Stop flogging me ‘September scaries’. I’m not a child

Despite what my inbox tries to tell me, the end-of-summer blues and the return to work are nothing more than mildly upsetting

Every now and again a neologism becomes so ubiquitous that I’m forced, with a groan and a sense of defeat, to google it. And so it was with the “September Scaries”.
I’d heard the expression used once or twice over the years, always in reference to children and the “back to school blues” they might experience in the first week of September, after (what feels like) a six-year-long holiday. But this was something else.
This was peppering my Inbox several times a day. “Five ways to beat the September Scaries”. “Rewire your brain against the September Scaries”. It was all over my Instagram feed too – “Help! The September Scaries have officially hit!” – and the lead feature in my New York Times: “Do you have a case of the ‘September Scaries’?” This, it turned out, had nothing to do with kids.
It took a moment for the full horror to sink in. Were we really now treating going back to work after a holiday as a traumatic event? Are we really infantilising adults to this extent? Even in a world where times tables are viewed as traumatic to children, this seems borderline obscene.
It’s not a joke, either. I know this because there’s actually a “stigma” around the September Scaries. I’d argue that this isn’t unfair, given claims you’re suffering from this preposterous addition to our smorgasbord of modern ills does make you a giant baby. Nevertheless, it’s a stigma therapists on both sides of the Atlantic seem to be working hard to dispel. “If you find yourself mired in malaise and panic, a good first step is to figure out exactly what is bothering you,” suggests one. “Is it that you took a vacation and won’t have another one for a long time? Or is it that you love all the activities associated with summer, but you won’t be able to enjoy them again for many months?”
Both of those things are, indeed, mildly upsetting, but you know what? I think I’ll still manage to crawl into my office chair today and get the column written, before taking to my bed again, with a sedative and a self-help book on 4-7-8 breathing techniques. If those don’t work, maybe I’ll try and consumer my way out of the September Scaries in the way so many companies are goading me to do in their mail-outs. Perhaps I’ll beat them by buying myself an Autumn poncho or booking myself in for a Balinese four-hander.
Ironically, when I asked my 12-year-old whether she felt any whiff of the “Scaries” she looked bemused. “What’s not to love about September? New notebooks, a brand new pencil-case. Feels like you get to start everything fresh, you know?” Oh, I do.