13 May “Is this all life’s going to be?” The reality of Post-University Depression
I have decided to enter the Mind Media Awards with my piece on post-university depression. My agreed criteria was a five-minute video accompanied by a 1,000-word article. My final piece consists of a 6-minute video and 983 word written article. The criteria for the awards were not very restrictive. Entries simply had to be published from June 2018 to June 2019, be relevant to mental health and challenge a perception on mental health, should include at least one first-hand testimony from someone suffering from a mental health issue, and should be written responsibly so as not to potentially harm anyone suffering from a mental health issue. I wanted to use this platform to tackle the issue of post-university depression because it is a massively under-researched topic that more people need to be aware of. In this way, I am challenging the perception of post-graduates finding it easy to transition from university life to working life and not being mentally affected by such a drastic transition. I wanted to provide a first-hand testimony in my content via a video. This was the easiest way to show how post-university depression can affect post-graduates, and also detail a whole story of handling post-university depression, and eventually moving on from it.
Three years of university later and you’re left with debt, anxiety, and a lot of uncertainty about the future. So why is Post-University Depression not more widely discussed?
Henna is a 24-year-old residential support worker. She graduated from the University of Northampton in 2016. After what she called, “the best time of [her] life” at university, she left the UK to do a placement abroad for two months, but then what? “I remember applying for jobs daily, sending about 5/6 detailed applications, cover letters, etc. But after a month I never got a response, and if I did it was a rejection of not having enough experience.” Henna continued to apply for jobs and continued to get rejected, which began to take a toll on her mental health. “I started to doubt all of my life choices to date. Wrong university, wrong course, wrong placement abroad, shouldn’t have quit the warehouse. I just stopped applying. I stopped talking or even communicating with all of my university friends.”
What Henna was experiencing was Post-University Depression. A largely undocumented mental health illness. In fact, when researching the topic, I found only one study that had exclusively conducted research with graduates on their mental wellbeing, and that was courtesy of the City Mental Health Alliance. Their study found that out of 300 students that they interviewed 49% of them admitted that their mental wellbeing declined after leaving university. My own study of 40 students across the UK concluded that 97.5% of them had suffered from post-university depression, and, more shockingly, 40% said that they were still trying to recover from it. So, what is the cause of post-university depression?
I’m afraid to say that there is no definite explanation. Post-university depression can be caused by many things, but after speaking to a handful of post-graduates the most common causes seem to be money, stress, and an increase of pressure. Alan Percy, head of counselling at the University of Oxford, wrote on the NHS student mental health page that “a lot of difficulties are not caused by medical problems, but by normal life problems, such as family, relationships, and anxiety about their [students] work.” This page is dedicated more heavily towards students currently at university rather than post-graduates, however, it is not hard to see how the issues he mentions can intensify after leaving university. The average student will leave university with a debt of £50,000 to pay off, a career to secure, and the pressure that comes from family and friends constantly asking if they have found a job yet.
Kayleigh Russell graduated from University in 2016. Similarly to Henna, being rejected for jobs contributed to low self-esteem which, in turn, caused her to question her choice to go to university in the first place. This was part of what started Kayleigh’s post-university depression.
The NHS Student Mental Health page outlines some of the key symptoms of depression as “feeling low, feeling more anxious and agitated than usual, losing interest in life, and losing motivation.” Out of the 40 post-graduates that I surveyed a loss of motivation was the highest symptom of Post-University Depression that graduates felt, with 87.5% of people saying that they suffered from it. This was closely followed by anxiety, which 77.5% of post-graduates felt, and a loss of interest in life, which affected 65% of people.
Christina felt all of these symptoms in full force after graduating from the University of Salford and still feels them to this day. “Not working in my desired field has reinforced anxious and depressive thoughts such as feeling like a failure, [feeling] inadequate and [feeling like] an imposter.” It wasn’t until January 2019 that she realised why she was feeling this way. “the reason I hadn’t fully settled was that I haven’t found my dream job/destination yet. I’ll be honest – it sent me right back to square one with my mental health, but I took steps to alleviate negative feelings such as taking a social media detox, removing unwanted connections and working towards my goals, no matter how long they might take to achieve.”
The City Mental Health Alliance survey on post-graduate mental health found that 44% of post-graduates felt that their friends were doing better than them, and a further 40% felt socially isolated. Social media can have a massive impact on mental health in general, however, after graduating and perhaps not landing the dream job, there is no question that seeing your friends being successful across social media will make you feel low. Dr Andy Cope, author of ‘Happiness: your route map to inner joy’, advises: “the platforms that showcase all your friends and those you follow with a career that you so desperately desire that gives them a flashy lifestyle. Those people may not be happy either, and even if they are, you’re not them.”
What shocked me the most when I was researching this topic was the severe lack of studies that have been done on post-graduate mental health. However, the results I received on my survey prove that post-graduates really do struggle with their mental health. When I asked the people, I surveyed what advice they would give to new graduates about post-university depression, their answers were varied. Some thought that the best course of action was to go into any full-time employment possible as a form of distraction. Others advise self-help books and apps to help graduates come to terms with the drastic changes in their lives. The one piece of advice that all the people I surveyed were unanimous on was the need for post-graduates to discuss their mental health: “talk! Be as open as possible. Don’t be ashamed to ask for help.”
Just remember: “You’ve already invested too much anyway, you might just as well keep going.”
