Mental Health Confessions of an Early Career Scientist
by Amy Teffer
I am an early career scientist. I am also a mother and a wife. And I have chronic anxiety, tension-type and neuropathic migraine headaches, and recurrent major depressive disorders. My depression and anxiety went undiagnosed for decades while I completed my education and my headaches emerged as a result. These disorders are a part of me now and affect every aspect of my life. Yet, I still ask so much of myself. I’m an overachiever and have been rewarded for it. I’ve done well in my science career, currently holding a prestigious postdoctoral fellowship producing cutting edge genomic research in conservation science. I am a mentor and role model, and yet I feel like a failure almost every day. Daily stress triggers headaches that reverberate over several days, ranging between 10 - 15 headache days per month. That means that almost half of my life is spent managing debilitating pain, mental fatigue, and good old-fashioned sadness while I work, parent, or play.
This is my confession. My coming out as a scientist and sufferer of mental illness and chronic pain. I am not writing this to brag about my accomplishments or perseverance, but to finally admit that my professional gains have come at a physical cost. I asked too much of my body and mind. I wanted it all – a career, a family, a house, a social life, a dog - and I have them…at a price. I felt shame and disappointment at my faulty biology for years. I now know that it takes a tremendous amount of strength to advance professionally with mental illness when you are held to the same high standards of the fictional norm. There is absolutely nothing shameful about persevering through stigmatized mental and emotional suffering.
I am unlearning the damaging lessons of our capitalist society and working toward acceptance of my whole self as integral to my success. I am taking a kinder approach to professional progress that is by no means easier. I have a long way to go. But I choose to be a role model for something more important than professional status. I will value – in myself and others – the interwoven personal and professional journey that makes up a career.
I ask you: What if your best is what you are doing now? What if you are already everything you need to be? What if you are your own harshest critic? And what does success mean for you? For me, it is the true balance of the personal and the professional, integrated into one peaceful being. Create your own definition, based on your unique physical, mental, and emotional capacities. Please remember that you can succeed without burning out. Listen to your body. Respect your fatigue. And most of all, LOVE YOURSELF.