POST-UNIVERSITY DEPRESSION | Introduction

24-part series exploring Brian Mihov’s transition to life after university. It explores his struggles with mental health after graduating from McGill in 2013.
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Created by and starring: Brian Mihov
Written, shot, and edited by: Brian Mihov
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Instagram: / up.out.it_mentalhealth
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UP x OUT x IT | POST-UNIVERSITY MENTAL HEALTH produces video content that raises mental health awareness for current university students and university graduates (recent and not so recent), as well as for their families, friends, partners, and employers.
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UP x OUT x IT | POST-UNIVERSITY MENTAL HEALTH
Toronto, ON

[@upoutit-postuniversityment1522]

Hi all! My name is Brian, I am 27 and I graduated from McGill in 2013. During my undergrad I had no real reason to picture myself having to deal with mental health struggles, nor with mental health illnesses, once I was done school. I was getting good grades, had an amazing friend group, and I was confident in my ability to succeed after university. Simply put, I was very comfortable with my current identity - a student.
When university ended, the resulting shock and abrupt change took me completely by surprise. I was not ready. Losing my lifelong identity as a student, losing the structure provided by attending university, losing the day-to-day proximity to my core group of friends, all combined with a whole new set of options, expectations, standards, deadlines (real and arbitrary), as well as a whole new set of ways to compare myself to others, resulted in me spending my next few years dealing with those mental health struggles that I had no real reason to picture myself having to deal with while I was attending McGill.
2016 was the peak. Two trips to the ER, psychologists, psychiatrists, anti-depressants, and a day-to-day life that was usually centered on trying to get out of bed.
I was constantly in a debilitating internal debate between my emotions and my rationale. Whenever my emotions urged me to fully delve into and explore how I was feeling, my rationale would jump in and counter with things like, “toughen up, you got this, it’s just a phase, no one else is struggling as much as you, etc.” Picture the song Guilty Conscience by Eminem and Dr. Dre, but with Dre wanting me to explore my emotions and Slim telling me otherwise ("You know what, Dre. I don’t like your attitude.”)
Eventually, my rationale ran out of excuses and I opened myself up to what I was going through (sorry, Slim). From there, I slowly committed myself to learning more and more about myself in the context of a recent university graduate.
I wrote those last paragraphs with ease. However, the content in those paragraphs took me about 3 and a half years to become aware of and internalize. It is still uncomfortable to look back and realize that once upon a time I was struggling so much, and without any real concrete understanding as to why.
UP x OUT x IT is my humble contribution to raising awareness about post-university mental health. The first series, POST-UNIVERSITY DEPRESSION, is 24 episodes in which I go into my experiences with transitioning out of university, as well as certain things from my past that contributed to my struggles.
How has finishing university/college affected you?