You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been livin' in
When I feel distressed, I wash dishes. If I can't resolve all my crises of confidence with soap and scrubbing pads, I can at least have clean forks.
Here I am, on the other side of two years of graduate school. It seems unreal--I can hardly say what I've done with my time here.
The end of the semester is always a crisis period, but this one was a little better than last, despite the increased amount of work I took on. I got pretty unhappy toward the end of last semester, though I don't remember how much of that ever made it into this journal. I know I mentioned that I was going to therapy again, which was a direct result of that unhappiness, and to which I attribute the improvement of this semester.
Unfortunately, I've now used up my allotment of free, "short-term" counseling visits, and if I want to continue going, I have to go somewhere else and pay a copay. This I have resolved on doing, and my previous therapist gave me a few referrals, but I haven't contacted anyone yet. I know I'd better do it soon, because the longer I put it off the easier it is to forget about it, and summer--always a difficult time--is looming ahead.
At the end of this summer, I will turn 25. But let's not think about that just yet.
Something happened during this semester that I hardly know how to talk about, and yet feel I must.
A former student in our department, who had recently been made to leave the program due to, I guess, unsatisfactory academic progress, killed himself. It was a Friday when one of my professors came into our various offices to tell us. She was visibly upset, her voice breaking as she told us.
"Grad school is hard," she said, "and some people don't deal with that well."--those words stick in my mind. I think it might have been the first time I'd heard that fact personally acknowledged by any of my professors.
A general e-mail went out that said only that this student had passed away and said nothing about suicide, which made me wonder if only a few of us were meant to know the truth--and what terrible knowledge to have to keep to yourself. I couldn't, and still don't, understand the reasoning behind that e-mail, although from what I know of everyone involved I want, I have to believe that there was a cogent reason for being so vague, a reason that was more than the general hush-hush culture, especially strong in academia, around mental illness and suicide.
I didn't know this person all that well, which in retrospect seems particularly ironic, because he was so easy to know. He was gregarious, outspoken, outgoing, friendly, and humorous. It really drove home to me that, more than anything, it's my own self that gets in the way of my knowing people better. I don't mean to go overboard on the self-reproach for aspects of my own personality, but it did make me think--maybe here is a little extra incentive for getting over some of that fear, that hesitation. It's a cliché, but: life is short.
I felt/feel some anger, undoubtedly. I don't know to what extent this young man's self-destruction can be attributed to the stresses of grad school--from what I've gathered, there's more than a suggestion that he had some serious mental health issues, perhaps untreated, or insufficiently treated--but that doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, absolve academia, our department, our school, ourselves, of responsibility. Maybe it's too much to say We did this to him, as I've thought more than once since it happened--but surely it's the height of hypocrisy to act shocked, as if we never could have foreseen such a thing, to talk for one day or one week about mental wellness and pay lip service to the idea of an emotionally supportive environment, and then go back to never talking about it. I can't reconcile myself to this.
There was more I wanted to say--about what he was like, how he was so passionate in his beliefs, how he reveled in the absurdities of life, how it seems ironic and yet at the same time makes perfect sense that someone like that, who steadfastly refused to conform, could have been overtaken by despair that led him to end his own life--but, selfishly, I've exhausted myself.
But you're not here for my melancholy ramblings. You're here for cat pictures. By no means would I disappoint you.
Where's Stephen?
You lookin' at me?
He likes to lie around in odd positions.
See above.
He gives me joy.
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Here I am, on the other side of two years of graduate school. It seems unreal--I can hardly say what I've done with my time here.
The end of the semester is always a crisis period, but this one was a little better than last, despite the increased amount of work I took on. I got pretty unhappy toward the end of last semester, though I don't remember how much of that ever made it into this journal. I know I mentioned that I was going to therapy again, which was a direct result of that unhappiness, and to which I attribute the improvement of this semester.
Unfortunately, I've now used up my allotment of free, "short-term" counseling visits, and if I want to continue going, I have to go somewhere else and pay a copay. This I have resolved on doing, and my previous therapist gave me a few referrals, but I haven't contacted anyone yet. I know I'd better do it soon, because the longer I put it off the easier it is to forget about it, and summer--always a difficult time--is looming ahead.
At the end of this summer, I will turn 25. But let's not think about that just yet.
Something happened during this semester that I hardly know how to talk about, and yet feel I must.
A former student in our department, who had recently been made to leave the program due to, I guess, unsatisfactory academic progress, killed himself. It was a Friday when one of my professors came into our various offices to tell us. She was visibly upset, her voice breaking as she told us.
"Grad school is hard," she said, "and some people don't deal with that well."--those words stick in my mind. I think it might have been the first time I'd heard that fact personally acknowledged by any of my professors.
A general e-mail went out that said only that this student had passed away and said nothing about suicide, which made me wonder if only a few of us were meant to know the truth--and what terrible knowledge to have to keep to yourself. I couldn't, and still don't, understand the reasoning behind that e-mail, although from what I know of everyone involved I want, I have to believe that there was a cogent reason for being so vague, a reason that was more than the general hush-hush culture, especially strong in academia, around mental illness and suicide.
I didn't know this person all that well, which in retrospect seems particularly ironic, because he was so easy to know. He was gregarious, outspoken, outgoing, friendly, and humorous. It really drove home to me that, more than anything, it's my own self that gets in the way of my knowing people better. I don't mean to go overboard on the self-reproach for aspects of my own personality, but it did make me think--maybe here is a little extra incentive for getting over some of that fear, that hesitation. It's a cliché, but: life is short.
I felt/feel some anger, undoubtedly. I don't know to what extent this young man's self-destruction can be attributed to the stresses of grad school--from what I've gathered, there's more than a suggestion that he had some serious mental health issues, perhaps untreated, or insufficiently treated--but that doesn't, by any stretch of the imagination, absolve academia, our department, our school, ourselves, of responsibility. Maybe it's too much to say We did this to him, as I've thought more than once since it happened--but surely it's the height of hypocrisy to act shocked, as if we never could have foreseen such a thing, to talk for one day or one week about mental wellness and pay lip service to the idea of an emotionally supportive environment, and then go back to never talking about it. I can't reconcile myself to this.
There was more I wanted to say--about what he was like, how he was so passionate in his beliefs, how he reveled in the absurdities of life, how it seems ironic and yet at the same time makes perfect sense that someone like that, who steadfastly refused to conform, could have been overtaken by despair that led him to end his own life--but, selfishly, I've exhausted myself.
But you're not here for my melancholy ramblings. You're here for cat pictures. By no means would I disappoint you.
Where's Stephen?
You lookin' at me?
He likes to lie around in odd positions.
See above.
He gives me joy.
View original entry |
comment(s) | Leave a comment