Why Do I Read The Times, Again?
Aug. 26th, 2010 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fleaNow I am concerned that Casper is depressed: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29preschool-t.html?hp
She was actually a jolly 3 year old; PreK was stressful and that was the year of finishing the dissertation and moving, so plenty of opportunities for situational anxiety. As an about-to-be-7-year-old she's a bit high-strung; prone to saying, "I'm stupid" and rather more tantrum-inclined than, for example, her brother. Her temperament is quite a bit like mine (though her intellect is much more like mr. flea's).
I was in talk therapy for depression at 10 (in 1982). I had post-divorce issues but also a fundamental existential angst (which I still have; I just ignore it, with the help of Prozac.) Therapy didn't help, but I suppose it's possible the right talk therapist could have been better. (The one I had told me about the "shit sandwich." He also dated my mother. Bad choices.)
She was actually a jolly 3 year old; PreK was stressful and that was the year of finishing the dissertation and moving, so plenty of opportunities for situational anxiety. As an about-to-be-7-year-old she's a bit high-strung; prone to saying, "I'm stupid" and rather more tantrum-inclined than, for example, her brother. Her temperament is quite a bit like mine (though her intellect is much more like mr. flea's).
I was in talk therapy for depression at 10 (in 1982). I had post-divorce issues but also a fundamental existential angst (which I still have; I just ignore it, with the help of Prozac.) Therapy didn't help, but I suppose it's possible the right talk therapist could have been better. (The one I had told me about the "shit sandwich." He also dated my mother. Bad choices.)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-26 06:24 pm (UTC)(2) If you knew for sure she was depressed, would you be doing anything different? And if so, what?
My own suspicion is that given the high level of structural oppression and powerlessness experienced by children in our society, any thinking child is going to have bouts of depression, because depression is a reasonable human reaction when a person lacks control over their own life. But my experience is as someone who had major depressive periods in childhood, rather than as someone who's studied them, so my tendency is probably to externalize the problem rather than otherwise. *shrug*