Hidden Health Crisis: Navigating Early Menopause, Chronic Illness, and Precarious Academia by Dr. Aikaterini (Katrina) Tavoulari

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Chronic health conditions, fertility struggles, and the precarity of academic life shape the lives of countless academics, yet these truths often remain unspoken in professional spaces. I was preparing to defend my PhD when my body quietly, irrevocably, rewrote the script of my future without consent or asking permission.

The floral dress I chose for that appointment, a cheerful yellow dotted with tiny daisies, hung perfectly as I sat across from doctor. They delivered news that forced me to rethink every assumption I had carried for over thirty years, back when I was still in my thirties, long before I crossed into my forties. Premature ovarian failure syndrome. The clinical terms couldn’t soften the reality: my body was moving into menopause decades ahead of schedule, taking with it the easy assumption that I had time to figure out motherhood later, after I finished my viva, after I started my postdoc, after I finally found a permanent position.

What followed wasn’t just a health crisis; it was a collision between the relentless demands of academic life and the sudden fragility of my own body. This is the story of how I learned that survival in academia isn’t just about publishing papers and securing funding; sometimes it’s about learning to live authentically in a world that rewards high performance above all else.

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Navigating the Labyrinth: On Chronic Illness, Graduate School, and Finding Wholeness by Laura Dickey

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Working towards your PhD while grappling with chronic mental and physical health conditions… well, sucks. Graduate school is often depicted as a training ground for intellectual growth, a hallmark of academic rigor providing access to a playground of ivory towers. For many, it’s a demanding but ultimately rewarding journey. However, for those of us navigating graduate school while grappling with chronic health conditions, the experience can be a labyrinth of unexpectedly demanding challenges. 

My own journey as a PhD student in Philosophy has been profoundly shaped by my experiences with Bipolar Type II Disorder and chronic pain. While graduate school has tested my resilience, it has also given me a new perspective on community, self-worth and the journey of coping in the face of adversity. This post explores how these experiences have influenced my academic development, pushing me to redefine success in my own terms. Ultimately, I hope to share a lesson that has been critical to my journey: authentic participation in community can create profound feelings of wholeness and belonging, providing an anchor for stability amidst the demands of academic life.

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Persisting and Prevailing: Part-time PhD Study Through a Pandemic by Anonymous

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Before the Covid-19 pandemic, I went straight from redundancy and burnout to a full-time research masters, then embarked on a full-time PhD. I was regularly commuting between cities to have separate, quiet study space and returning home as my place of rest, as I’m neurodivergent and need the structure of separating studying and home life. 

Nevertheless, the burnout was lurking and around a year into the PhD, I decided I needed to go part-time. I scoured the funder and university policies, then referred to the sections on part-time study to help make my case. One supervisor questioned if I wanted to continue with the PhD. Without hesitation, I responded emphatically “yes”. Finding something difficult is not the same as not wanting or being unable to do it, and the easiest way is not always the best way. I had secured this opportunity to research the only topic I would have pursued, and I was not prepared to let it go.

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The Mask by Anonymous

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I am a flawed, ambitious, and entirely ordinary human who wears a mask daily at work. 

I put the mask on as I get into my car to drive to work or social engagements, and I take it off as I walk through the front door of my home. It is not a deliberate costume that I don and remove, akin to a Jane Austen period drama. Instead, it is a learned psychological survival mechanism that I have been employing for as long as I can remember, to the extent that I have lost track of when it is on, its appearance, or its functionality. It has become an integral part of my being. 

I am neurodivergent, I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and I have a life-limiting, incurable autoimmune illness. Very few people know this because I wear a mask of a neurotypical, mentally and physically healthy person. 

And it’s exhausting. 

The mask saps my energy, my spirit, my cognitive processing ability. 

Unlike the notion of “I need a nap,” which may seem relatively manageable, the exhaustion experienced when one has depleted all cognitive space to engage in conversations with one’s spouse and child at the end of the day feels more profound. In this blog I’ll talk about my experiences living with these illnesses and their impact on my life and career to date.

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Considerations and Challenges of Overseas Research Visits: My Experience as an Autistic Woman by Lucy Rodgers

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I recently had the privilege of being funded to travel overseas (UK to Australia) to visit a leading academic in my field. I am sharing my experience with you because I am an internally presenting autistic woman (the kind often subjected to the “but you don’t seem autistic” comments). Perhaps because of how I appear, it might be assumed that travelling across continents to a completely new environment, solo, would be no less challenging for me than for a neurotypical person. Autism is not a mental illness, but I experience generalised anxiety in response to trying to fit into a hectic, unpredictable world, which is incompatible with my brain.

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Bouncing Back: Coping Effectively with  Academic Setbacks by Vineet Arora

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I remember the first time a journal editor rejected my article. I sat staring at the email, feeling like someone had just deflated my academic “balloon”. I had poured my heart and soul into that manuscript, and here it was, marked with a big red “no.” It felt like being in school all over again, where the teacher hands back your paper covered in corrections. 

During my time as a sessional academic working in higher education, I have experienced many more rejections. While many of these have been challenging and disappointing, I have reached a point where I accept them and try to learn from the experiences. As I explain in this blog, I believe that developing my psychological resources and utilizing coping strategies has enabled me to handle these rejections constructively. In the next sections, I discuss how my self-efficacy as well as resilience, courage, and spirituality have helped me on my journey. I also share the importance of maintaining my wellbeing during stressful times and learning from my supervisors to help me cope with rejections.

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Help! Universities won’t commit! Why fixed-term contracts are harmful to mental health by Anonymous 

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Recent research reveals that around two thirds of University Research Staff in the UK are employed on fixed-term contracts, which are usually less than two years. This practice has no end in sight. One of my colleagues jumped between fixed-term contracts for 17 years. I am just starting my fifth year on a series of fixed-term contracts.

What does this do to academics’ mental health? In a 2019 study in the UK, “two-thirds of respondents (71%) said they believed their mental health had been damaged by working on insecure contracts and more than two-fifths (43%) said it had impacted on their physical health.” This is not a surprise. As many readers will know, insecure work in academia means incessant rounds of redundancy, endless job applications in a notoriously difficult job market, regularly changing employers, or even moving across the country. Or you could choose the route of writing laborious and hugely competitive grant applications mostly in your own time. The stakes are high: your economic survival. As such, accepting a fixed-term contract can be a risky strategy.

I am a mental health researcher, a mum, a person who lives with mental illness, and a lover of the outdoors. I am passionate about achieving research impact, and an advocate of lived-experience research. I want to make this clear: I wholeheartedly love my career, my academic research work, my job, and my excellent and supportive team. I love the intellectual challenge, I love the creativity and problem solving. I love doing impactful research that makes a difference, building networks, collaborating, writing and reading. I thrive in my job, and I am good at it. However, my fixed-term contract is harming my mental health.

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Navigating Anxiety in an Experimental Lab: Personal Growth and Peer Support by Janaky Sunil

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When people think of someone pursuing a PhD, they often focus on the prestige and intellectual fulfilment associated with earning the degree. For the students themselves, however, the journey is frequently remembered as a continuous obstacle course, with many never reaching the end. Statistics underscore this reality, with studies suggesting that 33% to 70% of PhD students ultimately leave before completing their program. A recent paper in Frontiers of Psychology enlists the various factors that contribute to these outcomes, leading to notable differences across institutions and countries. The academic culture in the nation of study and more specifically the institution plays a significant role in determining the work environment. Additionally, the quality of mentorship, the complexity of the research project, and the stability of funding are all pivotal. Combined, these factors result in the fact that even for those who do complete their PhD, the process often takes much longer than anticipated.

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Completing a doctorate after the onset of a chronic illness: Finding a new way of being by Stacey Anwin

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TW: Domestic Abuse

A long time ago (nine years, in fact), I was strong, energetic and capable. I was always active. 

Five days a week I taught at a nearby university. Three times a week, I scaled walls at an indoor climbing gym. Twice a day, I walked my three large dogs. On the weekends, I repaired the house and maintained the yard, going to performances at the Cultural Centre at night. 

Like many casual academics, my work was tenuous, based on semester-long contracts. Like many others, I found immense joy in guiding and supporting my students. I poured enormous amounts of intellectual and creative energy into designing and producing teaching and learning materials. I saw many casuals move away into often unrelated full-time positions over the years. Yet I stayed, justifying this decision as much to myself as to others, based on the amount of holidays (that is, weeks without pay) I got. 

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Silent Battles: Enduring Sexual Harassment in Medical School in Africa by Anonymous

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TW: Sexual Harassment, Indecent Assault

“Boy, you will regret denying me access to you, mark my words!”

Usually, a light laugh would follow Mr. Smith’s every sentence but, for the first time, his smile vanished and was replaced by something far darker. I searched his eyes in dire hope that he was joking, and in that moment, I realized how deeply I was entangled in a situation I couldn’t easily escape.

Faculty-student harassment in academia is pervasive, with approximately 25% of students having experienced harassment in academic settings. It is often built on the authority gap between professors and students, leaving those affected in a painful silence, unable to speak out due to the power dynamics at play. This is a system where respect for lecturers is absolute, professors are in a significant position of power, and students have few avenues for recourse. But what happens when this power is weaponised?

In this blog I share my journey through medical school in a large African country in which I endured a nightmarish lesson in navigating unwanted advances, the misuse of academic power, and the emotional trauma that followed. As I will share, the harassment affected not only my experience in the classroom, but my mental health, personal relationships, and my drive to succeed. 

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