Re:depression (Score 1)

I think there is a point here not to be missed. This actually reminds me of myself a bit when I was in high school. My parents, among others, always accused me of never opening up. The harder they pried, the more I clammed up, I remember my stepmother saying explicitly. I, and I think many others, was partly the way I was because I didn't trust anyone. This includes authority figures. When I was a freshman in high school, I started acting out in a self-destructive manner, mainly scarring my body. At one point one of my teachers turned me in to the school counselor who tried to console me and ultimatly called my parents. The thing is, I didn't understand what I was feeling. Since I could not make sense of what was happening, I couldn't percieve anyone else being able to. My prior experience with counselors only left me with lasting frustrations that only led me to believe that they could not and would not understand. So I learned to clam up. I learned how to tell these people what they wanted to hear so that they would leave me alone. If I had the added pressure of knowing that anyone at my school had the power to "turn me in" for being who I was, the chances are I probably would have simply withdrawn from that situation. I believe that the WAVE program would do little more than make the teens with real problems feel alienated. I believe they would see it as anyone being able to "turn them in" for not fitting in. I do not disagree that these teens need help. I simply think that taking this approach will do little more than make these kids feel that it is bad to be different. I think that if these teens are going to be helped, they are going to need to be helped by someone they can identify with and trust, and on their own terms. Not just someone they see as trying to change them.