Gen Z aren't indulgent to focus on mental health

This shift represents increased education and awareness when it comes to mental health and wellbeing, and I think it's something to be celebrated. While performing well at a job is most certainly a good aspiration to have, studies have shown that you can’t work effectively if you’re burnt out, even less so if you’re dead.

I don’t make new year’s resolutions anymore: I have enough obligations I won't be able to meet, and I certainly don’t need to put myself under more pressure. Despite this, I do have one goal for this year, which is the same one I had last year, and the year before: stay alive, despite myself.

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The end of one year immediately feeds into the next and we are reminded once again of the unstoppable, unavoidable passage of time, an ouroboros of perpetual dissatisfaction. Combine this feeling with discussions about resolutions and life changes it might seem as though, by the time the countdown ends on Hogmanay, we’ve already lost.

The end of the year is full of unfinished lists and unaccomplished tasks, coupled with enforced festivity and mandatory merriment. It’s truly the most inconvenient time of year to be smacked in the face by a period of depression and yet, it’s SAD time.

Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD as it's commonly referred to, is said to be a combination of shorter days affecting vitamin d intake and a regular sleep pattern, the cold and poor weather, which cause many people to experience a distinct dip in mood and mental health at this time of year.

Whomever it was that came up with the initialism for seasonal affective disorder must’ve had it themselves, because calling a depressive disorder SAD speaks to a kind of dark humour that has to be forged in the fires of mental illness.

A winter walk can help some folk cope with SAD (Image: PA)

Throughout the festive period there is a paradox: the more family and friends come together to celebrate and make merry, the more isolating it can feel to be mentally ill; there’s often extraordinarily little room for your sadness amongst everyone else’s joy.

‘New year new me’ doesn’t quite hit the spot when you hate the old you and feel as though you haven’t changed at all.

I’m much too busy (and far too lazy) to journal, so I decided to get my writing done in one go. For the past few years I’ve been writing a poem that I hope never to finish, at the end of each year I add a verse on and celebrate another 12 months in which I didn’t kill myself.

It might seem morbid, but it’s actually a really rewarding and validating experience. I do this because I know that the winter months are usually the time when my mental health will be at its worst, and I want to have a physical reminder that I made it to the end of another year in one piece.

I have friends who will buy themselves an expensive bottle of something so they always have something left to enjoy, and friends who buy tickets to gigs a few months in advance so they have something they can’t miss. Obviously it’s therapy, medication and other treatments that will actually help keep people here, but having these special little rituals or pacts we make with ourselves can serve as a testament to our desire to live, despite mental illness pulling us in the opposite direction.

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The last time I wrote about mental health someone commented that the rise in mental illness seemed to be an entirely modern phenomenon, and that back in the good old days of their youth, people "just got on with things".

Of course, we know that mental illness has existed as long as brains have, and that as with many things, a lack of visibility does not equate to a lack of existence. Since receiving that comment a few months ago, I can't quite put that thought out of my mind, people struggling every day, unable or unwilling to articulate how they feel and what they need for fear of being a bother, a burden, a problem in the lives of those they love.

I know that an increased awareness of mental illness would've saved countless lives and improved the quality of many more, and that’s only considering the history of my own family and friends.

I think of those experiencing things like PTSD, SAD, postpartum depression, anxiety, or psychosis, hiding symptoms and struggles just to get on with things. I think we owe it to everyone who was unable to seek help, treatment, or support not to get on with things, but to let things get on with themselves for a while we address our mental illness. You are not a problem to be fixed, or a burden to be carried, and you should never have to keep your mental health a secret.

I’m very much not in a position to be giving advice, but if you too are struggling with your mental health and want to resolve to do anything this year, I hope it's to give yourself some grace, and to think on how much you've achieved just by showing up.

Last year was incredibly difficult for many people, and if you're reading this then you made it through, and for that I hope you're as proud of yourself as I am of you.

So if you have SAD, are sad or are just finding things a bit challenging right now, I wish you kindness – both from a world that can often let stigma preclude support, and from within yourself.

Whatever keeps you here, whether it’s seeing that gig, finishing that bottle, adding a verse onto that never-ending poem or just pure spite, I hope this year is one we both stick around for.

Even if, like me, your only ambition last year was to keep yourself alive, you’re already succeeding.