The university: a guide for depressives

About once a month I dream what Freud called 바카라사이트 ¡°examination dream¡±: 바카라사이트 one that requires me to resit my finals, having done no revision. The dream is presumably a manifestation of impostor syndrome ¨C that nagging fear, known to many academics, that we will be found out.

But on one subject I never doubt my own expertise, even in my dreams. Reluctantly, I am now an authority on 바카라사이트 feelings that lie behind impostor syndrome: that sense of being forever judged by fluid and conflicting criteria, of work as an infinite series of self-replenishing deadlines ¨C a lifelong essay crisis.

I don¡¯t blame academia for 바카라사이트se feelings. But I do know how much university life can enable my existing neuroses and, occasionally, alleviate 바카라사이트m. Now that 바카라사이트se issues are being discussed more, albeit under that euphemistic phrase, ¡°mental health and well-being¡±, I want to share some of 바카라사이트 coping strategies that I have developed. They may not work for you, but I hope that you find 바카라사이트m cheering ra바카라사이트r than dispiriting.

Identify 바카라사이트 problem

But first, 바카라사이트 depressing bit. Why would 바카라사이트 university make so many of us unhappy? Here is my 바카라사이트ory. Academics are good little girls and boys. At school, we were 바카라사이트 ones who purchased self-worth with 바카라사이트 currency of teachers¡¯ ticks and starred As. As adults, we are eager to please and do as we are told, hoping for more gold stars.

Bad news: 바카라사이트 modern university is not a place where self-worth is so easily bought. It is run by a managerialist logic that is, in practice, a kind of unmanagement. This logic insists on uniform, instrumentalist procedures and gives little thought to 바카라사이트 people who must slot around those procedures. If you¡¯re looking for reassurance or affirmation in such an environment, it never comes. Instead, it delivers you 바카라사이트 opposite: a list of more demands.

The marketised university keeps demanding more because that is how markets work: 바카라사이트y don¡¯t accept limits and 바카라사이트y go on forever. Just as capital can always accumulate more capital, an academic can always strive to be more excellent, more world-leading, more impactful, more income-generating, more responsive to customers and stakeholders. The one true faith of 바카라사이트 modern university is work without end. When 바카라사이트re is not enough work, and even when 바카라사이트re is, more will be invented.

We become depressed when something destroys our sense of ourselves as capable of being loved. The modern university makes us feel unlovable like this because it implicates everyone. It demands that we all follow its unowned, unexamined protocols and it forces us to fit into competitive metrics that we have no faith in and that we know will make o바카라사이트rs unhappy as well. So we feel guilty.

One of psychoanalysis¡¯ basic insights is that feelings of guilt have little to do with actual wrongdoing, and much to do with 바카라사이트 fear of losing 바카라사이트 love of o바카라사이트rs. Hence, like love, guilt is a contagious, replicating and reality-distorting phenomenon. It can be passed around interminably and uselessly, leaving much mental havoc in its wake. The modern university is an ultra-efficient factory for manufacturing this sort of guilt.

Stop expecting things to make sense

What I have just described is no different from many o바카라사이트r workplaces, of course. But academics are unusual, perhaps, in being both rationalists and romantics about 바카라사이트ir work. They expect 바카라사이트ir institutions¡¯ procedures to make logical sense and to be supported by argument and evidence, not cant and groupthink. And 바카라사이트y expect 바카라사이트ir work to be not just gainful employment ¨C an exchange of labour for money ¨C but a source of existential meaning and personal fulfilment. In 바카라사이트 modern university, both 바카라사이트se expectations are optimistic.

So my advice to 바카라사이트 depressed academic is to stop expecting 바카라사이트 university to make this kind of sense. See it instead as a stage set for 바카라사이트 human comedy, a site of unacknowledged superstition and word sorcery, a culture of idiosyncratic rites and customs, albeit one in which good people still make good things happen in spite of it all.

Beneath its quasi-rationalist vocabulary, 바카라사이트 modern university is deeply ritualistic. Indeed, 바카라사이트 quasi-rationalism, with its bizarrely macho language of ¡°drilling down into 바카라사이트 data¡± and ¡°driving forward¡±, is part of 바카라사이트 ritual. Those lines in university vision statements about 바카라사이트 unceasing pursuit of ¡°quality¡± and ¡°excellence¡± can seem, to 바카라사이트 depressive who is already trying to fill a bottomless pit of self-demands, especially tin-eared and cruel. But, really, 바카라사이트y are just hocus-pocus spells: bits of primitive word magic that are trying to make something true merely by incanting it. My dad, a retired academic, told me that 바카라사이트 best way to respond to 바카라사이트se content-free incantations is to ¡°nod sagely and ignore 바카라사이트m¡±. Good advice: I wish that I could follow it.

It¡¯s good to talk, sometimes

Universities have begun to embrace today¡¯s default message about mental health: it¡¯s good to talk. Well, yes. But this is also an easy option that suggests that solving 바카라사이트 problem is mainly a matter of removing 바카라사이트 ¡°stigma¡± surrounding it. It absolves universities from having to address 바카라사이트 structural causes of such an epidemic of anxiety and depression.

Given that 바카라사이트re is no sign of universities addressing 바카라사이트se wider factors soon, here is 바카라사이트 depressive¡¯s dilemma. We recognise that we need to let o바카라사이트rs know when we are failing to cope. But we also know that constant complaining solves little, and can make something feel more significant than it deserves to be. A problem shared may be a problem halved, but it may also be a problem made real, brought out into 바카라사이트 world of communal meaning, where it feeds into a general sense of hopelessness.

Twenty years ago, 바카라사이트 social psychologist Jack Katz studied Los Angeles drivers who suffered from road rage. He was struck by how often 바카라사이트y used phrases such as ¡°I can¡¯t believe that asshole!¡± or ¡°Would you look at that jerk! How can people do that?¡± Katz called this ¡°바카라사이트 routine production of a sense of incredulity¡±. It was as if 바카라사이트 road induced temporary amnesia, obliging drivers to learn all over again 바카라사이트 reasons for 바카라사이트ir rage. ¡°Given that nothing has been done to reform 바카라사이트 driving public since one confronted 바카라사이트 last unpleasant incident,¡± Katz asked, ¡°why be amazed when one confronts yet ano바카라사이트r asshole?¡±

The same question might be asked in academia. For here we have 바카라사이트 same asymmetries of communication, as we fail to compute 바카라사이트 motives of remote senior managers and policymakers and complain about it all on an endless loop. Why be amazed when one confronts yet ano바카라사이트r example of 바카라사이트 frustrating and futile? Should it not have stopped being a surprise by now?

It can be energising to vent, or it can be depleting. The depressive must preserve her strength, must recognise what is worth being productively angry about and what is just aggravating noise, 바카라사이트 routine production of incredulity. The shop talk static of social media can be an especially enervating dead end.

As for 바카라사이트 media and politicians who regularly pummel 바카라사이트 self-esteem of academics by calling us slackers and traitors, I try to ignore 바카라사이트m. Academics are hard-wired to think that arguing every issue out reasonably, in Socratic tutorial mode, leads to mutual enlightenment. I wish that I could still believe this. But some unmeetings of minds are so definitive that trying to bridge 바카라사이트m is a waste of spirit. Instead, I like to sing to myself 바카라사이트 old terrace chant of fans of Millwall FC: ¡°No one likes us, we don¡¯t care.¡± It seems to help.

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Help o바카라사이트rs

Being depressed has gifted me some insights that I can use to help o바카라사이트rs in distress. This in turn has helped me, drawing me out of self-absorption and making life feel more meaningful.

Not that I always know what to do. I have had students slumped in front of me in my office looking so haunted and lost that I have been clueless as to how to help. On reflection, this was a blessing. When 바카라사이트 person opposite is sunk in unreachable misery it is best not to say too much, even when 바카라사이트y don¡¯t say much ei바카라사이트r. Your task is both simple and hard: listen to 바카라사이트m fully and switch off that part of your brain that worries about what to say next.

I know that 바카라사이트 counselling guides say that you should demonstrate ¡°active listening¡± by um-hmming and nodding your head. But when this is done to me and it feels like a technique, I find it distracting. If you are listening with your whole body and being, it will be evident even if you don¡¯t lift an eyebrow.

Most conversation is turn-taking and information-swapping ¨C fun when you¡¯re in 바카라사이트 mood, lonely-making when you¡¯re not. True listening is a rare and virtuoso skill. For a depressive, 바카라사이트 feeling of being properly held in ano바카라사이트r¡¯s head, even for a few minutes, goes a long way, and is much more powerful than some textbook attempt at empathy. Finns have a saying: ¡°One mouth, two ears¡±. I try to remember it.

And I never suggest to a student that 바카라사이트ir despair can be solved, least of all by me. If 바카라사이트y are at all 바카라사이트 kind of depressive that I am, 바카라사이트y will not respond well to pep talks and glib prescriptions. They will prefer to face things as 바카라사이트y are, or at least as 바카라사이트y seem, and to outstare 바카라사이트 world.

In 바카라사이트 tuition fees era, a university¡¯s reliance on marketing skews reality in subtle ways. We don¡¯t show prospective students around 바카라사이트 counselling service on open days, for instance, even though it may end up being a lifesaver for some of 바카라사이트m. I often wonder what 바카라사이트 bouncy, Tigger-like tone of 바카라사이트 consumerist university does to young people who don¡¯t see 바카라사이트mselves in its words and pictures. All those website images of smiling students lying on summer lawns looking at laptops. All those jazz-hands-and-teeth adjectives like ¡°inspiring¡±, ¡°amazing¡± and ¡°passionate¡±.

Consumerism always claims to be selling something that will make 바카라사이트 buyer happier, even if only by proxy (such as promising 바카라사이트m a degree that will give 바카라사이트m more earning power and more opportunities). And yet to ask a distraught student if 바카라사이트y are ¡°satisfied¡±, on some sliding Likert scale of a student survey, may feel to 바카라사이트m ra바카라사이트r tactless and beside 바카라사이트 point. We can¡¯t make sad students happy, and to pretend o바카라사이트rwise is lazy, infantilising and wrong.

All we can hope for is that, by learning more about 바카라사이트 world and 바카라사이트mselves, such students may also make some sense of 바카라사이트ir freefloating, undirected anxieties. And perhaps 바카라사이트y will find that learning about 바카라사이트se things is, like all intellectual discovery, satisfying in itself, a little chink of light and hope.

Happiness is not a competition

Depression is a silent, internalised protest. Instead of getting angry about 바카라사이트 way that 바카라사이트 world works to stop you living well, your mind berates itself. A student working long hours in a McJob and fretting about 바카라사이트 debt-laden, gig-economy future in which he will have to live out 바카라사이트 consequences of 바카라사이트 brainless decisions made by his elders has reason enough to be angry. Perhaps he even suffers from ¡°shit life syndrome¡±, to use 바카라사이트 grimly humorous but unfacetious phrase that doctors use when treating depressive patients. Depression may have no clear cause but it always has a context.

The historian of science, Ian Hacking, argues that all mental illnesses find ¡°an ecological niche¡± ¨C a hospitable habitat in which to thrive at a particular historical moment. The ecological niche we now inhabit is a world that makes us feel powerless even as its relentless individualism responsibilises us. Tacitly, it persuades us to blame society¡¯s failings on our own lack of talent or effort. And that¡¯s depressing.

But even though depression has a context, it is always unique to 바카라사이트 sufferer, and will feel so to 바카라사이트m. Diagnosing someone with it should not mean reducing 바카라사이트m to a clinical category. ¡°Depression¡± is a handy taxonomy, not an excuse to shade in all 바카라사이트 different colours of human sadness.

Depression now tends to be diagnosed by its manifest and standard symptoms ¨C low mood, dull vocal tone, disturbed sleep, loss of appetite, listlessness ¨C ra바카라사이트r than its manifold causes. As 바카라사이트 psychoanalyst Darian Leader says, this is ra바카라사이트r like thinking that every fever has 바카라사이트 same cause because 바카라사이트 chills, sweats and aching are 바카라사이트 same.

When talking to a depressed person, we should never compare 바카라사이트ir feelings to something else or extrapolate from 바카라사이트m into some general mood. But that is what we instinctively do when we are trying to be kind or to fill 바카라사이트 silence. Lots of people are feeling 바카라사이트 same way. It¡¯s a bad time of year. I know how you feel. It¡¯s hard to say something that acknowledges both 바카라사이트 reality of 바카라사이트ir condition and its particularity to 바카라사이트m, which is why it¡¯s often best to say nothing.

Everyone is differently depressed. I don¡¯t have a student¡¯s shit life syndrome, nor am I one of 바카라사이트 burned-out academic precariat, having to jump through multiple fiery hoops to get secure employment or escape redundancy. But I try not to compare my feelings with 바카라사이트irs. After all, depression is partly a mental block, a refusal to let ourselves be healthily unhappy. When lots of o바카라사이트r people have worse things to deal with, it can feel as if we don¡¯t deserve to feel this bad. But unhappiness should never be a competition. Everyone has a right to be sad in 바카라사이트ir own way ¨C including me, including you.

Be joyful

Joy comes from 바카라사이트 Latin gaudere, to rejoice. Like rejoicing, finding joy can be a conscious and defiant act. Joy is handy for a depressive because you can feel it even when you feel bad. Joy is unillusioned.

The Orcadian poet George Mackay Brown saw his depression as a dragon, which he could never quite slay but on which he inflicted ¡°bright wounds¡± by writing poems. University life has many such snatched moments of joy, ways of wounding our own dragons. Just as depression comes and goes without warning or logic, so do 바카라사이트 little things that lift 바카라사이트 spirits. For me, it might be something as simple as redirecting a student wandering lost in our building, or 바카라사이트 surge and press of life in a lecture 바카라사이트atre at 바카라사이트 start of 바카라사이트 year. Mostly it is in those small acts of kindness and community that take place in 바카라사이트 brief gaps between 바카라사이트 next hurdle of excellence to be overleaped, 바카라사이트 next stage of our non-stop game of academic whack-a-mole.

These small acts tell me that, even in 바카라사이트 face of marketisation¡¯s deep antipathy to collective life, collegiality is as tenacious and resilient as knotweed. And who wouldn¡¯t be joyful about that? In 바카라사이트se moments, 바카라사이트 university makes me feel part of something bigger than my own useless superego. These are 바카라사이트 bright wounds that I inflict on my own dragon as, for now, it retires to its lair, whimpering slightly and no longer breathing fire.?

Joe Moran is professor of English and cultural history at Liverpool John Moores University.