Mental health for academics

It’s a funny old job, being an academic. It’s one of those jobs in which, if you are feeling bad, suffering from a heavy cold or lack of energy, there’s usually something not too mentally demanding which you can do: checking whether the books for the new course are in the library yet, sorting through notes, checking references for something you are writing. Any form of face-to-face teaching may be rather more difficult to manage, but we’ve all given substandard lectures now and then, and we all hope that the students remember us more for those times when we were fully aware of what we were doing.

But there may come a point at which you really aren’t fit to do any part of the role. That may be physical, in which case I don’t think you need my advice, but just in case you do it would be to keep any germs to yourself, take a day off and if necessary take more. However, I acknowledge that it’s difficult, because if you don’t give that lecture, you’ll be under pressure to do it later, and it will be impossible to find a slot which works for all of the students, and then some of them will complain that they have been disadvantaged. So, instead, you may stagger into work and lead a pretty chaotic class, but at least you can say you did it. If you have any sense, though, I’d suggest finding some other way of delivering the class: online readings, then an online discussion forum or perhaps part of the next lecture set aside to go through any queries?

Losing it

And what if it’s not just one lecture? Here, my worst time ever wasn’t when I had time off for a hysterectomy, nor later when my remaining ovary went crazy and had to be removed; no, it was when I was losing my voice during an INSET event for teachers in Liverpool, where I was working at the time. As it wasn’t possible to rearrange this evening event at short notice, I went ahead and did my session, then staggered upstairs to my college flat feeling very rough, only to wake up the next morning with no voice at all. This went on, and on… for several months. Only the involvement of a Harley Street ENT specialist turned the situation around. It was a nightmare for my head of department, who had to find someone to cover, and who had no idea how for how long he’d need to keep this arrangement going. Of course, if I’d cancelled that evening, I’d have had some disappointed teachers, but I wouldn’t have strained my voice and I wouldn’t have caused such a mess for my department.

Losing even more of it

And then there’s mental health. Although I sometimes think I’ve had more than my fair share of physical conditions over my working life, I’ve been lucky on the mental health front. I’ve taken time off for the mentally disturbing experiences of emergency family situations and for bereavement, where higher education institutions tend to have a clear policy as to how long you can take and then – at least in my experience – go easy on you after that. But I’ve only been signed-off for mental health issues once.

This is how it stacked up. In 2008 I was head of department; a student in the department took his own life; I was in communication with his parents and the counselling services. Meanwhile, someone in the department who had been there longer than me and was older than me was claiming entitlement to research leave. As the line manager, I disagreed, and had the right to do so. That colleague then threatened me with legal action. Another colleague had been malfunctioning – as in, not even attempting to do what he should in teaching, research or administration – for a while and this was rapidly getting close to the point when action had to be taken. Whatever their claims about probation procedures, universities aren’t good at biting the bullet when someone simply isn’t doing any of the job. You get the picture: it’s not sounding like a good week at all. And it wasn’t.

In the same week, I was also fronting an event in which various schools sent in groups of students for a day of lectures. On that day, I held it together for my opening talk to the school groups, then went back to my office and started crying. My line manager, who knew about the suicide, came in to see how I was (good line management! let’s just flag that up here! and yes, it’s the same person who sent me home when I was upset at the death of a colleague). He told me to go home, and to call in on the GP surgery on the way, and get myself signed off for as long as I needed. ‘I can’t!’ I insisted, ‘I’m supposed to be doing another session with the schools groups this afternoon!’ (over-achiever, me). Rightly, he overruled that. I went home, called in at the GP to say I’d been sent home from work because I couldn’t stop crying, was given an appointment for later that day, and was then signed off for two weeks ‘or more if you need it’.

Getting it back again

My initial reaction was resistance. But at some level, I knew the GP was right. So, I did what I was told, and took two weeks to recover. At the end of those two weeks, I went to a conference in America and gave a paper; nobody there knew I’d been off work, and so I was accepted as myself rather than being treated with kid gloves. That in turn made me feel more like ‘me’ again, so on my return I went back to work rather than asking the GP for a further certificate. Meanwhile, my line manager suggested taking me out of the head of department role (I’d been doing it for nearly two years at that point and was in any case almost due to pass it on to the next poor soul in line). I very happily agreed. The colleague threatening legal action didn’t take any action; the malfunctioning colleague decided to jump before being pushed; my other colleagues gave me a wide berth, because sadly that was still how any mental condition was viewed; but I was OK, and relieved to have come through this without having to try out any sort of medication.

Listen to your self. When I write all this down, I realise how much I needed to take time off. Sometimes there aren’t all these obvious triggers but you just fall into depression. It happens: take it seriously and look after yourself. In the short term, perhaps you can stagger on, but perhaps you shouldn’t try.