Growing up, I had a great home life.

I had two parents who loved me and a strong adult support around me. I had a brother who was fantastic, as well. Were someone to look at my childhood for adverse experiences in the home, they wouldn't have found any.

Simply put, I was privileged, and I'm blessed for that. For almost all of my childhood, I knew that my family loved me and I had their support. I met most of the criteria that would seem to suggest resiliency.

Maybe that's why it was hard for some people to understand when they learned that I struggled with depression.

Preparing to go into a mental health field, I've noticed that we, as a society, focus a lot of our attention on the impact of children's experiences in the home, and we should. The home is where the primary attachment relationships form and where we get a chance to form our first opinions about what the world might be like.

The trouble, however, is when we only look at adverse experiences in the home as a predictor of negative mental health outcomes.

Granted, here I am speaking only from my own experience. Empirically, I understand why both social and mental health workers focus most of their attention on those with difficult home lives. We know that there can be a link between such experiences and negative health outcomes in adulthood.

But when I was an adolescent, no one really seemed to notice or question whether or not I was depressed. The issue for me was not my home life; it was excellent. Rather, it was my lack of strong attachments amongst my peers. I didn't have strong friendships, at least not with someone that lived close to, during my time in high school.

That's why, in my opinion, at least, we need to pay attention to social life as a potential indicator of childhood/adolescent difficulty as well.

Of course, my situation was different than many. I don't blame anyone for not noticing that I was struggling with my own self-image and self-worth; I appeared well adjusted, having been a successful student-athlete and the homecoming king. I wonder, too, if people knew that I had strong support at home and thus thought I would be alright. In the end, I did make it through and today I live well.

My only contention here is that those who want to help focus their attention on the larger ecology of an individual's life. They focus on those things that influence them even beyond the home.

There will, sadly, always be people we miss. There will be those individuals who slip through the cracks. It is true that adverse experiences in the home are probably most predictive of difficulty, and those who are inclined to help others should be aware of that. All that I propose is that we remember that home life is not the only significant influence on an individual's well-being.

By focusing on the whole person and not solely on the very important aspect of home life, we might be able to help a few more individuals. To me, that is a worthy goal.