It’s that time of year where once more the tabloid press, bloggers, online media etc. will be telling us all that next Monday (20th January 2020) is Blue Monday; the most depressing day of the year.
The concept of the 3rd Monday of the year, being the most depressing day, stems from an article for Sky Travel magazine in 2005 by Cliff Arnall who at the time of the publication going to print was a tutor of psychology at Cardiff University. The original publication went viral, and before long companies (including Specsavers, Northern Rail, Edinburgh Camber of Commerce, etc.) produced products and advertising campaigns to jump on the Blue Monday bandwagon. Even some mental health charities continue to keep the hashtag trending !
Interestingly enough, Cliff Arnall now has a campaign called #StopBlueMonday to try and turn the tide of literature against the misunderstanding of Blue Monday formula that he created. However, it is a bit of a Pandora’s box, as there are already social media hashtags trending for #BlueMonday one week ahead of the 3rd Monday of January 2020.
You could argue that it is “just a bit of fun” or that it “raises serious issues“. Yes to both, but there are better ways to highlight mental health and wellbeing, that are based on good quality science. It will eventually be good and robust science, that will help with improving people’s poor mental health and wellbeing, or prevent poor mental health from taking over people’s lives in the first place. Liking and sharing articles about Blue Monday on Facebook, or retweeting the hashtag on Twitter, or buying the Daily Mail to read up on it, helps to spread misinformation. Misinformation erodes our quest for knowledge as we develop cognitive biases, such as confirmation and selection bias, which can lead the masses seeing academics as part of the social elite, which can lead to all kinds of societal problems (you only need to look at the damage the “anti-vaxxer” movement or “pro-plaguers” have created in recent years).
Real depression isn’t simple. You can’t come up with a simple equation like the one used for Blue Monday (and that equation isn’t even mathematically correct according to Dr Ben Goldacre in his Bad Science column for the Guardian newspaper). Depression is an over used word “I’m so depressed” meaning, I am a little bit down; or “That’s so depressing” referring to my liking of a 1983 house classic by my teenage son. True clinical depression is disabling, it is a chronic condition that impacts on your relationships, your work, your daily functioning. It is a horrible condition that according to the World Health Organization effects around 264,000,000 people world wide. It is the leading cause of disability worldwide, and has a significant stigma attached to it. By trivializing depression through Blue Monday, we are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy for those who are genuinely struggling, as well as for those who aren’t struggling with their mood.
If you want to know what depression is like, watch this short animated clip below from Matthew Johnstone who is an illustrator, author and public speaker.
What depression is really like
If you want to help someone with depression, don’t promote Blue Monday, but instead promote everyday as a day to improve your mental wellbeing. Talk to your friends and family, read up on the 5 Ways to Wellbeing and take action.
If you are struggling with your mental health, you can find out where to get support here.
Just to give you a heads up, this post will talk about mental health and wellbeing, and suicide. If you are feeling vulnerable at this moment in time; maybe bookmark this post for a later date, when you are feeling a little stronger. Please do check this page on where to get support for your mental health, should you need some help right now.
I’ve worked in health and social care for 25+ years. Over that time, I have worked in acute learning disability services, substance misuse services, sexual health, HIV+ community drop-in, care leavers supported housing, and youth work project. In the last 15 years or so, I have worked in mental health services in acute child and adolescent, and also in acute adult services within the NHS in both metropolitan and rural areas. More recently, I have worked in university campus-based services within student support, initially as a mental health adviser, and currently, I am now a manager of a Mental Health and Wellbeing Team.
The Ambleside campus of the University of Cumbria
I love working with students, they are such a diverse bunch of people. There are stereotypes of students that still persist from the 1960s that they are all on the radical left, and protest lots, and smoke copious amounts of cannabis, and drinking Real Ale. This stereotype has remained in the public eye through the 1970s and ’80s and exacerbated with the BBC comedy “The Young Ones“. But the reality is that the stereotypes are just cliches and oversimplified beliefs that we have of others. The reality is much more complex. Students are by enlarge in the 18-21 age bracket, but many more adults are returning to education later in life. I myself didn’t go into Higher Education until my late 20’s, and I was very much the first person to do so from my immediate family. Like most other students, I enjoyed university life; the studying side, as well as the social side.
However, for many students, university can be a difficult period in one’s life. For traditional undergraduates, it can be the first time living away from home; it can be isolating, bullying in halls can occur, being away from family and friends and other support networks. For other types of students, it might be having to give up a good income, caring for children on top of studies can also be quite a challenge. For most students, it will be the first time that they have really had to think differently, to be more critical. There will be some students who have additional difficulties, such as coping with a disability, including a mental health condition.
Indeed, over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of students declaring they have a mental health condition, and this has been well documented in various reports and good practice guides in recent years. In the 2017 IPPR report, “Not by Degrees“, Thornley identified a five-fold increase in the number of students declaring a mental health condition. There could be a whole range of reasons for this increase, partly linked to the stigma of mental illness slowly being eroded, partly because the awareness of the range of support for students with disabilities (including mental health conditions) is becoming more known, and other reasons will also exist (but that will be getting political, so I am going to leave it here for now).
There has also been an increase in student suicides in recent years, and there has been some Suicide-Safer Universities guidance from Universities UK and Papyrus on how university leaders can work towards preventing further suicides. This is something I was particularly interested when it was first published. Surprisingly, it isn’t as researched informed as one would hope, but it is certainly a step in the right direction. What we do know about student suicides is that they have increased in recent years, however, students are at no higher risk than other adults outside of the higher education sector.
We also know that around 80% of students who take their own lives are not known to specialist counselling or mental health support services. This isn’t unique to the UK but is known to be the case in the USA too. But those students who do die from suicide, are known to someone, a peer, a tutor, a residents life officer, a librarian, a receptionist, etc. Can training non-clinical staff help? Gatekeeper training (as it is collectively referred to), is often recommended by many good practice guidelines, including the suicide-safer universities guidance listed previously, and in other guides, such as the Universities UK #StepChange . However, very little is known about the benefits of rolling out such training, and equally, we don’t know what risks can happen with such training.
We know that some of the students who die because of suicide often faced barriers to accessing help. Examples of barriers include ambivalence regarding treatment outcomes from specialist services, and also the stigma associated with accessing counselling, psychotherapy, or mental health services have been documented by Czyz et al (2013), long waiting times have been identified as a barrier by Arria et al (2011), who also found that poor knowledge of where to get help, is also a barrier.
It is that last point that I want to pick up on, with regards to the Cameron Grant Memorial Trust, and the Cameron Coasters. Anyone who has ever worked in a campus-based counselling service will know that promoting the service can be quite a challenge. During Freshers Fairs, when young eager and bewildered students first arrive on campus, the vast majority are usually wanting to find out which bars in town have the best offers, where they can get a free pizza, and the what, where, when of their first lecture. Very few are interested in a talk from the counselling service on how to get support if they are struggling emotionally, and the leaflets often end up in the bin. The Cameron Coasters is a bit of a game changer. Not only are they informative, but they have another use! They can prevent a coffee/beer stain from forming on your desk whilst you work (or watch another box-set on Netflix/Amazon etc.). You might be excited to have started your undergraduate/postgrad/PhD studies, but if things take a turn for the worse later on, then the coaster might be there. It might breakdown one of those barriers to accessing support (namely, knowing where to get such support).
The Cameron Coaster for the University of Cumbria
For those of you who haven’t seen my previous posts about the Cameron Grant Memorial Trust, they are a small charity set up by Carol and Evan Grant. Their son, Cameron, died by suicide in 2014 whilst a student at University. Carol and Evan came to the University of Cumbria where I work, around 18 months ago to talk to staff and students about Cameron, and the work they now do for the charity. They also produced, and then printed thousands of Cameron Coasters for the University of Cumbria, for free. They have produced thousands of coasters for various organisations including schools, colleges, universities, and police forces across the UK. Anecdotal evidence has suggested that students and staff at the University have found them invaluable, to hand, they have the details of how to get support on and off campus.
Moved by Cameron’s story, and the charity’s generosity, I decided to fundraise for them. I raised a small amount on my birthday via Facebook, but now, I plan to ride the Coast 2 Coast this summer to raise more money for this worthwhile cause. If you would like to donate, please click here to get to my Total Giving webpage.
