Support boosted for depressed adolescents

Zhang Haimei has been struggling with her son's severe depression for nearly three years. He was absent from school for a year and was striving to return to normalcy when he faced the high school entrance exam in June.

She wore an auspicious red qipao to bring him good luck in the test. However, on the afternoon of the second day of the exam, he returned home and uttered the words she dreaded. "I won't do the exam," he told his mother.

It was not until after nine in the evening that his mood calmed down, and he agreed to do the exam the next day.

At the beginning of her son's illness, Zhang thought he had just encountered "a small setback" in the second year of middle school, but it turned into a major obstacle for him.

Math was her son's academic weakness, and the number of times he flunked the subject began to increase. When Zhang tried to talk to him about his grades, he would sometimes "suddenly explode," shout, throw things, and even lash out at his parents.

He gradually became addicted to video games and ignored his parents' attempts to break the negative spiral. In the second half of his second year in middle school, he opened a window in front of his parents and threatened to take his own life.

Zhang decided that he needed counseling for his depression.