What's W̶r̶o̶n̶g̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶M̶e̶ Going on in My Brain?

I loved reading "Imposter Poets" by Jessica Lopez Lyman, a section from "How Dare We! Write". Despite a few spelling and grammatical errors, this piece is a joy. It’s beautifully written and brings up a lot of good points about writing and trying to make it in the world of academia as a Woman of Color. I felt myself really connecting with every other sentence, and I truly wanted to teach about everything this writer talked about. Unfortunately, we had to cut down on some of the topics for time's sake. I want to use this space to talk about an important issue we should all think about. That topic is mental health.

I have a lot of personal experience with mental illness that I’m not willing to delve into on a highly-public space. This made the following passage jump out at me: "You are told this is a panic attack. You don't believe the experts. Anxiety is for rich people." As Lyman explained her struggles with anxiety, especially as a woman outside of the classification of "rich", it really spoke to me. I thought back to all of my struggles with mental illness, and how those struggles were exasperated by the lack of belief in them (a result of upbringing and social class). Then, I started to think about my future students. It occurred to me that we still haven’t really touched on this issue in any of our classes, at least not in any depth, and probably wouldn’t be by the end of this program. That is extremely concerning to me.

Mental health has always been a taboo topic in our society, especially in poorer communities and communities of color. There is now a greater push for educating the population and encouraging dialogue on these issues (see “MakeItOkay.org” for example), but the taboo still continues in certain circles. This denial of issues can make it extremely difficult for people, especially secondary students, to understand what is going on in their minds and how to properly deal with it.

As teachers, we will have countless students in our classes who will struggle with mental illness. We are not required (or qualified) to double as therapists, but we should educate ourselves on this issue so we know how to best support our students. I can speak from experience when saying untreated mental illness can lead to major life disruptions, and school is oftentimes the first priority to go out the window. If our students can’t find help with battling these issues, they will be less likely to succeed in your classroom. I continuously try to find resources to help me learn more about mental illness. I also plan on looking into school resources for dealing with mental health when, or even before, I decide on where I will teach next year.

I know this is a complicated issue that can be difficult to parse through. I also know I didn’t provide a lot of resources in this post. I want to put out there that I would be willing to share resources or talk about my experiences and thoughts on this issue with anyone who will reach out to me.