Jill Oberski First, a content warning. Today's conversation covered the topic of suicide briefly, so please feel free to stop the recording and take care of yourself if that is something you need. All right. Hi, everyone. My name is Jill Oberski, I use she her pronouns, and I'm a PhD candidate in the entomology program at the University of California Davis. And today, I'm excited to welcome you to another conversation in my series of panels about mental and chronic illnesses in academic professional development. This project is supported by the UC Davis GradPathways Institute for Professional Development through the program called Professors For The Future. I have several guests today. Thank you all for being here. And before we start, I'd like each of you to briefly introduce yourselves with your name pronouns and your professional titles where you're at that sort of thing. Can we start with Geoff? Geoff Attardo Yeah, my name is Geoff Attardo (him) and I am an assistant professor in the Department of Entomology here at UC Davis. And I study the biology of insect vectors of disease and their relationships with ecology and interactions and things like that. And I have kind of struggled with anxiety, depression, and attention deficit disorder. Jill Oberski And Lisa, Lisa Whitten Yes, I'm Lisa Whitten. And I'm an associate professor at SUNY old Westbury, since 1986, in the psychology department, I'm retiring at the end of this year, which I'm thrilled about, and I use she her. And my work has been mostly on bringing culture and race to the center of the undergraduate psychology, prep curriculum. And I've struggled with anxiety and depression all my life and then was diagnosed with bipolar, bipolar one, about 20 years ago, when I had a severe year long manic episode, precipitated by a medication that was supposed to be a mood stabilizer, but instead was elevating my mood. And that caused a lot of trouble. It took nine months to be stabilized again. And that's my experience. I've written about it in an article, which we can reference somewhere, I guess. And I just wanted to say also that I've been diagnosed with ADHD. But I read an article in the Times or somewhere just today that made it sound like I don't have ADHD, because I didn't have it as a child. But anyway, that's something I struggle with to. Ariel Lambe Lisa, I read that article as well. And I think it's something I won't say in polite company. My name is Ariel Lambe, I'm an Associate Professor of History at the University of Connecticut. I'm a mom of two and I had a severe postpartum mental illness episode in 2013 2014 2015, finally got help in 2015, and was diagnosed with bipolar one and OCD. And at this point, I am completely out about these conditions after a period of silence. And looking forward to this conversation and other conversations that I'm involved in about really putting myself out there and having those tremendous respondents say, in my in my direct messages or my text messages, "I wish that I could be as out as you are, I'm looking forward to that in the future." That just fuels me right now, that the number of people that have come forward to me and said, it's so meaningful to me that you're being so out. So that's what's driving me. That's my full motivation. And I'm on that note, delighted to be part of this conversation. Jill Oberski Amazing. Thank you so much. So it sounds like all of you are pretty public with your diagnoses. How did you "come out," so to speak, and how public are you with this? I know some of you, it's like right there in your Twitter bio. Others, it just came up in conversation. What has that looked like for you in terms of disclosure to certain audiences? Lisa Whitten Well, I can start, I would say I'm not totally out. And it's been a lengthy, challenging process. I first talked about my mental illness publicly, in 2009, when I was able to do a short speech, as I accepted the distinguished psychologist award from the Association of Black Psychologists, and I talked for about seven minutes, um, many of the people in the room had witnessed me at the convention in 2001, when I was really in bad shape. But I talked about it there. And it took many years before I wrote about it. And I wrote about it because my colleague let me know about this special issue on the lived experience of mental health practitioners with mental illness. I, um, I sent the article to a number of my colleagues, some of whom I'm very close to, and to a number of my friends. And I must say, the part of the coming out process for me that's been challenging is that I haven't, I haven't been, I haven't liked, I haven't been comfortable with, I haven't gotten the the response that I wanted, which is just some acknowledgement that I have written about it and come out and, you know, or even somebody saying, This is what you're trying to do here, and I think here are some ways you could improve it next time. That's what I was hoping for from some folks in my department. And a committee I'm on through the Association of Black Psychologists. So I have to say briefly that this semester, I've talked about subjectivity and the stigma of mental illness in my counseling psychology class, but I have not come out. You know, it's, it's, it's always scary. And I'm telling myself, okay, it's your last semester, it doesn't really matter. But I'm so concerned about how it will impact my students and their opinion of me. Geoff Attardo Yeah, I guess I can go go next. Yeah, I didn't really talk about it, I mean, for a long time, I had sort of internalized it and didn't realize what was wrong. And I had very low self esteem, and just assumed that I was lazy, or that I was not good enough relative to other people. And that's why I was struggling so hard, or I wasn't trying hard enough. So it made me you know, so a lot of it, you know, I didn't want to feel like I was just sort of making excuses. I guess that was my big fear is that people would think I was just sort of inherently kind of flawed, and not, you know, not deserving of sort of consideration and getting help and sort of being able to actually identify what the problems were, and understanding those problems has made has turned my view around, it's really helped my self esteem, and sort of understanding. So my background is I grew up. I've always had ADHD, I didn't realize that's what the problem was, like, all of my teachers in high school were like, you know, he's got so much potential, but he doesn't, you know, doesn't live up to it. He's always goofing off, you know, his performance is all over the place. There's, he's gets an A and then an F. And it was always put on me as being like, you're, you know, you're just you're not applying yourself. And it's just, but you're working as hard as you can. And you're, you know, and so, besides that I was growing up and both my parents were alcoholics, which, you know, does all sorts of things. That is not, you don't realize it while it's happening. But you realize it after the fact when you start to contextualize like not everybody grew up with this kind of crazy environment. And the sort of the pathology of adult children of alcoholics. It's like I have all that, and I didn't realize what that was either. So that feeds into the attention deficit disorder, and the depression and the anxiety, it all comes along. Um, as baggage with that, and the thing that, so I hadn't really talked about it until I started doing, I had been on antidepressants for 20 or 30 years now, doing talk therapy, it kind of like made the symptoms tolerable, and I was able to manage but never felt good. And then I started doing ketamine infusion therapy last year, and that has been life changing for me. It provides a new, it gives you the ability to step outside of yourself and look at yourself from a different perspective, with empathy and with understanding of why you're doing what you're doing. And it's just, it's, it's really, I turned my life around. So I'm really a big proponent for the use of psychedelic kind of modalities, which are now becoming sort of accepted in mainstream, because it's the only thing that's ever really helped me, because all the antidepressants seem to be just doing is like painkillers, you know what I mean? They're suppressing the symptoms, but they don't get at the root cause. And that's really where the psychedelics get to is that they allow you to see where the pain is that you've been suppressing for decades, that is always in the background for everything. And that's really what has been. So I came out of that therapy, wanting to adjust with this like, feeling like other people need to know about this. Because I, you know, was suffering with this for so long thinking it was just a character flaw in me. And that that's not the reality and that. But you know, I've been vocal about it on Twitter. But I usually don't get any responses. I've gotten private messages back. But a lot of people don't want to engage publicly about it. And I always worry that I'm oversharing. Or that I'm being inappropriate. So I've somewhat dialed it back, because I don't want to force it on people who don't want to hear it. But I also want people who are suffering quietly, to know that there's, you know, there's options out there, and that's not you. That's the problem. So that's kind of my background and motivation. Ariel Lambe I hear that Geoff, I have gone from almost entirely silent to very, very public in the last three years. And, you know, the, the concept of oversharing grates on me, you know, I mean, I think if you're, I don't know, if you're sharing something really physically revolting, then maybe that's oversharing. But I don't really believe in the concept. People are welcome to block me if they don't like to see what I post, you know what I mean? Or just follow me or whatever. I think not to question what you're saying. I mean, I get the feeling. I've had that feeling a million times, oh, my gosh, what did I just do? Why did I share that? But I've really become pretty strident about the fact that what matters is those people who do DM you and say that you're telling my story, this is so meaningful to me, those are the people that matter, not the people who are like, Oh, I don't want to hear about your depression again, you know what I mean? Like, I don't have any tolerance for those people. I think they're there. It's stigma. It's ableism. And they can they're just free to ignore it. Geoff Attardo Yeah, for, for me, the the concern, I guess, as as a professor, like, if I'm talking about it with students, is that it could be seen as like me kind of "trauma dumping" on people, you know, and people who there's a power dynamic, that they don't have the ability to say, I'm not comfortable with this. So that's sort of where my concern comes in. Like, with peers, I have no problem sharing, but I don't want to be forcing something on people that don't have the option or don't feel comfortable saying, I'm not comfortable with this. And like, apparently, with ADHD, oversharing is like a common thing because you just talk about whatever's front of mind. And there's sort of like a lack of inhibition. So, there's a self consciousness that I have that I'm worried that like, oh, you know, I'm behaving in a strange way because so I'm constantly I also have social anxiety. So I'm constantly overthinking being like, Oh, I said something. And then I'll ruminate about it and worry. And so it's all part of the whole package. Ariel Lambe Yeah, so that makes complete, complete sense. Lisa Whitten Sounds very familiar to me. And I never thought of, I hadn't heard that term "trauma dumping" before that. That's an interesting one that I've shared with students in in my office a few times, and they have generally, and it's been after they told me about their mental health issues, if I'm remembering correctly, and they've just been sort of relieved, and, you know, grateful, you know, that I that I shared that with them. Um, I think one of the one of the most difficult things for me, was on... maybe this is getting into a different topic, Jill, you can stop me if you want to. But when I was at the, at the height of my manic episode, 20 years ago, 22 years ago, I literally started standing up and screaming in a meeting and ... department meeting ... [?] ... known me for 15, 16 years, some of them, and I stormed out of the room, and no one came after me, no one did anything. No one called me no one texted--were we texting then? I think so--no one emailed me. And I just I was, these are psychology professors, many, several of them clinicians. And I just was, you know, blown away by that. And I call it a mental health emergency, and that people need to know how to respond to that. That if I had had a stroke, if I had, you know, had a heart attack, people would have jumped up and gotten, you know, called University Police. But instead, they just, I kept the term I kept using was I call it being sick when I was in my manic episode, was they just left me flapping in the breeze. They didn't know what had happened, where I had gone. And I think that's grossly inappropriate, and and potentially damaging. And it it damaged me, because it made me not trust them anymore. Ariel Lambe Yeah, I think there's a huge difference between when we're outed by our symptoms, or our experiences, like when we haven't willingly said, I live with bipolar disorder, but instead have had an episode that is severe or an emergency enough that people around us are aware that something's wrong. Like, that's being outed, I would say, in the way I think about it, rather than coming out, right, in a way that you control or that you feel comfortable with. And I've absolutely had the same experience. Lisa, I'm so sorry that you experienced that with your colleagues. But I've had that experience with friends, I've had that experience in public, where I've been completely out of control. And people just don't know what to do, or they don't care to do anything, you know, when it's extreme. Lisa Whitten And they don't *think* they know what to do, what they're thinking, I don't know, it might be a combination of all of those. But instead of doing something, they so often do nothing. And I think that's a real mistake. In relation to this, I'll share with you that and it's in my article, but, um, I made a list of people, emergency contacts, and said something about this is how I look if I start falling apart again. And I gave it to my dean, and I never gave it to HR, but I think it's possible to do that. Because with this HIPAA stuff, people are afraid to do anything. Because I think that they should have called my parents, they should have called my sister, they could have should have called somebody. And they, so, now I've given permission to some people. One of my closest colleagues has the list. And I think that's something that people might consider doing, especially those of us who can go way out of control and and just be irrational and in real trouble. Ariel Lambe That's a fantastic idea. Jill Oberski Yeah, absolutely. Giving people examples of what to look for instead of just keep an eye on me, I think is a really, really important part of that. I want to shift us toward talking about the academic professional development timeline, and how disclosure is something that might impact your job application or interview process. Um, I mean, disclosure or just psychiatric illnesses themselves. How do you account for that? Or how does one account for that? If they know, they have a diagnosis, and they're starting, you know, the uncertain short term positions and job applications that are oftentimes very demanding for the interview process, that sort of thing? What are... what thoughts are coming up? Lisa Whitten Well, I think people should be very careful, and give a lot of thought to how much they disclose, and take into account the context and consult people that they're close to, because, you know, still, our society is not ready for this yet, you know, and if you know where you live, I mean, it's so much depends on again, your context. But I would recommend that people be very careful. At the point I'm at in my career, it's not as relevant, you know, and I haven't had a manic episode in over 20 years, I've just been on the same medication, as I say, it was precipitated by a particular medication, and it just took me a long time to figure out what it was. But I have thought about putting that the name of my article on my resume, because I'm looking for part time work. And I'm wondering how people might respond to that. And, you know, so I'm still thinking about it. But I would say be careful, and consult people that you trust and sort of test the water. Maybe by talking to people who do hiring, or someone who does hiring and that kind of thing. Ariel Lambe I feel like my experience is, is a little bit golden, like I had, I just had so much good luck that I hesitate to give advice to graduate students who are confronting these issues, because I just sailed through with some really privileged junctures in my career path. So what I mean by that is I had, for whatever reason, I don't know, relative stability during graduate school, my my mood, especially during my exams, and my dissertation period, was really stable. I wasn't diagnosed at that point, I was in no treatment, but for whatever reason, I just got a little window there, where I was okay. And that's where I did the majority of my graduate student school work. I got a job before I graduated, which is like a unicorn, right? That doesn't happen. It was pure luck. It was pure luck. And I then had my daughter right after I got the job, but before I had started it, and I was able to use her birth to get myself an extra semester before I started. So the period at which I was the most out of my mind after her birth, I was not yet working. By the time I started my job, I was still in very bad shape. And those first two years were really tough. But I was able to, basically, I let my life fall apart and kept my job on track. I mothered as much as I needed to mother and I worked as much as I needed to work and the rest of my life just completely fell apart. That was how I got through it. I don't recommend that. But that's how it worked for me. Flash forward to when I got tenure, I came out publicly on Twitter with a long thread that I had composed prior the day after I got my tenure letter, so I was really ready to be out. But like Lisa says, you have to be careful. And I kept it a secret through my whole tenure track process. The minute I came out, I was immediately sorry that I hadn't disclosed earlier. In that I got nothing but support. I got help getting accommodations. I had an excellent experience with HR and getting accommodations. I mean everything, like I say, it was golden. Everything was just sparkly for some reason. And again, I hesitate to use that as advice because I know people's other people's experiences are not that right. Other people have terrible experiences with HR, terrible experiences with department chairs, terrible experiences with departments as a whole with Dean's with you know whomever like there's all these horror stories out there. And for whatever reason I just got supremely lucky throughout the process. Um, so I don't know what anybody can take away from all of that. But the one thing I will say is, I have a background in union organizing, and my husband is a union organizer. And one of the things that they teach you in union organizing is, if you're scared, you get more out. Right? So if you support the union, and you're scared, you become the leader of the union campaign, because then if you're fired, if you're sacked for that, you have recourse. Whereas if you do it in secret, and they find out and they fire you, but you haven't made anything public, you don't have any recourse. And I think that that applies a little bit to disability. Because I think if I had, you know... I underperformed in during my tenure period, I got my book done, which is what I needed to get tenure, but I didn't write any articles in that period. And that was really, I was really well behind my peers. Had they used that as an excuse not to give me tenure, I wouldn't have had any recourse because nobody knew I was disabled. Whereas if I had had a disability, you know, on the books, so to speak, and accommodations and all of that, then I would have had recourse to say, hey, this was discrimination. You know, I wasn't given what I needed to to fulfill the tenure requirements. So that's just something to think about. Obviously, it depends on your temperament. Some people just don't have the wherewithall, especially if they're unwell, to be public. And I get that, but it's just it's, it's one sort of twist in in your thinking about it to consider maybe. Geoff Attardo Yeah, I think, for me, I don't, I wouldn't be in the position I'm in currently, if I didn't have the privilege that I had. So I come from a relatively wealthy family, so I didn't have to struggle with the financial aspects of things. And, you know, I have a marriage and a very supportive wife. And without her, I wouldn't have been able to do these things. So I mean, in some ways, I feel I struggle with this feeling of being kind of a fraud, because I look at the people who've had to work so much harder, you know, and struggling with systemic issues that, you know, I haven't had to deal with, just because of, sort of my my background. But I kind of looked back at my trajectory, and I can kind of see, I didn't realize I realized I was compensating for things as I was going through it. But I, so I did undergrad, I had a fairly mediocre performance there. I worked as a technician for a long time, I went back to take classes again, to be able to boost my GPA high enough to get into graduate school. I did okay, with graduate school. I guess I did well, in graduate school, then I did a postdoc. But there was always this feeling in me like, I can't handle a faculty position, because I'm not going to be able to keep it together enough to be that, you know, the the multitasking and all that. So I went into a position as a research scientist, because I'm really good at doing bench work and doing data analysis because I can, like, if I can do one thing at a time, I'm great. But it's when I'm getting hit with lots of stuff coming from different directions that I start to get overwhelmed. And then I will eventually hit like a paralysis state. And so I stayed as a research scientist, and you know, everybody, all my peers are like, "What are you doing?" you know, "You need to be going for a faculty position," and I couldn't really explain to them like, I don't think I can do it. But at some point, I was like, "Alright, I'm gonna try." But there's always this insecurity, you know, and this feeling of being an imposter, that I don't really belong here. And when I got here, you know, I sort of managed but I don't feel like I do anything super well, I do my best. But there's a lot of times where I'm just completely spun out and waking up every morning with panic attacks with palpitations, having a hard time breathing. Just because I'm thinking like, I can't do this today. You know, it's like just opening my phone and looking at the inbox and seeing all the new stuff that's come up. That's going to totally disrupt my plans for getting what I need to do done. And, and then the pandemic hit. And then like the Trump presidency, and just and the wildfires out here, just, you know, having days where it just looks like the apocalypse, and the anxiety got to a level that I had never been at before where it was just incapacitating. And that pushed me past, pushed me into a place that I'd never been before. Where I was, you know, not suicidal, but, you know, it was like, it would be a lot easier if I just wasn't here anymore. Cuz I can't, you know, it's just because you're... everything is just... you just feel like you're... you can't escape, you know, you're just sort of under this mountain of stuff that you will never be able to dig out of. And, yeah, so I mean, I put in my tenure package, you know, last year, and I got, you know, great reviews. And I'm like, what? This is not how I see myself, you know. I don't know, I don't understand the discrepancy between how I'm seeing me and how other people are seeing me. So I guess I hide it very well. But you know, it's usually when I'm at home alone, in my head that it all sorts of that's when it really kind of festers. Ariel Lambe I can't tell you how many people when I came out how many of my colleagues said, Oh, we're so sorry. We had no idea. Geoff Attardo Yeah. Ariel Lambe You know, and I wrote an article that came out in November, about being a mentally ill historian, and then sort of looking at mental illness in historical figures, and so forth. And it had family history in it. And it had personal history. And it was like sort of partially memoir, and I talked about some of the most extreme things that I experienced in the postpartum period, which was my first few years at UConn. And people were just totally shocked. And I can't really explain, I totally hear what you're saying, Geoff, I can't explain it either, right? Like I was, for days, barely sleeping, you know, seeing things and having massive rage episodes at home. Or in my car, you know, driving dangerously, I mean, some of the most typical bipolar mixed states type symptoms that, that was what I was plagued with during those years was mixed states, which is a combination of depression and anxiety, and depression and mania, sometimes called agitated depression. So I had all these terrible symptoms, and yet I was able somehow to hide them at work. I had a couple of instances where my I had students say to me, Professor Lambe, are you okay? There was one instance, when I was writing on the board, I had my back to my class, and I just stopped, and I just couldn't go on. I didn't... my mind went blank. I couldn't remember even what class I was teaching, let alone what I had been writing on the board. And I had this really sweet student who piped up after about 45 awkward seconds, and said, "Hey, guys, I think we broke her." And everybody laughed, and I laughed, and I turned around, and I said, "You know what, I'm really tired. What were we talking about?" and they, and they picked it up, and I got back on track, but like, so there were a few little cracks, mostly with my students. But my colleagues had no idea and to this day, and I think forever, I will not understand how nobody noticed, you know, I was having suicidal ideation, I was, you know, not eating for periods of time. And people just, they, you forget how self involved people are. And I don't mean that in a negative sense. It just everybody is concerned about themselves, you know, they're concerned about what they're going through. And they just don't notice that much about what other people are experiencing. Lisa Whitten I have to say, I've never talked with other faculty or other professionals about living with mental illness, and it's very affirming. And I'm really happy to have a chance to do this. And in part because like they say, what happens in groups, where people are similar. The notion of hiding and being a third good actor, because I would be very depressed, but I would have to go and teach a class and act like a normal person, you know, and I got, I got good at it. And Geoff, when you were talking the whole part about all the moving pieces of academia, I was saying to someone just the other day, this was not the best career choice for me. Because, you know, when I worked at the hospital, I went in, I saw patients, I had to write my note before I left that day, or the hospital wouldn't be paid. And I went home, and that was it. But then, and this is when the, what I describe as ADHD kicked in, when I started teaching, and I had to collect articles, and I had, um, you know, committees and things off campus. And it was, and it has remained very difficult for 30, more than 30 years. And there was something else I wanted to say... the part about accommodations. I was Director of Disability Services for about nine years, and I was offered that position after people have witnessed my manic episode. So I was I was fortunate that they, you know, well, I had a stretch where I wasn't in trouble, you know, visibly, so so they had reason to think that I could manage it. But that was difficult to manage, also, and it never occurred to me to try to get accommodations for myself. And I think that could have helped. The one thing I did, a sort of "self accommodation," which is I, um--and I should say, I put "self accommodation" in air quotes for people who couldn't see that--I very early started having a teaching assistant. And I designed it so that they could learn about the back story of being a professor and everything, but it was someone who helped me to be organized, more organized. And but it's been a real struggle, and I think has has definitely impacted my career trajectory. And, you know, when I one other thing I'll say is that, when I was, again, at the height of my manic episode, I went into, I was... people must not have been paying much attention. But again, I was hiding it. I was hiding it. I went into the Honors Convocation. And I was supposed to present the awards to our people in our department. Unfortunately, it was one of the biggest classes we had ever had. I came in about 40 minutes late, and marched on to the front, it wasn't a stage exactly, and it was... it was a mess. And after that, several people went to the chair and said, What's wrong with Lisa? And it's something that I talked about when I was going through this, I kept saying, people were asking what's wrong with Lisa? What's wrong with Lisa? But they didn't do anything about it? They didn't come to me and say, Lisa, what's wrong? Is there anything we can do to help? And that's what I really wanted. Is there anything I can do to help? Because the chair who told me about this, said, Lisa, three people came, two from this category and one from that category, and said what's wrong with you? What's wrong with Lisa? But he didn't offer me any, any help, either. And I could go on and on, but this is helpful for me. Geoff Attardo Yeah. It's great to be able to talk to people who get it. You know, who've been there. Yeah, it's because I, yeah, I think I think there's a lot of other hidden people who are going through the same thing that we have no idea or even around us, because we're really good at masking those symptoms until you're home alone, and then you just let it all fall apart. Lisa Whitten Partly because of my experience. I noticed a woman, she's probably 30 years my junior, in another department, and she just looked off, she didn't look the way she usually did. She looked depressed and I know what depression looks like. And so I did, I went to her office and I asked her if everything was okay. And she started crying. She didn't sob but she she teared up. And also the she appreciated me saying something. And I asked her if there was anything I could do, and right now I don't remember what she said. It wasn't anything concrete. But I think just my saying something for her made a difference. And I should check in with her... It's been a couple, maybe a couple years. So I think if we can be more sensitive, even those of us who have gone through this and people weren't paying attention, it can it can help. Yeah. Jill Oberski This is amazing and we are rapidly running out of time. But I wanted to sort of tie that together. Do you think it's better to just pretend everything is fine until it's not? Or is there a value in coming out as mentally ill when you're stable? Geoff Attardo I think the more transparency that can be, the better. But the infrastructure isn't there for that. And the university, I mean, I feel like I'm very supported here at UC Davis, like, department chair has been great. At one point, I went to him, actually, it was right after I turned in my tenure package. And I said, I don't think I can do this. I had hit like a wall, and I almost quit. And he sort of talked me down off the ledge. But yeah, and so I feel like I'm supported. But then again, you know, there's sort of, there's a lot of, you know, wellness seminars and things, it's like going to this thing where they tell you, you need to eat better, you need to get enough exercise, you need to get enough sleep. But then the remainder of the infrastructure is telling you, they're dumping more work on you than it's possible to get done. Or the expectations, like the only way you're going to get this grant or all these papers out, is to work at night and work all weekend long. Especially if you have ADHD, where you're constantly sort of trying to keep your energy focused and on task. And so there's conflicting messaging where they want to promote wellness. But the reality of the foundation of that is "be well, but get your stuff done," you know? And it's not possible to do both. That's just what it is. Jill Oberski Yeah. Lisa Whitten I would say... Again, be careful who you who you come out to, and how and when, and consider the repercussions. And maybe find a safe place, a place that you know, is safe, where you can talk about it, sort of what I said before, and test the water and see what what might work in the context that you're embedded in. Ariel Lambe Yeah, I think that that idea of a safe place is so important. And I think of my coming out process as building a scaffolding around myself. And so I started with, you know, the closest people to me. And then I built my scaffolding, one close friend at a time. And then I started talking to colleagues who were at other institutions, sort of testing the waters. And then by the time... I mean, it helped that I got tenure, right, I got tenure, and I came out because I was like, Okay, this, if it's now or never, I have this job security, I'm going to do it. But by that time, the scaffolding was already in place. And so I had practiced coming out, over and over and over and over again, I knew what language I wanted to use, I knew what I wanted to say and what I didn't want to say, you know, I had gauged people's reaction to certain things. I went over it with my therapist, like I, you know, I, I was very practiced by that point. I would say don't unless you absolutely have to. Decide that your first coming out or your second coming out is going to be to your department chair, or your dissertation supervisor. I mean, if you can avoid it. If you have to, of course, do what you have to do. But if you can go to that safe place like Lisa says, first, again and again, find more and more safe places, then it becomes easier to be a little unsafe. Geoff Attardo Yeah, I got to the point where it especially the with the whole, the ketamine infusions, it's like you come out with this new sense of purpose, which is really sort of what's helped me and part of it was like, if I if the system that I'm in, doesn't want to support me, then maybe I don't want to be in it. You know, that there's other things that I can do. So if they're not going to help me be... I know that this is the right thing to do. Like I have this certainty like that people need to be heard and supported. And that this is a remnant of, you know, sort of this capitalist profit at all costs, you know, the workers are sort of an expendable resource. And that's not right. And I kind of refused to accept that as being okay. So I'm, I'm happy to take any kind of slings and arrows at this point, like, if it does, you know, if they don't like it, then you can fire me, I don't care. And that's kind of where I'm at right now is like, I just don't, you know... I know, deep down, what the right thing is, and that there are people who are hurting, and that that shouldn't be the way it is. And it doesn't need to be that way. So I'm happy to sort of be the tip of the spear for that. Jill Oberski Hear, hear! Geoff Attardo Yeah. Jill Oberski Okay, we are running out of time. So I'm going to stop the recording here. Thank you all, so so much for sharing your thoughts with everybody today. Experiences, real lived experiences are so so important to hear about. And if you want to keep talking about this later, I'm super happy to facilitate that, because I would love to keep talking to all of you. Is there anything else you wanted to share with our audience before I hit the button? Geoff Attardo No, I think it'd be nice to stay in touch though. It's been a great opportunity to chat. I mean, I think like support groups, having support groups within your communities, would be a really great thing where people can get together and talk about their struggles without worrying about being judged or sort of having repercussions. Lisa Whitten Yes, and I would just say, if you're struggling with your mental health, too, find someone who can help you, and keep looking and keep looking, you know, finding resources, even if you think you can't afford it, there are graduate schools where you can get treated by a talented student and just keep looking until you get the help you need. Don't, don't give up.