Late adolescence is a period of experimentation and adjustment for many young people and this is also the age when they shed their childhood dependencies while beginning to assume sometimes what may be perceived as overwhelming adult responsibilities. This is the phase when major psychiatric illnesses are manifested, if they are going to, in one form or another. Many college students or those just beginning their career goals come to feel chronically depressed during this time and sometimes feel worthless and rejected by their families. They also may struggle to gain some measure of acceptance and worth through early career accomplishments, academic achievement, and/or athletic success. The confused inner life of a chronically depressed young person is not the expected slumbering state of dull unhappiness, but is commonly a confused mixture of contradictory feelings of self-hatred for themselves and a surprising disgust for their parents with whom they also seek acceptance and love.

More often than not, the young person is not so inclined to seek help on their own or does not know where to find help. In some cases, drugs or alcohol become a tool for self–medication and the young person’s first indication of a real problem is many times missing classes or oversleeping. Of course, when classes are missed, the grades are negatively affected which is usually the first indication the parents have that something is amiss. Failed classes or being fired from the job has the net result of increasing pressure at least financially and many times, causes the situation to further deteriorate. The student may find himself in the position where he has to withdraw from school and sit out academic probation for a year while he or she suffers the additional embarrassment of having to move back home.

Although the above scenario is not uncommon, it does not have to be this way. Parents need to assist their young person negotiate this difficult passage of life. Monitoring their progress is an excellent tool through frequent communication via telephone calls, emails, and visits where possible. Of course, the parent should teach and model the ability to ask for help when it is needed. Sometimes it may be tutoring, sometimes career counseling, sometimes it may be a physical need or a health issue, and sometimes it may be a mental health issue where a counselor could be of assistance.

Whatever the need, leaving it unmet places a young person at risk of not only failing in their immediate ventures, but also of attempting to escape their problems by suicide. The suicide-prevention program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign makes counseling assessment sessions mandatory when suicidal thoughts are reported. Almost two decades of data suggest that doing so has helped reduce the rate of student suicide by more than half – while the national rate has remained roughly constant. (About 1,110 college students kill themselves each year, according to a 1997 study of suicide on Midwestern university campuses.) Suicide remains a very unsatisfactory long-term solution for what is apparently many times a very short-term problem. Counseling does help and we should never be ashamed to ask for help when we truly need it. Suicide is not something that just happens to other families.