Academia- breaking you, consuming you.

So for Mental Health Awareness week I've decided to do a few 'mini blogs' across the week, about things that have affected my mental health, things that have and haven't helped...all in the interests of talking more honestly.

None of this is designed as professional advice, I'm not a professional. None of this is a universal experience. But it's my experience, and I think the more we all talk about it, the better we'll understand each other.

Starting at the start, A is for academia. (these aren't really alphabetical but it seemed as good a place as any to start).

Mental health and academia. Where to start?

Probably the second biggest thing to impact my mental health in my life. And certainly the most long-lasting of effects. Why is academia so damaging?


Firstly, it's a toxic environment. It's a place that pits people against each other in a way that's almost Gladatorial. Since I started my PhD in 2010, I've seen things go from 'competitive industry' (nothing wrong with a bit of healthy competition') to 'fight of endurance' to 'fight to the death'

I WISH I was exaggerating. But the competition for jobs, funding and an all-around sense the sector is imploding faster than the Death Star, means, things are rough. And instead of collegiate, people get vicious. It's just the nature of the beast and humanity I guess.

More than this circumstantial shift however, it's bred into academia to be damaging.

Take the whole PhD structure. Done right it's an exercise in academic rigor, stretching and pushing yourself in a healthy way to achieve rewards. Done right it should build you up, both academic and personally to move on to the next stage of your career.

More often it's done badly, with breaking down of PhD students seems to have become the default setting by institutions. It's supposed to be hard, it's not supposed to break you.


For me personally, I had the shit time to end all shit times in my PhD. And I got spat out the other end at the point where the sector and jobs were at an all-time low. Here's a quick list of things that broke down my mental health during the process:

• Self-funding, the stress of supporting myself combined with the judgment from others for doing so (there is no hierarchy, whether you fund it yourself or get the funding it still says Dr in front of my name)
• See also being a working-class academic, with no family 'support' in the sense nobody has been through this stuff. 
• Conferences, as an introvert, dyslexic working-class woman. Not being able to afford things at conferences. Not being able to afford to go to conferences. 
• Working 3-4 jobs. Pulling pints alongside students I also taught. 
• My only supportive supervisor leaving (I don't resent or blame them for one second, but it ended my support system). 
• Two supervisors who hated, and I'd go as far to say bullied me at times. 
• Questions over my sexuality from a supervisor (the lesbian hatred of bisexuals is real y'all). Questions of sexuality and my 'right' to work on 'gay male' material. 
• Dyslexia and the judgment/lack of support around that. I was accused of lying about proofreading. 
• Dyslexia making me struggle, and having no support in the actual process of studying. 

These are all things that were VERY specific to my bad experience. But a list of other things academia does that breaks down mental health include:

• The attitude of 'break them down to build them up' on PhD students...except without building them up. 
• The 'pay your dues' and 'in my day we had to' attitude that doesn't take into account the additional challenges for today's PhD students. 
• Three years or more of constant criticism of your work, which does feel personal, no matter what. 
• Sacrificing everything for the PhD. From fitness to health, to friendships and relationships everything is put on hold for it.

The sense of self-worth you get it tied to your work and nothing else. I know I, and plenty of others sacrificed most of our 20s to it as well. That's a significant decade to lose- we lost the time you're supposed to have fun with friends and 'find your tribe'. We lost gaining that foothold on adulthood, the learning to live our lives. It sounds silly but putting yourself in this bubble means you miss out. 

A lot of us sacrificed any kind of relationships. Because it's just too hard. So either we missed out on long-term relationships, that would have seen us through. But we also missed out on just dating, learning how to do that stuff in your 20s. And now we're on the other side, in our 30s and all that is much harder. 

We lost friendships. Plain and simple, we weren't there we were doing a PhD. 

We got left behind in life. In careers, if we now have to look elsewhere, as many of us do. 

And we just got spat out a bit broken. With depression, anxiety, low self-esteem. Even I know PTSD for some. Because it's a system that tries to break you while you're in it, by consuming you. And that isn't healthy, but everyone else around you is doing it because they need to in order to get ahead. So you do too. 

And suddenly you're spat out the other side, wondering what happened. 

So today's PhD students, breathe, put your head above water. Don't let it eat you up. Don't let it take everything from you. 

To those of us who got out the other side, we're more than that. We can repair the damage. But it's going to take us time. But we can still sure as hell make up for lost time.


For mental health resources, and support a good first port of call is Time To Change who can be found here