Blue Monday is apparantly the most depressing day of the year – there’s some debate over whether it was last Monday or today, the 24th of January – but because of a combination of poor weather and broken new year’s resolutions, one of these days is the most depressing day of the year!

According to Ben Goldacre, however, Blue Monday is a load of nonsense

“I reviewed the evidence from more than 30 studies over 130 years on the subject last year. Some find more suicide in spring and early summer, some in spring and autumn, some in summer only, some find no pattern at all…. Antidepressant prescriptions peak in spring, or in February, May and October. GP consultations for depression peak in May-June, and November-January). Admissions for depression peak in autumn, or spring and summer, while eight studies found no variation. So Blue Monday only really shows us how easy it is to take an idea that people think they already know, and then sell it back to them. Even if it’s false.”

I think Goldacre’s right to be cynical. I would treat ‘depression’ statistsics with extreme caution. Depression is such a subjective thing .

I inevitably come across a few cases of ‘depressed’ kids at college every year – some of which are obviously genuine – linked to real problems at home – others, however, are clearly not.

Colleagues have to run scared of the kid who thinks s/he’s depressed – in our child centred educational culture it is, after all, much safer for your career to accept their own self diagnosis and send the ‘depressed’ child off to counselling  – possibly enforcing the idea that s/he is depressed and leading to a self fulfilling prophecy. This alone is enough reason to treat the depression stats with caution.

However, I am not about to dismiss the idea of depression altogether – I fully understand that a cause of depression today might be due to a lack of fulfillment brought about by comparing one’s own life – or lack of it – to the media norm – which makes ‘normal life’ appear as if it is one non stop roller coaster ride of fun.

 If this is the source of depression – one needs urgently to take a reality check – life simply isn’t as interesting as the media suggests it is, and people aren’t that happy most of the time.

Finally, on the subject of depression – have a listen to this song by flogging molly – about the experience of Irish Immigrants working on the railroad in America – now this is depressing.