Catcher in the Rye..Depression

4/6/11

In today's society, depression is something that can greatly affect our lives. A number of reasons can cause depression. It can be you are finally grasping the effect of becoming older, new friends or trying to fit in and this is found common amongst teens. It may not seem like it can take much of a toll on their lives, but grades have a heavy effect on how teens think and how they feel about themselves personally. Though some teens may not even know they are depressed they may just start having symptoms unbeknownst to themselves. These can range from many different things such as excessive guilt, this can be caused by losing a family member or if you have lost someone close to you like a friend. Another symptom would be suicidal thoughts this can happen if the stress of losing someone becomes unbearable or you feel like you could have stopped that change from occurring. Switching from school to school can also have a damaging side effect when having to uproot your social and academic life constantly to a new area. One other symptom would be drug and alcohol abuse this can occur if you don't feel like you are fitting in or drawing back from meeting new people because you fear that they wont accept you. Social comfort is the best way to treat all of these depression symptoms. Asking for help especially when you need it is not a sign of weakness, the more you talk to trusted people around you the better off you are being protected from your depression.

The first symptom I feel Holden exhibits is excessive guilt. Holden has excessive guilt because his brother Allie died at a young age from leukemia and he feels as if it is his fault. His brother had such an impact on his life, and this is shown when he says, “But it wasn't that he was the most intelligent member in the family. He was also the nicest,in lots of ways. He never got mad at anybody.” (Salinger38). He never blew things out of proportion. Contrarily, according to Holden,...