As someone with an avid motivation to de-stigmatise mental health conditions and create a safe environment for its conversation, I’m obviously overjoyed to see the increase in ‘self-help’ guides, talks about how ‘we all have mental health’ and associated campaigns. But I’m also becoming increasingly worried.
Before, people were fighting for the recognition of any mental health influence on their day-to-day life and since a rise in research and campaigning it has certainly become a lot easier to explain just how much conditions like depression can debilitate someone.
However now the recognition is here, I worry we are now faced with the desensitisation of mental disabilities. Individuals acknowledge a psychologically induced struggle, yet they plaster it into the ‘everyone has mental health’ bracket and completely miss the term ‘disabled’. They thus point the sufferer in the direction of support mechanisms created for the generic experiences of stress and upset one might encounter in a school or workplace.
There are three key places I’ve seen examples of this occurring, with each instance as damaging as the others for a number of varied reasons.
The first one, is the over prescribing of anti-depressants for mild mental health symptoms.
Anti-depressants, (as I explain in more detail in Episode 13 of my podcast), are common medication given to address experience of low mood and anxiety symptoms, typically in the form of ‘Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors’, or ‘SSRIS’. These interact with the serotonin system in the brain to increase the amount of serotonin we are receiving. Starting on a low dose, SSRIs take a few weeks to build up, and may require further monitoring to adjust the right dose before any positive response is observed. They have their acclaim, but they also have their criticism.
In the UK over the past few years, the prescribing of anti-depressants has sky-rocketed, with a reported 8.6 million NHS patients prescribed a form of anti-depressant between 2022/23 in England.[1] While one could argue that the rate of depression and anxiety has indeed increased, there is also a concern that GPs are over-prescribing the drugs after identifying just a few indicators of low mood and are not fully considering the side-effects of this shift.
Concerns of this over-prescribing include a build-up of resistance, the depiction of the drug as a ‘magic pill’ and the potential long-term effects of these drugs on cognition[2] and emotional experience[3].
My own experience, further confirmed by peers, was that low mood and anxiety was being seen in everything. GPs weren't stopping to consider whether symptoms were genuinely reaching a reasonable threshold for a mental health condition, and, after recognising a few mirrored traits, prescribed a drug they knew worked in the short-term and that was it.
[NB. I've met some really good GPs who weren't like this, but there are an alarming number who are.]
One of my top concerns, is the social recognition of antidepressants, particularly in the undergraduate student community. I know I am not alone in recalling the many jokes surrounding ‘has anyone got any sertraline?’ or ‘gotta go take my drugs’, or the knowing smirk when someone downed a white tablet with a pint of red bull or coffee. While not wishing to be singled out as a unique medication taker, the united experience or rather, expectation, of taking antidepressants among peers began to devalue the reason of why they were being taken.
This devaluing risks shifting the norm, creating a new level in which depression is to be expected and a healthy mind is to be envied, yet always out of reach. In my student experience, so many individuals recognised and took SSRIs that it became more of a ‘join the club’ instance, making those who indeed did not struggle with low mood isolated, separated by self-depreciating group jokes and bonding time over some quite tricky side-effects.
In a way, the new ‘clique rule’ was to take antidepressants.
The second, is the over-use of the term ‘depression’.
When someone says they are “diagnosed with general depression”, it refers to a series of symptoms sustaining for 2 weeks or longer, that include but are not limited to: continuous low mood, lack of motivation towards previously enjoyed activities, feeling more restless or exhausted and the development of sleep difficulties.
When someone says “oh my gosh I’m so depressed” its often because they are exhausted by the coffee machine at work after burning the midnight oil on a piece of project work and feel the need to melodramatically complain to a fellow colleague. (My apologies for being petty).
The term "depressed" has become overused to describe ordinary emotions, diluting its true meaning. This leads to situations where someone says, "I'm depressed," and the response is, "me too lol," trivializing their struggle and leaving them feeling misunderstood or ignored.
What then occurs, is the generation of my third instance.
The mis-acknowledgement of high-risk mental health conditions for day-to-day emotional fluctuation, resulting in the inappropriate provision of various self-help guides that only distract, not solve.
I’m a massive fan of indulging in ways to independently support your mental health, particularly those that lean away from, or provide parallel therapeutic relief alongside medication. I’ve spent a lot of time advocating on mindfulness practice, exercising and introspection, a few of the number of things we can do outside the walls of therapy, doctors clinics and hospitals.
What I dislike is when people assume that since yoga and scented candles gave them an elevated sense of inner peace, it can pull someone back from the brink of suicide or a manic episode. These assumptions obscure proper support for those with severe mental health issues, discourage effective treatment and support structures, and blur the line between science and pseudoscience.
I do not negate the impacts of meditation or yoga or eating certain foods to ensure a healthy gut, but I also am aware of those who have grown angry over these suggestions. Firstly, because if it were that simple, then we wouldn’t have a shortage of qualified psychologists and secondly, because they consider such attitudes to entirely dis-engage with the severity of the situation:
For many, mental health struggles are a legitimate disability, and yet it is not being regarded as one.
In address severe, complex mental health conditions, all perspectives need to be considered without social media self-help trends infiltrating societal perspective and undermining genuine support. These things do indeed help in moderation to temporarily alleviate some symptoms, but they are not identifying the root cause and they are rarely the answer to severe conditions that can completely shatter someone's life.
Now we have growing recognition of mental health conditions, we need to keep advocating for their potential disabling impact and shift understanding towards a positive light. We need to continue to challenge people when they make desensitising comments, or over dramatise an experience that makes a cheap joke of a genuinely terrifying condition.
Keep pushing for well researched, individualised support where you can and reach out to others who share experience of a similar condition. Speak to a psychologist - don't worry if the first one isn't good enough, keep searching. You are valued, you matter and you will be taken seriously.
A few places of guidance and interest
For students: https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowance-dsa
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