Mental illness is a taboo topic in far too many circles, and academia is certainly not an exception. I believe we need to talk frankly and openly about mental health in our field, especially because—though they are largely unspoken-about in our community—anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses are the norm rather than the exception in graduate school, as well as in academic careers beyond it. Speaking from my own lived experience and drawing from a body of scientific literature, I’ll disentangle the stigma and fear around mental illness in the academy, and offer both conceptual frameworks and concrete thoughts about how we can bring more compassion to both our own lives and to the lives of everyone in our community.

Content note: this talk discusses specifics about the experience of mental illness and chronic disability, and contains a brief but not detailed mention of suicide. I plan to treat these heavy topics gently, but I also want all listeners to be empowered to choose (either before or at any point during the talk) to take time and space as they need it.