To my horror, I discovered late last night that I am supposed to be depressed today. Today, it’s Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. It’s official! The third Monday in January makes you feel shit and if you wake up not feeling shit, then it’s your solemn duty to feel shit immediately. If you hadn’t worked it out yet, today is not the most depressing day of the year: it’s officially bollocks.
Being the gullible sort, I actually believed there might be something in this Blue Monday malarkey. After all, I despair of the short, dark, cold winter days and wish away large chunks of my life, wishing I could sleep through until at least 1st March, the first day of the meteorological spring. And the third Monday in January is roughly halfway through winter.
Having said all that, I used to wonder if Blue Monday really was the most depressing day of the year. 31st August, the last day of summer, was right up there, as was the day we put the clocks back in order to follow a tradition dating back to the first world war. Making things darker earlier is an especially stupid thing to do and I hate it.
Today, the skies could barely be more blue. Yes, it’s cold – it is bloody winter, after all – but with not a single cloud in the sky, I don’t feel especially low. Just normally depressed and having no desire to involve myself in a Texas synagogue siege, which was obviously the work of someone with mental health issues. That’s because there is no science attached to Blue Monday.
Someone made it up for a travel company trying to flog holidays, it’s as simple as that. And then the whole thing appeared on Facebook and Blue Monday became A Thing despite numerous articles, like this one exposing it for the absolute tosh it actually is.
Let’s be clear about this: clinical depression and anxiety is for life and not just for Blue Monday, which of course doesn’t really exist. I hope I’ve cleared things up a bit.
