Sometimes you read something so utterly stupid, so utterly nonsensical, that you think to yourself, “Did I really read that?” Unfortunately, that’s what people usually say when they read my latest offering on this blog. “Did I really read that?” But today, it’s not just me. Allow me to reintroduce you to the former boxer Frank Bruno. He’s come out with this absolute gem: “Afternoon so today said to be the most depressing day of the year? I can speak with depression experience it starts with yourself. You need to get hold of yourself do some exercise, get fresh air be positive the 1st step to “lifting the cloud” starts with you.” Dear old Frank is one of the most popular ex sportspeople in the UK, but here he reminds us that if you need advice on mental health it’s probably not a good idea to ask someone who spent much of his life being punched in the head for a living.
Frank’s first mistake is when he says today is “said to be the most depressing day of the year.” No it isn’t. In fact, the origin of so-called Blue Monday, which falls on the third Monday of January, is a sales ploy. In 2004, Blue Monday was invented by psychologist Dr Cliff Arnall, who devised the formula for the bleakest day to help a travel company sell holidays. It goes like this:
[W + (D-d)] x TQ M x NA
The equation is that there are there are seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action. If none of that makes any sense at all, then don’t worry: it’s all a load of bollocks.
The only reason we hear about it every year isn’t because it’s real; it’s because people keep going on about it every year. People like Frank Bruno. And if you ask me, it’s downright dangerous to talk about a serious illness in such general and simplistic terms. It may well be Frank’s experience that “lifting the cloud starts with you”, but that is not how everyone sees it. My experience is that depression prevents millions of people taking exercise. Mental illness can be a very serious condition and the idea that everyone can cure themselves be laughable, except that it isn’t funny at all. No one talks about other illnesses in the same way as some people talk about mental illness. No one says this to someone who has cancer: “Afternoon so today today is the most cancerous day of the year. I can speak with cancer experience it starts with yourself. You need to get hold of yourself, get fresh air be positive the 1st step to curing cancer starts with you.” Unless that first step involves going to a doctor.
It’s not just dear old Frank, is it? This sort of cretinous nonsense is found all across social media, repeated and shared by people who have no understanding of what mental illness in general and depression in particular can do to a person. His advice is akin to saying someone with depression, “snap out of it“, “stop feeling sorry for yourself” and “everyone feels sad sometimes“.
Like Frank, I can speak with “depression experience” and as with any other illness, as soon as you have symptoms seek not the advice of a former boxer but a doctor. Just like with cancer. Know what I mean, ‘Arry?
