I am a Psychology graduate from India. I am writing this blog to talk about who I describe as the malevolent lords of academia – toxic professors, and how to cope with them.

In my opinion, succeeding in academia is difficult with the cut-throat competition and the discrimination against candidates from marginalized communities, even without toxic professors and lab members. 

My expectations of academia were low based on the experiences of previous students, especially those with disabilities and/or Asian students, who had often faced accessibility issues and racism in being selected for research labs, conference travel grants, etc. 

However, I, unfortunately, encountered toxic professors. With these incidents, my respect for academia sadly plummeted, which I didn’t even know was possible because it was already at rock bottom.     

Mental Health in India

Just to give you a background, I’m from India, a country where, in my experience, social sciences, especially Psychology, are not given importance at all. Social science is often considered for those people who aren’t “smart enough” for the natural sciences (such as Physics, Chemistry, Biology, etc.) and for the business-related fields (such as Finance, Economics, Accountancy, etc.). Social science is for the “rejects”. Needless to say, the attitudes and language towards mental health are often dismissive, ableist, and derogatory.

From what I’ve observed, the perception is that if you’re having mental health struggles, you’re “crazy”, leading to self-blame and shame. Mental health struggles are often seen as a personal failure, instead of a phenomenon that has biopsychosocial origins, which leads to the perception that the person suffering from the mental health issue is the problem. Access to treatment is constrained due to factors such as a scarcity of qualified professionals and societal prejudice toward mental health issues. 

Some other observations around mental health in India are that consulting psychologists and psychiatrists is frowned upon. The roles of mental health professionals are often trivialized and disparaged with labels such as ‘pagalon ke doctors’ (translation: doctors of crazy people). Demonstrating this further, the salaries of mental health professionals are minimal.

While I was aware of these societal perceptions around psychology and mental health, I still had the courage to speak to my professor about it. I expected my professors to be informed and empathetic, but I had a terrible experience with one professor. 

Mental Health and Academia

First of all, in the Indian context, there is a scarcity of statistical information regarding the mental well-being of academic professionals, pointing towards the perceived insignificance of mental health in India. 

Of the few studies that are available, in a 2020 survey, 59%of the participants acknowledged experiencing mental health challenges at some point in their academic careers. 

Among these individuals, a striking 82% revealed that they had never received an official diagnosis. These findings suggest that mental health issues are commonplace within academia, and many affected individuals hesitate to seek professional assistance, possibly due to the normalization of these challenges, and the stigma of seeking medical help.

My Mental Health

Throughout my life, I have been diagnosed with various mental illnesses such as anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, personality disorders, and trauma disorders. The most recent diagnosis was of borderline personality disorder. 

While the negative societal notions around seeking help from mental health professionals s did not deter me from seeking help, I struggled to find a psychologist who understood me.

Sometimes therapy was terminated without me feeling better, sometimes I had to change therapists because the therapist was actually making me worse, sometimes I had to change therapists because there was no improvement. 

This mental health struggle made it difficult for me to keep a routine and be functional. I struggled to fall asleep, to wake up, and didn’t have a fixed eating, sleeping, or exercise routine. I was demotivated and did the bare minimum on college assignments. 

I struggled to stay awake, pay attention and be interested in lectures and consequently, my attendance dropped. 

Our exams are based on rote learning, which I hated, and it was difficult for me to study for exams even for courses that I liked, such as Social Psychology.

Navigating the Trials of an Uncaring Professor

One day during my undergraduate classes, I missed turning an assignment in because I was in a mental health crisis due to the ending of one of my friendships. My attendance had also been low because I couldn’t find the energy to commute to college and sit for lectures.

I communicated this to the professor whose assignment I had missed, explaining my circumstances in detail and requesting that I could retake the assignment. However, she began comparing my situation to those of others, and stating how they had it worse than me.

“There are students in your class who have schizophrenia and are still attending classes”. “There are students whose family members murdered other family members and those students come to college every day as well.” “Your mental illness is just an excuse. Stop giving excuses”. “This won’t work once you’re out in the real world with a job”. “Stop self-victimizing”. she told me. 

I was taken aback and horrified by this response. I began crying and arguing with that professor. She told me to “Stop crying and be strong” and that there was “No reason to cry”.

She did nothing to comfort me and kept on invalidating my feelings. She also told me to stop talking about my struggles with other professors. She probably thought I was an attention seeker who was using mental health struggles as an excuse because I was not interested in lectures and assignments. 

I instantly internalized this professor’s comments and felt unsafe, mentally. I ultimately had to leave because there was another student waiting to talk to that professor. I cried in an empty classroom for 15 minutes.    

I had not expected this professor to understand my feelings completely but I also didn’t expect her to be so abrasive to me, especially considering that her expertise is Clinical Psychology.

What made this worse was that while my college “friends” disagreed with the way that professor treated me, they were still being overly nice to her. A few days after the incident, one “friend” even spoke of how she had developed a personal connection with the professor and that she really liked her.

I had no idea what to say. Why did this “friend” like this professor, after all this professor did to me? I felt betrayed.

I informed another professor (with whom I’m close) of this incident and she was disappointed but not surprised. She told me “In comparing situations, you trivialize everyone’s pain”. “No one who has ever felt depressed for a day or suicidal for an hour would respond this way”. 

She made me understand that someone’s inability to understand my feelings doesn’t mean that my feelings are invalid. She hugged me, made me feel safe mentally, and assured me that she was there for me. 

I always felt supported by that professor and was motivated to attend her classes. Most importantly, it made me reflect: was I wrong in speaking to professors about my mental health struggles, or was the professor wrong to berate me for struggling with mental health issues?

I began perceiving that awful experience differently. I moved from blaming myself and considering the problem to be within myself, to understanding that the professor is also affected by the negative societal perceptions around mental health and that I need not consider her opinion as the truth. 

Advice for Professors

Professors must be very careful when a student comes to them in crisis because the student trusts them and I believe that professors (especially Psychology professors) have a duty of care towards the students.

A professor must NOT: 

• Trivialize or invalidate a student’s struggle
• Compare the student’s struggle to someone else’s
• Judge a student
• Share the student’s struggle with anyone else without the student’s permission

A professor must:

• Recognize that different people respond in different ways to situations
• Refer the student to someone capable of handling the student’s distress if the professor themselves can’t handle it
• Have empathy 
• Work with the student to determine an appropriate and acceptable solution if the problem is about academic work
• Regularly affirm students
• Ensure that there aren’t too many deadlines in a short span of time
• Include the details of the college counsellor on the syllabus

Advice for Students

• Confide in other professors you trust who are likely to give you practical advice on balancing health struggles with academics.
• Reach out for group therapy, support groups, peer counselling, etc. with students who have faced similar experiences.
• If you feel the need to see a psychotherapist, please do so.
  Remember that whatever your toxic professors/lab members say to you is not the truth. Those are just their opinions. You don’t need to take criticism from people to whom you wouldn’t go for advice. 

Conclusion

I hope my blog can help students and professors learn how to safely and successfully navigate such critical situations. We need interventions at individual, group, and structural levels for addressing the crucial issue of student mental health. 

This blog is sponsored by BOOX

About Our Sponsors:

With over 14 years of expertise in crafting ePaper tablets, BOOX is the ultimate choice for elevating your academic reading and note-taking experience. Unleash the power of effective PDF reading, note-taking, and organizing with BOOX Eink tablets. Explore the possibilities for enhancing your academic career at shop.boox.com. Don’t miss out on the benefits BOOX can bring to your academic journey.