Depends on how hard you look...

for mental illness

Since the deaths of my mother and my brother, I have researched and read a lot about mental illness and mental health episodes, or crises, whichever you want to call them.

Also, since the covid pandemic, I have been forced to think more about mental health issues as well. In part because I’ve had to deal with my own, I couldn’t ignore it. But it has also become strikingly apparent that many, many college students are really not okay.

There are so many that just seem so desperate, parched, dying for support, validation, and for someone to listen to them and to care about them. I’m not a trained therapist, but recognizing that my students are people having human experiences, and dealing with shit beyond college and beyond my class, is indeed a goal of mine. Educators don’t go into the profession for the money, for sure, so we hope to make a difference, establish relationships and make real human connections.

This broke my heart: Last semester, one student came up to me at the end of last semester, made eye contact with me, thanking me profusely for “caring about us…you know, just…as people.”

This emphasized, heartfelt thanks gave me pause.

Of course you’re people. As opposed to what? Students? Machines where you ought to produce all the time? Unrealistic expectations for sure, at any time, but especially during the time of a pandemic.

(I know I also do this because I have had amazing mentors and educators who cared about me as a person too and modeled for me the type of teaching relationships that I wish to cultivate.)

But I couldn’t help but thinking how sad this student’s comment made me. His tone and inflection made it clear that this was an anomaly; he really didn’t feel cared about by other professors.

It made me think about their battles, many of which we know nothing about, some external, some internal.

The truth is, that while many of my colleagues refers to our students as “kids,” not all deal with kid stuff.

I am amazed by some of the shit that some of these 18 year old college students have dealt with—deaths of parents, parents who abandoned them and others whose parent is an addict, having young children, selling houses when parents die, etc.

It’s a lot. Indeed age doesn’t necessarily mean, after all, that life experiences have been easy. We could all remember that in our approach to compassion and empathy.

And yet, I also understand that it is hard to be an educator now. We’re trying to deal with our own shit—aren’t we all?—Just…trying to survive in an educational setting during the time of a pandemic where the rules keep on changing—in person, online, in person, sometimes hybrid, etc, etc. We’re burned out and stressed. There aren’t enough hours in the day. And, of course, our own mental health suffers. We are not equipped as therapists, nor do we get paid any extra to play therapist, to advocate for mental health wellness. It is a lot of extra, emotional labor.

These are hard times for us all. But we’re also all vulnerable…We’re also all people in this together.

I thought about this recently when I came across the following quote:

“There are no people anywhere who don’t have some mental illness. It all depends on where you set the bar and how hard you look.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir