Why is no one talking about depression after university?
By: Amy Fox
Tags: Life, Depression, Mental Health

Every year, thousands of students’ lives change dramatically, often leaving them isolated, anxious, and even depressed. It’s time we started talking about it.

“Anxiety about Monday would start on Saturday night.” Post-university depression is not only real, but also rarely talked about. Photo: Flickr/pigeonpie

“Imagine sitting on a limb for a long time and, when you try to stand on it, you buckle under. You can’t get up. Everyone around you is standing up and telling you to do the same, but you just can’t. You dare not.”

Robyn Hall* graduated from university last summer. Despite being one of the lucky few to quickly find a job in her chosen field, she still struggled with the transition into her new life.

She described the difficulty of coming to terms with her feelings of depression.

“‘But you’re a graduate!’ my brain yelled at me. ‘Grow up!’ But the self-loathing continued. You leave a place you’ve been in for three or four years, where you developed so much, leaving behind the closest friends you’ve possibly ever had. Even if you do get a job, nobody tells you that once you ‘hit the jackpot’, you’ll struggle to make new friends; that 9–5 will leave you exhausted. You’re scared of not being good enough, that you won’t live up to expectations. It’s the ultimate disparity between representation and reality.”

Robyn is not the only one to struggle with depression after leaving university. When I graduated, I went from feeling the happiest I’ve been in my adult life, to the worst. By October I was jumping at sudden noises and afraid to leave my bedroom. When a year-long relationship suddenly ended, I didn’t know how to see past the black clouds pressing in on me.

I sought help from my GP, who referred me to a local mental health outreach programme. But in the end, it was time, a relocation, and support from friends that began to stabilise the feelings of anxiety and depression.

I can count graduates with similar stories on two hands — and those are just the ones close enough to confide in me. Every year, thousands of people’s lives are turned upside down when they jubilantly throw a hat into the air, then watch it come crashing down into reality. So why does no one talk about the feelings of hopelessness that so many are left with?

After all, with over 900,000 young people currently unemployed and benefits for under-25s constantly under threat, is it any wonder that mental health issues in young people are rising across the board?

I spoke to Matt Tidby, who stayed in his university town of Norwich following graduation, supporting himself with temp jobs. “The majority of the work itself was doable, if monotonous — but things like the telephone, where I was expected to advise on mortgages after about half-a-day’s training, left me hugely anxious and very unhappy. I suffered on a personal level, and lost a lot of confidence in my ability to do both that job, and any of the jobs I actually craved.

“Quite ridiculously, I lived in fear of being ‘put on the phones’ — I built that minor stress into a mountain of worry that blotted out everything. After about a month, the job applications stopped. I got into quite a destructive system of trying to make it to each weekend without things getting too shit to handle. Anxiety about Monday would start on Saturday night.”

Matt eventually left the job, recognising the damage it was doing, and said that things were beginning to get better. “It’s a daily, rapidly changing situation, really — a positive email or a phone call can reverse many days of feeling low. It’s a strange inversion of my time temping; whereas once I lived in terror of the phone ringing, now I urge it to. I’m more hopeful that it will.”

While researching this piece, I found very little information targeted specifically at graduates suffering from mental health problems, despite an article in the Independent last year that found that of 40 students and recent graduates surveyed, “95% believed that post-university depression was very much a real thing”.

With so little information available, I contacted the mental health charity Mind directly. Head of information, Beth Murphy, had this to say:

“Moving on from university is often the biggest change a person has experienced up to that point in their lifetime. Added to this, today’s graduates are facing the double-whammy of the debt associated with paying for university and a tough job market that can seem impenetrable.

“Financial stress and uncertainty around employment are major contributors to mental health problems like anxiety and depression. Mind has seen a surge in calls to our Infoline from people struggling with financial difficulties, many of them post-graduates. Our In the Red report actually found that 85% of respondents said their financial difficulties had made their mental health problems worse.”

So if post-university depression is “a real thing”, why does no one talk about it? Is this the same stigma surrounding mental health that affects all sufferers, or is there something else going on? Robyn believes that there is a pressure on graduates to feel grateful for their position.

“Once you get a 9–5 job, coping with depression can be worse. People are all over to congratulate you, help you in any way they can; you’re so afraid of disappointing everyone that you just let the guilt fester away. I think even in the media it’s not represented enough that you can do your ‘dream job’ and not feel right.”

So what can be done? Beth recommends communication above all else. “If you are worried about your mental health, confide in a friend or family member or speak to your GP. There are also lots of small things you can do to make yourself feel better — exercise can be hugely beneficial, releasing chemicals which help increase wellbeing and mood. Keeping in touch with friends is also important, as withdrawing from social contact can make things worse.”

Whether you attended university or not, being young and uncertain about your future is the perfect opportunity for feelings of anxiety to take hold. I’m constantly struggling with my own mental health, but I’m one of the lucky ones; I have a job to focus me, friends to listen when things get dark, and access to medical help. But the same can’t be said for everyone, and with mental health trusts asked to shave almost 20% from their budgets next year, that last, vital support system is more at risk than ever.

It’s time to stop suffering in silence and acknowledge depression after graduation as a real risk to young adults. And it’s time to stop cutting the very services that may well save their lives.

For information, support and advice please visit mind.org.uk or call Mind’s confidential mental health information service on 0300 123 3393.

To find out more about starting conversations and tackling mental health stigma, visit time-to-change.org.uk

*Names have been changed.