What if My Mental Illness is What Makes Me a Good Academic?
I will always remember a conversation in one of my graduate courses about what ‘self’ is, specifically in the context of artists who depicted their experiences with their own mental health in their work. Is there a ‘self’ that exists separate from the suffering that can be returned to? Does the ‘self’ become traumatized forever? Can one separate who they are from their hurt? And how does that understanding of ‘self’ impact producing something?
Because you are certainly not the first nor the last to ask this question, if their mental health is related their professional skills or their achievements. That conversation stuck with me because I had never heard it presented in that way before, and yet I recognized it instantly, too.
I think I recognized it because there are certainly symptoms or expressions of suffering that society praises and encourages; ‘things’ that are done that seem different than ‘who’ a person is. I have a suspicion this is something we all sort of notice in childhood for what we are celebrated for, the accomplishments and the achievements and the productivity or what is produced (or conversely what we are criticized for not reaching or achieving), and hardly ever for who we are as people, for curiosity or integrity or love for the world. And then we have that sneaking suspicion that we began to notice in childhood explicitly confirmed as we grow up (like in the case of your chair). I don’t know that this is true for everyone, but I do have a hunch that it’s frequently true.
Accomplishments and achievements and productivity connect not to PTSD, but to the ways your body and brain adapted to keep you safe afterwards. The ways in which functioning continues and existence persists. And it so happens that the adaptations your brain and body took to keep you safe are the ones that are frequently praised in society. (Which is to say that people whose brains and bodies keep them safe in other ways, by shutting down, withdrawing, shifting into irritability or aggressiveness, they don’t have the same experience of society ‘praising’ their adaptions).
Things like:
Expressions of increased alertness and attention to detail (otherwise seen as ‘stay ready so you never have to get ready’ / anxiety always on)
Frequent scanning for threats or problems (otherwise known as maybe having an awareness of emotional shifts in others or potential problems)
Attempts to prevent conflicts or ruptures (otherwise experienced as taking on responsibilities because it’s ‘easier’ to do it yourself or struggling to say no)
These types of behaviors in action are typically praised in children, the ones who are non-disruptive, get their work done, don’t ask much from adults, are aware of others needs, can defuse situations between peers, etc.
And these behaviors never really stopped being held up as traits or actions of ‘successful’ people, because they don’t disrupt the workflow or challenge productivity with humanness, right?
There is no gold star for the child who identifies emotions like disappointment or resentment during the school day when an adult gets something wrong, there is no celebrating of a child who is trying to get their sensory needs met but doesn’t yet have the language to communicate that, there is no congratulating a child on being brave when they ask for more help from an adult on a hard day.
Just as there is no celebration for an adult who takes a mental health day, there is no promotion for doing the job you’re hired to do but nothing more, there is frequently stigma and gossip toward the person who advocates for accommodations that allow them to be productive, and so on.
I acknowledge all of this to say that whatever impacted you in a traumatic way, whatever brought you into an office that brought you the diagnosis of PTSD, is not what makes you a good academic. The diagnosis nor how your body and brain kept you surviving after something so painful is not what makes you a good academic.
Do the symptoms of hypervigilance mean that you have been able to push past equilibrium to publish over ten papers a year, year-after-year? Yes.
But does publishing over ten papers a year, when your body is in overdrive trying to protect you, is that your true definition of what makes a good academic?
And if it is, should it be?
Is there part of you that wants to change that definition for yourself?
An academic, by definition, is a person who studies and/or teaches as part of their job.
There is no set number of publications that determines a ‘good’ academic.
I can recognize that there is probably a challenging aspect to reconcile here in that your external achivements, as in your publishing record, is of high importance to those around you in your institution. But just because they have a misguided sense of importance placed on a number of papers, and are noticing a shift, doesn’t mean your opinion of yourself as a scholar has to be different.
Does it mean a shift in your own understanding of high number of papers = good academic, yes. Does that mean unlearning that being ‘mid’ equates to publications? Also yes. So does that mean a good academic is only defined by papers and therefore that’s the only benchmark appropriate for determining if you’re a good academic? No.
I’d go so far as to argue that because you have more space in your brain without ideations and other exhausting drains that hypervilgence brings, that you’re probably a better scholar and academic now than before since you have room for new connections and thinking patterns and space as well as energy to spend on your topic that would have previously gone to keeping yourself alive and functioning.
The whole ‘when you feel better, you do better’ philosophy.
So now to confirm, clearly, I don’t think the repercussions of trauma, or the ways you coped to survive trauma, are what make you a good academic. Just as I never thought the artists from my graduate school courses were great artists because they suffered (many from childhood trauma).
I think both you and these artists were resourceful and creative, finding ways to get connection and encouragement from the world around you through your external accomplishments. You through a publication record and them through the showing or purchasing of their art.
But you, like the artists before, are allowed to do things differently with new information.
You’re allowed to slow down and heal. You have more to contribute to your field than publications. You’re allowed to spend your nights caring for yourself instead of editing a manuscript. You can explore other ways to be impactful in your institution that is sustainable for a person who is coming out of fight/flight/freeze.
Wishing you all the best on a change of expectations for yourself as an academic who is beginning to care for themselves in a meaningful way after much hurt.
Til next Sunday,
Dr. Sydney Conroy
Browse her academic tools | Subscribe for the next post straight to your inbox