RPR on Unraveling Faculty Burnout

On this episode, the last of season three, I share some of my own advocacy work related to burnout. 

Transcript

Rebecca Pope-Ruark:  On this episode, the last of season three, I share some of my own advocacy work related to burnout. 

Hello listeners, welcome to the agile academic, a podcast for women in and around higher education. This season, I talked with my special guests from all over academia about purpose values and what it means to be an advocate in higher ed for students, for labor, for kindness, and for balance and self-care. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark. 

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Hi listeners. Welcome to this eighth and final episode of season three of the agile academic. It's been a great season with my guests really showing us what it means to advocate for causes and ideals and people in higher ed. To wrap up this season and to celebrate breaking 7,500 episode downloads, I want to share some of my own advocacy work with you. 2022 is a year something I've been working on for the last three years becomes a reality. Later this year in September, my book Unraveling Faculty Burnout will be published by Johns Hopkins University Press. I'm excited to launch this project into the wider world, but I'm also honestly afraid because I tell some pretty raw stories, my own and those from others who contributed. So I'll tell you a little bit about my journey I went through to get this book to where it is, and I'm going to read you an excerpt from the introduction to whet your appetite for the book release. 

The book’s subtitle is “Pathways to Reckoning and Renewal,” which to me means that talking about burnout helps us recognize burnout and do something about it. I want to read the first part of the introduction where I tell my story, and then I'll talk more about the book itself. So here we go. 

“I sat across from my new therapist, clutching a sofa pillow to my chest and silently fuming that I had to be there. At a recent yearly physical, I admitted to being depressed, but only because I couldn't seem to concentrate anymore. And it was the end of a difficult academic year. I just had a breast cancer scare, which was thankfully just a scare, so of course I was tired and worn out. If I could just regroup and concentrate, I knew I would come out of this funk and get back to business. I had a pilot program to run, a new major to grow, a special issue of a major disciplinary journal to put together, and a contract for an edited collection at a very well-respected university press to deliver. 

My physician advised me to see a psychiatrist to address different pharmaceutical options and to meet with the local therapist she recommended. I'd been to therapy before, during bouts of anxiety throughout my master's and doctoral program years. I'd found therapy to be somewhat helpful, but I’ve led a lucky life. What right did I have to complain? Good childhood with loving parents, good education, loving and supportive husband, my dream job and tenure at a private liberal arts-focused university, strong publication record, and a book with a major academic press. Whining to someone about my feelings would not make it any better. I just needed to suck it up and figure out a way to concentrate again. 

I put off making the recommended appointments for two months until my husband finally took the choice out of my hands. He worked from home the day of my first therapy appointment and offered to drive me there. So I went, if I could convince the therapist, all I needed was some Ritalin or Adderall to concentrate, it'd all be fine. 

Laura seemed nice enough. She asked me some get-to-know-you questions about my current state of mind. I explained that I'm overly stressed at work with a lot to do and that I was struggling to concentrate, which was making everything worse. I had important shit to do as I explained in lengthy detail, focused on the must-dos and the should-dos among my responsibilities. 

About midway through the session, Laura asked me how long I'd been unhappy at my job. Without really thinking, I blurted out seven years. That stopped me short. Had it really been miserable for so long? Laura just let that sit for a while, so it had time to sink into my thick professional shell. There were certainly some trying times over those seven years. For example, there was a departmental schism when my colleagues and I tried unsuccessfully to spin out of our department. More recently, the spring 2017 pilot of the new design thinking program I had put my heart and soul into had been, honestly, emotionally and professionally traumatic. I dreaded to go into campus for any reason. Now, students were just emotionally exhausting, and I didn't want to deal with their perennial problems. I avoided colleagues and meetings as much as possible, especially conversations that would likely have conflicts or battles. I was just tired of fighting. I hadn't written anything for months, which as a writing teacher and professional writer was devastating to me, but I told myself and Laura, if I could just concentrate long enough to write, to get the scholarship about the pilot program out there, it would make the experience worthwhile, and I could prove to myself that it didn't beat me. 

After asking again for probably the hundredth time for ADD medicine to help me concentrate and get back to work, and fully knowing that she couldn't actually prescribe medication, Laura looked at me and said, “you're smart enough to know that won't help. Your inability to concentrate is a symptom, not the problem. All of your symptoms, lack of concentration, sense of dread about teaching your classes and going to meetings, deep shame about not producing enough in the last year, anxiety attacks on your way to work and while unlocking your office door, you have burnout, probably severe, and depression and anxiety are byproducts. You can't run from that anymore. And if you keep running, you might not come back him back.” 

Basically, she said my entire way of thinking about myself and doing my work might be causing irreparable damage to my mental health. Me, the person who had literally written a book on faculty vitality and productivity strategies. If the psychiatrist confirmed this diagnosis when we had our first appointment a month later, I would officially be a complete fraud. How could I promote that book or keep up with my blog or start a consulting side gig when I couldn't live the productivity advice myself? What would this mean to my entire identity, which was wrapped up in my roles as teacher-scholar-writer, an identity that hinged on constantly doing work rather than living a life. What was I without all of that? For a long time, I felt what Laura labeled shame, weakness, fear, terror really that someone would find out that I was going through this and out me as a washout. My career and, therefore, my life were certainly ruined because I wasn't strong enough to pull myself out of this mental mess and maintain the professional view I showed to the world. Burnout felt like a career death sentence. 

But now I know that I'm not alone. 

That happened three years ago. I came up with the idea for the book in a place I spent quite a bit of time in while dealing with my burnout – therapy. In 2018, when I couldn't hide my depression, anxiety, and burnout anymore, I had a few breakdowns that led to being on medical leave from my tenured job at a wonderful student-focused institution. At a regular physical, I described how depressed I was, and my PCP recommended a specific therapist to see. That therapist, Laura, became my lifeline. She understood burnout, helped me see through the shame that I had wrapped up in my academic identity, and worked with me to rebuild my life and identity, which meant making some really hard personal and professional decisions. I'm a different person since that conversation and all the hard work that went into reclaiming my life from higher ed while still being in higher ed, which I love deeply. 

How did I get from this to the book? The idea for the book came when I was hitting my lowest points and was building myself back up. I regularly ranted in therapy that nobody talks about burnout in higher ed, or at least they weren't at the time. COVID has certainly brought out those conversations much more to the fore. But anyway, it felt like a dirty secret. Burnouts were whispered about in hush tones, like they couldn't hack it and it might be contagious. Once I'd overcome my own shame about burnout, that righteous anger set in. And I thought, someone has to talk about this in numerous sessions. I told Laura there was a book here, but I didn't take myself very seriously at first one because I hadn't successfully written anything in a couple of years, thanks to burnout. And two, because I was supposed to be learning not to push myself back over the edge. 

Adding a book project seemed like a bad idea, but as I thought about it, changed jobs, did free writing and brainstorming wrote my own stories, it felt more like catharsis than overwork. I also knew a misery memoir wasn't what needed. It's not what I needed when I was diagnosed with burnout. So I built something else. It's full of my own reflections on my experience, stories from other academic women who have dealt with or are dealing with burnout, advice from coaches and faculty developers, and reflection, questions, and activities for readers to dig deeper into their own experience. Yes, the book focuses on women in higher ed specifically. It didn't start out that way, but the submissions, people open to being interviewed, and those willing to share their stories, were all women. 

To preview the structure a little bit. Here's what you can expect after laying the groundwork in terms of definitions and the need to talk about it more openly. I look at two constructs, culture and identity, burnout is a workplace driven mental health syndrome. So we can place a lot of blame about burnout on higher ed culture, but we are also part of that culture. So we have to recognize it. Secondly, I look at identity in the sense that many of us attracted to academia share similar personality and intellectual characteristics that may lead us to the overwork and overperformance that accelerates burnout. After teasing out culture and identity. I share four chapters that each focus on a pillar of burnout, resilience, purpose, compassion, connection, and balance. I offer perspective, reflection, stories, and activities for readers to take stock and think about how to move forward in their careers and lives as academics. 

I'm both excited and scared for this book to come out. It's raw in places, and some of what I and my contributor share was hard to deal with, and it will be hard to hear, but it's also about resilience, hope, and joy. I can't wait for you to read it. Thanks for listening. I hope you'll pre-order Unraveling Faculty Burnoutfrom John's Hopkins University Press. Now as always, you can DM me on Twitter or email RPR@theagileacademic.com with questions and comments. You can check out my coaching programs www.theagileacademic.com as well. Take care and stay well. 

Thanks for listening to this episode of the agile academic podcast for women in higher ed. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as I did to make sure you don't miss an episode. Follow the show on apple, Google, or Spotify podcasting apps and bookmark the show. You'll find each episode, a transcript and show notes theagileacademic.buzzsprout.com. Take care, and stay well.