I just got signed off sick from work until the end of the month because of my deteriorating mental health and the immense relief I am feeling right now is really making me aware how much recovery is bound up in privilege->

People talk a lot about reaching out and #ItsOkayToNotBeOkay. I'm not saying this kind of awareness raising / anti-stigma work is bad - a major obstacle for me getting support have always been denial, guilt and an unwillingness to see myself as weak.

But there's a real problem with mental health campaigning that puts all the responsibility on the individual.

The thing that is allowing me to get better now is access to resources, most importantly sick leave. But also counceling, free healthcare, free medication

The counceling, together with a support network of friends who could recognise my red flags and gently but firmly challenged my irrational thinking about how I didn't deserve or need help, were what made me actually take this seriously.

This isn't my first crisis. It is the first time that I am taking significant time off. When I think about why that is, the main issue was that I simply couldn't have afforded to take the time off because I was working jobs that didn't pay sick pay.

So I patched myself up the best I could and returned to work as soon as I could.

There was no time to think about what I actually need to be well, as compared to how I can manage my symptoms better so I can keep functioning.

Being able to take time off is about workplace culture as well a contracts. I have heard so many stories about people being bullied for taking sickleave.

I once took 2,5 days off for a bug and my PI emailed me five times to my private address and then attacked me for being behind schedule when I came back. I would feel very differently than I do now if I thought I was going back to that.

And then of course there is bullshit like this https://twitter.com/BirminghamUCU/status/1309877497195106305?s=20

My point here is that we need to think of mental illness and health within social contexts. The causes of mental illness are complex - stigma, treatment (both medical/psychological) and social factors all interact. Looking at one without the others won't work

All of this is also making me think of the disciplining effect of poor mental health.

I am low-key fascinated by how irrational my thinking was like 2 weeks ago. I was in a kind of weird circle of learned helplessness were I knew I felt terrible most of the time but not why

I'm going to have to explore where this resignation and helplessness come from. But I have seen it before in others and I think it's this kind of slow burn-out that is part of what enables academia to function as it does. Maybe I needed to leave that world to work through things

Anyways. Enough thinking for today. Back to crap tv and trying to ignore the side effects of my new antidepressants.

Solidarity with everyone else struggling at the moment. I hope you can be kind to yourself in this.