Posted by Bob on September 21, 1999, at 19:11:16
In reply to Re: The best defense ...chicken & egg???, posted by dj on September 21, 1999, at 17:21:36
I guess that I did sound kinda heavy on that, didn't I?
No, I agree on the nature/nurture thing here -- I see nature's role as providing potentials and nuture's role as developing, interweaving, stifling, etc. those potentials. What I did mean to say is that the way I was raised, I was convinced that I should just be able to "tough it out" -- that it was all a defect in character and it would take a mending of that character by a strong will in order for me to be happy again. While my training in science in general and psychology in particular had opened for me the possibility that conditions like depression could have something to do with neurological disorders, it never meant anything to me personally ... I had never taken that possibility to heart for my own condition. That has only started to sink in during the last 6-8 months or so.
As for my colleagues at Fordham -- I've had a lifetime of experience learning how to hide my illness from others, even from myself. It gets back to that facade we wear (was that Janet who was talking about it?). I obviously wasn't happy, but everyone assumed it was the usual junior faculty trauma ... in that respect, my colleagues at Fordham were wonderfully supportive. They all valued me as a colleague; they tried their best and offered what support they could, but I wasn't taking any of it. My problems really had little to do with academic life, tho it was a facade that maintained itself and required no work from me. All the same, if I weren't depressed, academe still wouldn't be for me. Tenure review boards tend to punish junior faculty for valuing the things I do, like fieldwork and teaching.
Cheers,
Bob[ps. the egg came first. The first chicken was a mutation of some proto-chicken or a cross between different proto-chickens. Who knows? It may not just be chickens ... within us all may lie the genes of the proto-chicken....;^]
poster:Bob
thread:10514
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19990914/msgs/11864.html