Guest Post Invitation

The tagline for "Depressed Academics" is "Somewhere you can talk about it".

We don't feel you should talk about it if you don't want to, but we do want there to be a place that you can talk about it if you do want to.  

 And we do mean you, if you want to.  We do want a community and we are more about people telling them stories than giving advice.  So if you want to write a guest post, please feel free to do so. 

It the minute we do not have a great setup for guest posts, but you can do this easily: just mail us at depressed.academics@gmail.com and we can put something up.  We can either add you as a blog author or put it out directly ourselves: in either case we will credit you.  (Note: under our current setup people who can post themselves need a google account, though not necessarily one you use for anything else.) Of course we will credit your preferred name, real, pseudonym, or anonymous.  

We have always welcomed guest posts, and said so a couple of weeks after founding the blog. However, that post is now hard to find, so I wanted to put this up as a sticky page - and thanks to the person who suggested that to me. 

 Posts will be published under the share-alike creative commons licence, but you will retain copyright.

5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSun Aug 09, 08:30:00 pm BST

    Hi all,

    Just finished first year of part-time taught masters and it's been a rough ride. I also work part-time as a teaching assistant in a primary school, 18h 45 minutes a week. Earn on average about 750-850 pounds a month, rent is 425 a month which doesn't leave me with much for everything else.

    Depression totally drained me over the Christmas holiday. Lost motivation, confidence, self-belief. Missed pretty much whole of second term. This time instead of trying to hide it from everyone I actually approached the student support office for help. To cut a long story short I've begun to finally accept that I need help with this, realised if I didn't ask to help I would spend the rest of my life suffering in silence trying to conceal the truth. No pursuit of personal passion only mediocre jobs that don,t require too much effort that would shatter me.

    Got support from the DSA now due to start in September. Going to mental health support group, hopefully hiking society will be good for me also. Seeing a mentor and I'm happy with our rapport so far. Fingers crossed.

    Started a diary and hope this will help. Have trouble getting out of the house and doing things. Fear and anxiety and all that.

    It's good to know that I'm not the only person feeling like this. I love my subject and really want to teach it. Comprehensively educated middle-class man from a practical family, no previous ancient near-eastern scholars that I know of. Family thinks I'm wasting my time and are unsupportive.


    Friends are few and far between but hopefully will make new ones with support group and hiking club.

    That's all for now. Thanks for letting me vent.

    Regards,

    Dillon

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ian GentSun Aug 09, 10:09:00 pm BST

      Thanks for the comment Dillon. And thanks for venting. Which sounds odd I suppose, but I'm glad this is a place you feel you can vent.

      Delete
  2. AnonymousWed Dec 09, 06:03:00 pm GMT

    This blog is a godsend! For several years I've been attempting to work up the courage to apply for a PhD but my mental health issues have always been the biggest stumbling block - I've always convinced myself that I wouldn't be able to cope, but seeing there are other academics managing in the university sphere even though they face mental health issues has encouraged me greatly! Thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ian GentWed Dec 09, 09:00:00 pm GMT

      Thank you very much, Anonymous! That's a really kind comment which made my day.

      A lot of the point of this blog is about trying to normalise mental health as an issue in academia. I suspect a lot of people worry that since academia is (sort of) about using your brain, they should have a perfect brain in every way. So if there's a mental health problem, that's in your brain they feel you can't be an academic. Well that's definitely NOT the case. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, and nobody is strong in all areas.

      I can't guarantee that a PhD is for you of course. Or even that if you try it you won't regret it. But certainly I am very glad I did a PhD and I have mental health issues, so we are out there.

      Delete
  3. AnonymousSun Apr 02, 11:03:00 pm BST

    Depression is hard and I've tried talking about it but I just doesn't work for me.I'm in this on my own. I'm always telling my self how I can't do his anymore yet and somehow I always get through it. And That is one of he hardest things you can ever do.

    ReplyDelete

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