“I Think You’re Just Bored”: China’s Depressed Teens Struggle for Understanding and Treatment

Yang Tingting (杨婷婷)

Mental health services and families struggle to understand, recognize, and treat rising teen depression

Yu Nian couldn’t remember how many times it was that she tried to convince her mother that she considered ending her life, only to hear her mother respond, “I think you’re just bored.”

Having suffered from verbal bullying by a classmate for years, Yu, then aged 12, went to see a doctor alone in 2019 after she started hurting herself on her hands, legs, and other parts of her body. She was diagnosed with depressive tendencies, but tried and failed many times to get her mother and her school counselor to take her diagnosis seriously.

For the other 30 million adolescents under the age of 17 in the throes of depression in China today, it‘s a similar uphill battle to seek help due to the stigma attached to mental illness , concerns about their privacy, and the lack of mental health awareness among adults who are apt to dismiss their symptoms as being the normal signs of puberty or mood swings.

“Depression is like a black dog which is always lurking behind your back...I won’t feel it when I’m ok; I’ll even forget about it. But it comes back whenever I’m feeling down”

According to the National Health Commission, this mental health crisis among Chinese teens is mainly caused by school bullying, intense academic pressure, and family trauma such as corporal punishment or a lack of a close relationship with one’s parents. The crisis is also underreported. A 2021 report from the Institute of Psychology of the Chinese Academy of Science estimated that 24.6 percent of about 30,000 children aged between 10 and 19 surveyed across the nation had noticeable depressive symptoms, and the prevalence rate grows with age. However, national broadcaster CCTV noted in 2021 that less than 20 percent of people of all ages with mental illness have sought clinical help.

For the teens affected, the consequences can be deadly. This January, 15-year-old high school student Hu Xinyu, whose disappearance from his dormitory in October led to a three-month police search that dominated headlines nationwide, was found dead a few hundred meters from school near a voice recorder where he documented his wish to end his life due to academic pressure and trouble fitting in at school. In January of last year, 17-year-old Liu Xuezhou, whose search for his biological parents was widely followed by Chinese netizens over the past year, took his own life after relentless cyberbullying by trolls who accused him of trying to profit financially from his biological family.

Hangzhou-based counselor Xie Lin believes the stronger self-consciousness of the current generation of teens contributes to the rise in mental health issues. “They pay more attention to emotions than people our age used to,” Xie, who is in her 30s, tells TWOC. “When I was young, we didn’t know much about depression or anxiety. People would just tell you you’re in a bad mood.” Just this past February, Xie, who has a PhD in psychology, saw 68 patients from elementary schoolers to college students, and estimates around half of them are struggling with issues of mental well-being due to internet addiction, study fatigue , school bullying, and family conflicts.

Stigma surrounding mental illnesses sets barriers to teenagers seeking treatment and rehabilitation. “It was weird, as others didn’t have the same experience,” says Liu Hua, now a 21-year-old college student in Guangdong province, on the experience of telling others that she has heard voices since 2017. Liu began sharing her experience on social media platform Xiaohongshu last August to encourage others who suffer from similar symptoms to speak out, and says she received a comment from a follower who claimed that she was “too young” to be unhappy. “We are not this way on purpose, nor are we abnormal,” she says. “Some people say it’s because there’s something ‘dark’ about you psychologically that you are this way.”

Zhou Rui, a 19-year-old high school student from Shaanxi province who has suffered from severe depression due to academic pressure since 2020, tells TWOC that some of her teachers don’t see teen depression as real. “They don’t think kids can get depressed, and if you are diagnosed with depression, they will give suggestions like going for a trip with your parents,” says Zhou.

Parents’ all-consuming focus on academic achievement often leads them to overlook their children’s mental struggles. In 2019, Liu decided to suspend her studies for a year, but faced resistance from her parents at first. “They thought I was trying to escape studying and they were not sure if I could go back to school after a whole year away,” recalls Liu. Yu had a similar experience when she had to take frequent time off to escape from her bully in middle school. “Every time I asked for leave I would have a big fight with my parents. They thought I was too lazy to go to school and was using my illness as an excuse,” she says.

Xie, the psychologist, says it’s not uncommon for parents to view their children’s struggles as signs of laziness or weakness, rather than mental health issues. “This February, the father of a patient asked me, ‘We don’t want to go to work, but we still have to work. Why kids can’t get over their difficulties to go to school?’” she tells TWOC.

“Every time I asked for leave I would have a big fight with my parents. They thought I was too lazy to go to school and was using my illness as an excuse”

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