I wasn’t diagnosed with depression until I was fifteen, but by that point, it had been impacting my life for years. What most people don’t know is that—on top of the classic symptoms—adolescent depression can often result in irritability, behavioral problems, and, in my case especially, extreme anger issues. I spent nearly a decade having my rage lurking in the back of my skull, a demon waiting for the perfect moment to leap out and possess me until I came back to my body to find the world around me broken by my hands and voice. In short, I was the poster child for anger issues. The problem with being the poster child for an illness that makes you a problem child is that no one sees it as an illness. All they see is you. The problem. I was told that I was ruining my family. That I was destroying the lives of my siblings. That if my parents got divorced, it would be my fault. I spent years being told that I was the problem keeping my family from happiness. I hated myself. It got to the point that every time my anger boiled over I would find myself locked in my room, sobbing for hours sometimes to the point of being sick. In my mind, I was a bad person. An evil person. Someone who was fundamentally flawed and didn’t deserve to exist. It wasn’t long before I started turning my anger towards myself in an attempt to stop the damage I was doing to my family. I muffled my yelling by sinking my teeth into my flesh. I pulled my hair out every time I had the urge to lash out at my siblings. I hit myself instead of the wall or the couch because how many times had I been told to stop damaging my parent's property. Learning that anger issues are a common symptom of adolescent depression saved my life. It put my entire childhood into a new perspective. Suddenly, I wasn’t a bad, evil person who had to atone for my sins. I was just a kid struggling with an illness that no one around me understood. But there were people out there who understood, and thanks to them I was able to get the help I needed. My anger subsided, as well as the other symptoms of depression that I had barely noticed were there because I had simply lived with them my whole life. The day I realized that it had been over a year since I’d gotten into a fight, I dropped to the ground and started crying. This time, I wasn’t crying out of self-loathing or guilt. I was crying out of relief. I had finally become the person I never thought I could be. Perhaps I had finally become the person I always was beneath my depression. It was my experiences with adolescent depression that inspired me to go into a career in child psychiatry. I know the pain that comes with being the “problem child” and I know how desperate most of those children are to be better. I hope that I can help other “problem children” like me recognize that having a problem doesn’t mean being a problem. They are not bad or evil or fundamentally flawed, they’re just struggling. Oftentimes to be better, all you need to do is get better.

I wasn’t diagnosed with depression until I was fifteen, but by that point, it had been impacting my life for years. What most people don’t know is that—on top of the classic symptoms—adolescent depression can often result in irritability, behavioral problems, and, in my case especially, extreme anger issues. I spent nearly a decade having my rage lurking in the back of my skull, a demon waiting for the perfect moment to leap out and possess me until I came back to my body to find the world around me broken by my hands and voice. In short, I was the poster child for anger issues. The problem with being the poster child for an illness that makes you a problem child is that no one sees it as an illness. All they see is you. The problem. I was told that I was ruining my family. That I was destroying the lives of my siblings. That if my parents got divorced, it would be my fault. I spent years being told that I was the problem keeping my family from happiness. I hated myself. It got to the point that every time my anger boiled over I would find myself locked in my room, sobbing for hours sometimes to the point of being sick. In my mind, I was a bad person. An evil person. Someone who was fundamentally flawed and didn’t deserve to exist. It wasn’t long before I started turning my anger toward myself in an attempt to stop the damage I was doing to my family. I muffled my yelling by sinking my teeth into my flesh. I pulled my hair out every time I had the urge to lash out at my siblings. I hit myself instead of the wall or the couch because how many times had I been told to stop damaging my parent's property. Learning that anger issues are a common symptom of adolescent depression saved my life. It put my entire childhood into a new perspective. Suddenly, I wasn’t a bad, evil person who had to atone for my sins. I was just a kid struggling with an illness that no one around me understood. But there were people out there who understood, and thanks to them I was able to get the help I needed. My anger subsided, as well as the other symptoms of depression that I had barely noticed were there because I had simply lived with them my whole life. The day I realized that it had been over a year since I’d gotten into a fight, I dropped to the ground and started crying. This time, I wasn’t crying out of self-loathing or guilt. I was crying out of relief. I had finally become the person I never thought I could be. Perhaps I had finally become the person I always was beneath my depression. It was my experiences with adolescent depression that inspired me to go into a career in child psychiatry. I know the pain that comes with being the “problem child” and I know how desperate most of those children are to be better. I hope that I can help other “problem children” like me recognize that having a problem doesn’t mean being a problem. They are not bad or evil or fundamentally flawed, they’re just struggling. Oftentimes to be better, all you need to do is get better.