unconscious of their depression, they begin to feel hopeless and unsure about their life. The choices they make aren't wise and don't contain any thought into the situation. Eventually, they face the consequences of their bad choices and it makes them more depressed. When depression takes part into life decisions, emerging adults are given so much pressure. They are entering adulthood learning how to be independent and have to make choices on their own without the parents help. Once they make these life decisions, it's like rolling a die, you either make the right decision or you make the worse out of the situation. As bad as it is, we have no other choice but to jeopardize any life decision. Likewise, a study shows that stress from the transition of high school to college leads to distortions cognitively, and general health among college students. Their health can be affected from stress, high blood pressure, and becoming emotionless (Dhanalakshmi 2014). As a result of the transition to college, emerging adults have distortions cognitively. Meaning they perceive things the wrong way. They begin to feel hopeless even though it's just the depression talking.Maybe they think they made the wrong decision which leads to being depressed. As depression affects the cognitive aspect of emerging adults, so do the emotions of an emerging adult.

Emotions are what define a person's personality and everyone has them no matter what they say. Emerging adults, and everyone else, can either show their emotions towards something, such as for a person, their desire, or what they like or dislike. However, some like to box their emotions and never express them. People would consider them cold-blooded. Sometimes an emerging adult would hide their emotions because they don't want to look vulnerable. Also, they don't want to be judged by people because they don't want their problems to be someone else's. For those who like to reveal their emotions and show it, they have no problem on what others think. Sometimes it's better to pour out your emotions to let it out instead of not expressing them at all. When depression affects an emerging adults emotions, it sucks. Everything about them makes them feel like they're not good enough. If an emerging adult fails at one thing such as not making time with their friends then it makes them depressed and messes up their emotions. They feel like they fail at everything and that one person over not spending time with them. That is why people need to watch what they say to others because they never know if they are going to hurt their feelings. Growing up, my mom told me if I don't have anything nice to say then don't say it all. People don't put any thought into their actions or words without putting other people's emotions into consideration. In a study, emerging adults were examined and distinguished between their depression with positive and negative emotions. It consisted of 30 people, 15 were depressed inpatients and the other 15 were normal, and they displayed schematic faces to test them. The depressed patients were significantly slower to respond to positive faces than normal subjects (Suslow 2001). As depression messes up the emotions of an emerging adult, so does their social life.

Emerging adults always have to go socialize to do day-to-day tasks. Talking is mostly what every individual does on a day-to-day basis. Depression and the social life of an emerging adult is greatly affected. When emerging adults make big decisions such as moving away and going to college, their friends back home and the friendship are greatly impacted. Sometimes the emerging adult may cut them off or hardly socialize with them. As terrible as it sounds, it's life and we have to make decisions. Communication goes both ways with friendships and if one person doesn't put in the effort then what is the point. It makes the emerging adult depressed when they have to stop talking to their best friend because they have made the decision to move away to pursue their dreams and ambitions. However, they will eventually make more friends once they're off to college so they won't be as depressed. In a study, they mention that emotions occur frequently and often intense in situations at college and university (Pekrun 2007). College students tend to be peer pressured to do things and give in. They end up hurting themselves and their emotions at the end of the day which makes them depressed. What people need to know is that the strongest thing to say is no. Not only does depression affect the social life of an emerging adult but they destroy their physique.

Everyone is given one body and it is our job to take care of it to the best of our ability. Depressed emerging adults have troubles of taking care of their health. Their depression makes them either lack sleep or get too much sleep. Either or is terrible and adults should range of getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Irritation and being tired happens when emerging adults don't get enough sleep. If lack of sleep keeps occuring, adults are at risk for heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. A study reveals the side effects of being depressed and long-term depression. It showed that depression affects the brain and the heart. Being depressed long-term can make you get blood clots and risk a heart attack (Tracy 2018). As scary as it sounds, emerging adults need to take care of their body or else they will face the consequences. To take care of their physique, they can go to the gym or go for a run while playing pumped up music. This takes their depression off their mind and at the same time, they are taking care of their health. Being depressed affect emerging adults physically with their body and it makes them sluggish. The worst thing an emerging adult can do with their depression is just being sluggish and allowing their depression to control them.

Depression affects an emerging adult mentally, emotionally, socially, and physically. Basically, everything that an adult needs to take care of since they're constantly going through transitions in life. For instance, when an adult has to make a decision on how they want to plan their life, they have no other support but themselves. Family and friends can agree with your decisions, but if the decision doesn't end up great then it's the adults fault. This leads to them being depressed over making the wrong decision and it messes with their head. They begin to think they're not good enough or they made a complete fool of themselves. However, that is just the way life is. We make decisions based on what we think is right and sometimes we're right or wrong. Emerging adults have to learn how to learn from their mistakes. That is how we grow as individuals. An adults mental state by self-criticism affects them poorly, their emotions become twisted, they may feel socially rejected at times, and their physique may not be up to par. Adults need to stop allowing depression take control of their lives and take control. Emerging adults need to know their self-importance and fulfill their dreams and ambitions.

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