I’ve seen the words ‘resilient’, ‘resilience’, and ‘resiliency’ pop up again and again in conference presentations, scholarly papers, speeches, book titles, and within my professional community and others. It has become a highly praised attribute in the work force. From … Continue reading
I’m bluntly honest about myself. I’m old enough to feel comfortable being this honest. Maybe that’s the actual reason. Or maybe I’m strong enough to reject/ignore whatever judgements or assumptions others have about me. (Most of the time.) What you think of me has nothing to do with who I really am: a white trash, trailer park kid from Southwest Georgia who somehow ended up okay and has achieved some fantastic things. I’ve already said everything about myself that I INTENSELY hid for so long.
But I don’t know what else to do beside be open. In person and online. I recently told a checkout clerk that something in the grocery store that made me intensely anxious. They stared at me blankly, but it was my honest response to, “How are you doing?”. I’m tired of saying, “Fine.” or “Not bad”. I know these are things we say to one another out of habit, a social norm, and general politeness. But fuck that. Lying about how I’m doing feels weird and dishonest to myself. Anyway, I feel weird enough without a lie.
On the other hand (or something), I don’t really have an interest in radical honesty. But for some reason it’s oddly fascinating to me. Maybe because it feels partially connected to the honesty I value about myself. Others have taken radical honesty on. I’ve seen it shared on YouTube, tweets, websites, and in books. I think being honest about myself is more than enough (much, much more). Maybe everything for me will go down in magnificent flames as a result, or I’ll classically burn out rather than fade away. Or I’ll nap. And then keep going?
Continue readingI recently moved from Logan, Utah to Milwaukee for a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin (wait for it) Milwaukee. The nature of academia means you move where the job takes you. I’m pleased that it took me to a new part of the country and a new work environment with supportive and welcoming faculty and staff. The goal for many leaving a doctoral program or post doc (as I did) is a tenured track faculty position. A challenge to achieve that (honestly) I try to share with doc students or those considering entering a doctoral program. During your last year of a doc program or post doc, you apply, apply, apply, interview, interview, wait (for what seems like an excruciating amount of time), and maybe have an on-campus interview and (possibly) get something. There’s so many of us searching for these idealized tenure track positions while there are so few of actual positions to go around. I am where I am now for a number of reasons (hard work, mentorship, networking, a great post doc). Some that I may not even know about. I am happy where I am. But the transitional period from post doc to faculty and from Utah to Wisconsin has been much harder that I expected.
I’ve written in the past about my lifelong struggle with mental illness. Since I posted Parts One and Two last July about my panic attack during this past ALA Annual, I suffered two major bouts of depression – one that I’m still in the process of working through. Writing about these experiences reminds me that while I have really bad lows, I usually manage to crawl my way out of them through medication, therapy, exercise, and sharing.
My current episode of depression began in mid-December when I realized, “Oh. I’ve majorly overextended myself.” I procrastinated, misjudged deadlines, made promises that I thought I could deliver on, and more. I’ve told myself over and over again to back off and slow down. Once this spring semester began, I knew I was in trouble but still thought maybe I could manage. It would be some sort of point for bragging on social media among academics that I see all the time, right? “I’m so busy. I have so much work to do. I’m so committed to my profession.” and on and on.
I want to thank you all for your outpouring of love and support. I had no idea what to expect when I pressed “publish” on Part 1. Right now I feel both very exposed and empowered. A contradictory feeling but a good one. Thank you to those who shared stories of personal struggles via social media, blog comments, and e-mails. I know that couldn’t have been easy. I admire your strength and perseverance.
As I mentioned in my last post, I’m going to dig a bit deeper and answer some questions from my draft-reading librarian friend (you’re the best!) and a few of my own questions in this last post. Hopefully, my writing flows along somewhat smoothly. Here we go.
The New Member’s Round Table (NMRT) panel at ALA Annual hasn’t been my only panic attack during a presentation, but it has been my worst. My other panic attack happened during the last semester of my Master’s in Library and Information Studies (MLIS) program at Florida State University (FSU). As part of my coursework, I had an assignment to develop and carry out a training session about some aspect of library work. I decided to create a basic research workshop about databases, online tools, and helpful websites for our library staff. There were (maybe?) seven people at the workshop, but I still felt the intensity of pressure and anxiety. The morning of the workshop, I went to the gym very early because I thought working out would help. As I got ready for work, I went through my index cards of notes obsessively. While backing up the driveway to get to the library, I reversed into my mom’s car. Freaked out. My dad calmed me down as well as he could. I got to work, set everything up in the meeting room, and began my workshop. After the first 15 minutes, I relaxed a bit. I knew these people, had worked with them for a while, and they appeared to be engaged. Before the panel, that was my only other panic attack during a presentation. My panic level was seriously uncomfortable but manageable-ish.
It’s about a week out from my marathon, back-to-back, cross-country June conference tour of CSCL, ALA Annual 2017, and IDC. I’ve had some time to get sick, rest, run a lot, catch up on e-mail, and talk out my conference experiences with those close to me and an amazing therapist. Conferencing is always challenging; sometimes fun, sometime frustrating, sometimes confusing, sometimes rewarding, etc. But, for me, this two-week conferencing period has been my hardest yet. I’ve attended back-to-back conferences several times before but only two in a row within the same city. Over my two weeks of conferences, I presented four times (two of which were to unfamiliar (non-LIS) audiences), attended multiple committee meetings, tried to finish some deadline-driven writing, attempted data collection, and talked about myself more than I like. Going to conferences to discuss your research, learn about the work of your colleagues, and expand your knowledge of a new or familiar field is exciting. I’m very thankful that I have so many opportunities to travel, meet new people, learn, and share.
But what I really want to focus on is a conference experience where I had an almost paralyzing panic attack that I’m still trying to understand. This happened during the New Members Round Table (NMRT) Orientation Session panel at Annual. A few months before the conference, I received a lovely e-mail asking if I would participate on the panel. Immediately I wondered why would anyone would ask me? Seriously? What did I have to offer? (What you see here is the lingering low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, and diminished self-worth heightened by my experiences in a doctoral program. But that’s for another post.). Finally, I replied “Yes!” because it sounded fun and a good experience for a panel newbie like me.
On Monday, February 8, I successfully defended my dissertation. I stood up in front of a room of people and presented my dissertation research, opening myself up to questions and critiques (constructive). I’ve talked about my fear of public speaking … Continue reading
On Thursday morning, my guest blog post, “Worrying About My PhD Life“, for Letters to a Young Librarian went live. I received so many wonderful comments from fellow librarians, library directors, and doctoral students through the LTAYL blog, Tumblr, Twittter, and Facebook. … Continue reading
Improving mental health in academia by giving you a voice.
Rest is Resistance
No Easy Book Love
Promoting collaboration between social work student interns & public libraries
Queering up your shelf, one rec at a time!
Blog of the New Members Round Table of ALA
Like Mother Teresa, only better.
The premise of this journal club is to discuss articles and blog posts about Diversity in STEM and academia. We post the paper/topic the 2nd week of the month, and discuss the third Friday of every month at 2pm EST, under #DiversityJC on Twitter. Hope to see you there!
An Elegant Inn
What I don't know. Yet
here, queer, and ready to read
reading, writing, librarying
Short books about albums. Published by Bloomsbury.
The Hub for Library-Social Work Collaboration
An Association for Library and Information Science Education Special Interest Group
Dr. Abigail Leigh Phillips 