by Sue Caulfield
Today, I called in sick to work.
I don’t have a doctor’s note (although I could probably call my therapist to get one). I didn’t really give a concrete reason, just, “I’m not feeling too hot.” When my boss says, “It’s quiet here, don’t worry,” it should make me feel better.
Instead, I feel guilt. I feel shame. I feel weak. I feel useless.
by Alexandria Pizziola
The task of creating a life for oneself is hard work, and it’s a task that I and people my age are faced with on a daily basis as we move to make the world view us as adults. The stress and pressure that accompany this act of finding our footing are large and unrelenting factors, and when I get together with or phone my friends, a variation of the following is nearly always uttered:
Why do I feel this way? This isn’t how I should feel; my life is great! Maybe I just need to try to be happier. I must be doing something wrong.
by Lisa Latronica
If you’re like most people, you have a picture in your head of what treatment for mental illness looks like. Maybe that image is a counter full of pills. Maybe it’s lying on a couch talking to a doctor with a clipboard. Maybe you think of stark white walls and people in hospital beds. And successful treatment means you don’t need medication or a therapist any longer.
There’s a whole list of stereotypes when we think of mental health treatments, and just because we’re in higher education doesn’t mean that we don’t have assumptions, too. I’ve been in treatment for anxiety and depression for four years and for an eating disorder for almost a year, and even I fall victim to jumping to conclusions about my own treatment. Like a lot of people, I thought that once I started medication and talked to a therapist a few times, I would be magically better and back to “normal.”
by Kristen Abell
On Saturday night, Santa Ono, the president of the University of Cincinnati, shared with an audience of 200 people – and then later with his Twitter audience of 70,000 – that he had tried to commit suicide at two different points in his life. Because of the work I do with mental illness in the higher education profession, it doesn’t feel like I can let this pass without comment. That being said, there’s something absurd about the fact that we get excited and celebrate someone in a position of power sharing such a difficult personal story of mental illness. Continue reading
by Sarah Wilson Merriman
There is a fine line between efficiency and mania in my book. I want to think that all I do is efficient. The shakiness in my hands and feet tells me that it’s sometimes mania, though. My body literally cannot keep up with my brain. I spend my days exhausted and unable to sleep for longer than a few hours at a time. On the other end of the spectrum, I have been described as the melancholy to a colleague’s sunshine. It was said with kindness and truth, as I am often melancholy, but is this the image that I want projected of me?
by Kristen Abell
A little over two years ago, Sue Caulfield messaged me through Google Chat with an idea and a dilemma. After seeing some of my blog posts about my struggles with depression and talking with a number of other folks in student affairs struggling from mental illness, she felt that it was time to do something. Together, we developed the Committed eSeries on the Student Affairs Collective blog – a series of blog posts with drawings by Sue (or suedles) written by a number of people within the field of student affairs about their struggles with mental illness. We had no idea then that this small attempt to do something would have such a huge impact on our lives.
by Sinclair Ceasar
You wake up. You don’t want to get out of bed because your thoughts won’t let you. Later you’ll want to explain this paralysis, but you’re ashamed of it, and you don’t quite understand it. You feel powerless. Your choices are to either start your day and face scary people and scary things, or to stay in bed forever. I hate waking up to this.
by Carly Masiroff
This one moment when you know you’re not a sad story. You are alive. And you stand up and see the lights on the buildings and everything that makes you wonder. – Perks of Being a Wallflower
I have always had an insatiable need to help others. When I saw a problem, I tried everything in my willpower to fix it, even if it ended up with unseen consequences. I needed to make others happy. I never knew why, I just knew I had to do it. To any ordinary person, even my closest friends and family, I seem to be tenaciously facing the world by day, while hiding a dark secret by night. Continue reading
by Jessica Fantini
Since my post last year a few things have changed. Most notably I worked with my therapist to be approved for an emotional support animal and adopted a nine-year-old female pitbull mix named Savannah in November. Then I switched jobs and moved back to New England in January. This has had several impacts on my life and my ability to take care of my mental health.
by Sarah Merriman
Last year I told a story of how I was committed to speaking my truth as an outside contribution to the Committed series. Since that day, so much has changed and at the same time, so little.
I continue to adjust medications, find comfort in a variety of forms of self-care, struggle, and live. Continue reading