January 21: The third Monday of January has been identified as the most depressing day of the year. This may be understandable given that the weather has become intolerable for many, the excitement of the holiday season has passed, and the bills are rolling in. It’s instructive to know that Blue Monday was first coined in 2005 by a travel company as a way to promote southern vacations. More recently, the date has become associated with a campaign to promote better mental health practices.
When I was a child growing up in the ’50’s and ’60’s there was very little public acknowledgement of “mental health” as – pardon the pun – a state of mind. It seemed that people were either “crazy” and put in a psychiatric hospital or they were “well”. The former psychiatric hospital on Queen Street was such a forbidding place that it was known by it’s street number alone: 999.* As a child, “mental illness” conjured images of violence, of people constrained in darkened hallways and cells; it was a thing to be feared.
It certainly did not conjure the image of a genteel summer gathering to celebrate the wedding anniversary of my 
grandparents. Yet here we are in 1962 with my grandparents on either end; their children and spouses toward the rear, and the children of my generation gathered at the front. For that split-second when the picture was taken, all was well with the world. We were to all appearances “normal”.
Yet recent conversations with my cousins elicit a different picture. My grandfather is believed to have suffered from a deep depression and is thought to have spent some time in a sanitarium. At least 3 of his children dealt with depression as well, some for many years. Among the cousins there is also depression, and addictions, anxiety, schizophrenia and 2 suicides. My own father was an alcoholic whose disease may have been at least partly attributable to a form of PTSD, having spent a period of time dropping bombs on cities during the war ( only 18 years before this picture was taken ). Several of my friends have also shared stories of their own, or their parents’ struggles with addictions, anger management and mental health issues.
A recent article in the Globe and Mail quoted a survey undertaken by the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) that …. “showed 11.7 % of the respondents reported experiencing mental distress in 2017, up from 7.4% the previous year. That represents an estimated 1.2 million adults in the province who struggled with issues such as stress, depression and problems with their emotions on at least 14 of the last 30 days. The proportion of respondents who reported having thoughts of suicide nearly doubled to 4.1% from 2.3% in 2016.”
Obviously, mental health issues have always been with us and it’s gratifying to me that we are beginning to recognize not only the extent of the problem but the cost to the individual and, more broadly, to society. Perhaps more importantly, I’m gratified that we are beginning to demythologize mental illness and trying to understand the reality that so many people face each day. None of us is perfect, certainly not as “perfect” as that picture from so long ago. In reality, mental health issues affect us all in one way or another each and every day.
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* When the rebuilding of the site was undertaken by CAMH, that address was deliberately left unused in favour of 1001 Queen Street in order to break the association with past history.
http://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/ontario-adults-reporting-increases-in-mental-health-problems