When Amy, a 16-year-old from Thornton, began to struggle with depression, she found herself alone with it.
“I missed a lot of school, like a few months of school, because of depression. I tried getting help, but my mom said, ‘You don’t have a reason to be depressed,’” Amy told lawmakers at a hearing last winter. “So I kind of stopped trusting her and wouldn’t tell her anything.”
She wasn’t 15 yet, old enough to access mental health care without parental permission, so she was stuck.
Many teenagers have found themselves in this situation, she said.