Mental Illness and Student Affairs Practice

I apologize for the long hiatus from  from writing. Graduate school has been nothing if not busy.

But that is not an excuse. As I was reflecting on the many people that I was thankful for this thanksgiving, I found myself particularly inspired fellow road warrior (and now student affairs colleague at Texas A&M Commerce) Kyle Hickman who wrote in his blog that student affairs professionals need to be authentic and honest with themselves and their students. He mad a great many points but most specifically, he urged his readers to embrace who they were for all of the benefits that would entail and all of the challenges that would present.

It was a very different message than I recieved when I sat in on a faculty hiring panel where one of the candidates stated unequivically that "student affairs was not a profession for fixing broken professionals."

Though the candidate did not go further about what he thought a broken professional looks like, but let me hazard a guess as to what society may mean when we say people are "broken" in some way.

If you have a persistent mental illness then you should not or cannot maintain a position working with college students. Or career tracks in general. Unless you are some sort of "sympathy" hire.

I disagree. I disagree vehemently.

According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, mental illness is a persistent issue in higher education, ESPECIALLY for the students we work with. In a national survey conducted, NAMI found that:

• One in three students have experienced prolonged periods of depression.
• One in seven reported difficulty functioning in school as a result of a DIAGNOSED mental illness.

According to the National College Health Assessment (a survey that gains responses from more than 47,000 students at 74 different colleges), nearly 10% of the students responded that they had considered suicide AT LEAST once during their time at college.
And that is from students self reporting. How many students wouldn't admit that they would harm themselves?

If we are to be the authentic professionals that Kyle argues helps promote excellence in student affairs, then we have to shed the fear about mental illness, both for our students sake and our own.

Is it any wonder that student affairs professionals have such a high turnover rate? I mean, the long hours and the low pay probably do not help, but that is for another conversation for another day haha.

More specifically, we have to learn to embrace our own challenges and not see ourselves as "broken" student affairs professionals.

I have come to embrace the personal story methodology of teaching. So let me tell you mine.

I have suffered depression since I was in fourth grade. For whatever reason, blue skies depressed me and large groups scared me. There was little rhyme or reason why some days I could feel on top of the world and others I could barely get out of bed.  There did not seem to be a rhyme or a reason for the shifts in my mood. I could only do my best to grin, get through the day, and get back to the residence halls again. When I tried to talk with others about it, they became more frustrated then I, especially because for all intents and purposes, I had very little I should have been depressed about.

I was one of those 10% of college students reported in the NCHA survey. I took a semester off at the urging of my fraternity and mentors at college.

After coming to accept these highs and lows, I came to embrace a regime of medication, talk therapy, (relatively) healthy eating, and excersize. Though I may never be able to fully explain why I feel the way I do some days, I can manage the consequences of something that I still do not really understand. Much like a student with diabetes may take insulin to regulate their body's sugar levels, these are the steps that I try to take to keep me fully engaged and enthusiastic about what I do.

I am also inspired and learn a lot from the students I work with. Whether it is past trauma, a chemical imbalance, or the challenges of adapting to new found freedom, students' own work teaches me just as much as the research ever has. For all of the work that we do in sexual assault and dating violence prevention, for all of the negative stories that come through in the official campus messaging, it is the survivors who continue to be engaged and the bystanders who refuse to be silent that give me hope.

Does that make me a bad student affairs professional? I would hope not. Just as I would hope that my own life story can help the students I work with move their own journey facing mental illness.

If we continue to stigmatize mental illness of any variety as some sort of false diagnoses of the "prozac generation" or as a top down response to litigation, then neither students nor professionals will truly be able to, stealing the Army's former catch phrase, be the best that they can be.

If we believe that we have to work with the complete student, then addressing mental illness in an authentic way as a professional and with our students is important from a personal, professional, and policy point of view.

There is no need for good people to abandon good pursuits. This Thanksgiving as I think about what I am thankful for, I know that the people and places that are part of my support network rank high among my VERY long list. I am also thankful for a field that does not have right or wrong answers but instead embraces an intentional model of development that allows for a process of improvement influenced by a wide variety of experiences. Including our own journey of dealing with mental illness in our own lives.

In the end, I am thankful for being able to work to be the best person I can be and I hope that others can feel the same without fear of stigma or isolation.