Darkness and Light: On Mental Health in Early Career Life

Foreword from the editor:
As awareness around mental health in academia has been increasing in recent years, it has become clear that mental health issues are prevalent among graduate students and early-career researchers. In particular, depression and anxiety are considerably more common among PhD students than in the general population. At the same time, evidence of high rates of burnout among academic staff is also emerging. Precarious employment, frequent moves, and a pressure to "publish or perish" are pervasive in academia, and means of support at host institutions are often lacking. Moreover, the associated stigma prevents many who are affected from seeking help.

For many of us, our peers are the closest thing to a support system we have at work, and they are also often in the best position to notice a change in behaviour in people who are struggling. It is therefore important that we as colleagues listen, show empathy, and engage in open conversations. Friends and colleagues in crisis have to know that they are not alone. Better yet, open and supportive discussions on mental health and stress in academia might help prevent such crises in the first place.

We would like to add to the conversation today by hosting a personal story about depression and grief on our platform. We are thankful to the author for speaking candidly about their experience, and for sharing it with us all.

Before you proceed: This is a post about depression and death by suicide. Reader discretion is advised. If you or someone you know are in crisis, please call for help. Hotlines and other resources are listed at the bottom of this post.

By an Early-Career Researcher

Surprise sharpens the grief of suicide. I sat behind my house for a morning cigarette, clutching coffee. My phone buzzes, it’s an e-mail from a close friend. The subject line of the e-mail only says the name of a mutual colleague. It feels like something eats the light. I had seen her only six months ago. She had produced a manuscript we had been working on and was preparing a proposal for a new project. She seemed vibrant to me. We laughed a lot. We made plans for the future. How could this happen to her? How could someone so bright be claimed by that darkness?

I wondered a lot about the kind of sadness that possesses us in those last moments. That sadness seemed to reach back at me. It was familiar. The surprise of this tragedy revealed how deeply we hide these feelings. I thought about how well I hid my own thoughts from my friends and family. I thought about how surprising it would be for them to know how close I had come to that place. I still worry about what admitting this means for my career and my relationships.

The first and only time I sought therapy was during the middle of my Ph.D. program. I had really resisted taking this step. I almost put down the intake form and walked out when I read a question about suicide. I worried that answering honestly would raise alarm about the wrong thing. I thought about suicide all the time. But these thoughts were not concrete or rational. It seemed like I had a bad neuron somewhere in my brain and every nth thought would come out as “you suck, kill yourself”. It would flash like a single lit window on a passing subway and be gone. It made more sense to me to live with the darkness rather than to banish it. For me, it took considering suicide to understand how much I had to live for, even in the most troubled times. It didn’t really seem like it was up to me, anyway. I stuck with the therapy sessions for a few months, but the therapist never pressed me on my thoughts of self-hatred and I never opened up about it.

A thought occurred to me that morning in my yard. The darkness does not care what you have to live for. My friend was strong. We worked together on a large archaeology project working in a truly remote region of the world. We documented the local vegetation by hiring canoes to carry us through inundated swamp forests in search of identifiable fruits and flowers. These were good days, searching for the tiniest fruits and flowers in the shade of the forest canopy. She was full of laughter. She wore red lipstick in the field and it made perfect sense. But she was also gravely serious about the science, refusing to identify something unless she was absolutely positive that it was correct. We filled dugout canoes with branches and flowers then brought them back to camp to be identified and photographed.

This grief is peculiar because it is so remote. This is a product of the increasingly international nature of our professional lives. I have only had my current post for a little over a year and my new colleagues do not know my friend or anyone in my community who were mourning her. So, I cannot embrace my former colleagues and I do not know how to explain it to my current coworkers. Against the backdrop of isolation, the darkness finds its foothold. These are the risk factors shaping the epidemic of mental illness and suicide among young professionals inside and outside of the academy. Only weeks before my friend’s suicide, news had circulated that another person within my small sphere of researchers had taken their life.

The last weeks have been difficult. Everything in the world rolls by at a fever pace and there is no time to love the small things or to mourn those who loved them. Our fretting about the economy and politics blinds us to all the shades of green we used to know. I worry that it dulls our memories. My own isolation is fertile ground for depression, in spite of all of my good fortune. I cannot take time to deal with this because there’s a lab to run, students who rely on me, and so many projects that need to be done. And now, weeks after first writing this piece, we all find ourselves more isolated than ever.

A part of me is really angry. We put ourselves in these positions, individually and collectively. The frantic nature of academic life keeps me from making the time to deal with this. I keep thinking I’ll do it tomorrow. Or that I just need to finish the next thing and then I’ll be ready to call a therapist. I can’t let anyone down or admit to it. These behaviors are as risky as smoking and the outcomes are almost as certain. Many are furious at the notion that we would go back to work to save the economy at the expense of other people’s lives. Why are we not equally enraged at a system that grinds us down and snuffs out our light with the same certainty? Are we not equally disappointed in ourselves for supporting it?

Giving advice about depression and suicide doesn’t seem right. I’m a decent scientist in the field and in the lab, but I am not a mental health professional. All I can do is recall what seems to set off my depression and the interventions that seemed to help. One of the worst episodes for me took place after my mentor took a new position halfway across the country. I was fond of the state school I was at. I had a band and many friends. I was seeing a therapist. It is well known that moving is psychologically challenging, but this move felt traumatic to me. It was coupled with some deep personal losses and I already felt empty when I arrived at my new program. The University bureaucracy added more courses to my program. I picked a new committee, scheduled my defense/exams, and failed them. I drank myself to sleep every night. I woke up every day, held my head in my hands, and said “god fucking damn it”.

The things that saved me were not the things that I thought they would be. Interacting with the other students was awkward, but it got better with time. Cultivating friendships required asking for help and offering it when the time came. Everything within me resisted showing up in public, but that was the only thing that worked. It has never been easier to bail on each other. I’m tempted to say that it is worse in the academy, but I’d be wrong. Other people showed up for me and that made all the difference. Showing up closed the circle of cooperation. I guess I do have some advice for everyone: show up. I’ll always be grateful to the people who showed up for me.

Still, that kind of advice seems trite in the shadow of this kind of loss. I suppose I want there to be something that we can do. But first we all must choose to show up for ourselves, every day. It is easier to do some days than others. Writing this convinced me that it is time to call a therapist again. I suppose the first thing we will talk about is this: how can we choose to live if dying isn’t an option? Can I continue to keep the darkness at arm’s distance, knowing that it might come for me someday? If we could talk about this openly, then we would know how many of us feel this way. Maybe then we could see that every choice to show up matters. It won’t guarantee that sadness and tragedy will not visit us, but we might appreciate that our choice to stand against it matters.

Writing this feels selfish. I had started writing this in hopes of honoring my friend’s life and admitting my own darkness seems inappropriate, but I am willing to gamble that I am not alone. What if we didn’t stand against the darkness alone? Against a backdrop of thousands of lights, might the darkness become the spiral of the Milky Way? The night will always be with us, but we may yet radiate light, inspire stories, and clear the path for those that follow us.

There’s nothing that will replace my friend’s light, but I will hold it in my heart forever. That light helps me find the courage to be honest with myself. I can’t speak for the long term, but I promise to show up tomorrow and I hope you do too.

Addendum, July 15, 2020.

I called a therapist last week and plan to share this piece with them sometime in the coming days. My heartfelt thanks goes out to the PAGES ECN blog team for helping publish something difficult, but necessary. Keep showing up, everyone. We need each other now more than ever.  

Fireflies at dusk

 ___________________________________

This post has been anonymized to protect the privacy of the people involved. Messages to the author can be sent to pages.ecn.blog@gmail.com or left in the comment section below.

Suicide prevention hotlines worldwide:

1)     Suicide Stop – Call a hotline

2)     suicide.org – International suicide hotlines

3)     International Association for Suicide Prevention – Crisis Centres

Crisis hotlines suitable for people who are deaf or hard of hearing:

1)     Crisis text line (US, Canada, UK, Ireland)

2)     Suicide prevention lifeline – Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Hearing Loss (US, online chat)

Further reading:

1)      Suicide prevention – information for family and friends

2)      Suicide prevention – help guide if you are feeling suicidal

3)      WHO fact sheet on depression