Dear #AcaTooters, it's the first interactive thread, and we are ready to talk about our demons, our mental health. Academia is essentially a space that makes you feel alone, you are in your room of library writing your research. If your friends aren't busy with their own thesis, they are busy with their jobs, the meetings have reduced. Your family either doesn't understand what you're doing, or expects you to be the number 1 author. The thread is going to deal with a list of Suh things #AcaWoes

A research often spans to atleast 3 years and more often than not more, it can get tiring to work on the same subject for a large part of the decade. Failure, bad writing rejection from publications and conference adds on to the academic stress and the feeling of imposter syndrome makes you feel ever alone. But you're not. The fact that most Indian universities do not help with grant/conference/publication, we find ourselves lacking any training and completely on our own, behind western scholars

THREAD RULES: LISTEN, that's the most important one. Within this thread, I would like you to reach out to each other, to talk, to be kind. To understand where one's coming from. Emotional labour has to be given as well and cannot be just withdrawn. And it has to be respected. Also realise that you're not alone. Share your solutions, and ask for some.

A recent study on Indian Universities published in 2015 showed that about 53.3 percent student from the group studied suffered from depression with about 13% from severe depression. That's a probability that every 1 of 2 people in academia suffers from depression!

The study further noted instance of depression were more in students from liberal arts than within non-liberal. I do not in any way suggest that non-liberal spaces do not have depression, but I want to delve into why humanities may witness more. It's because we constantly study histories of violence, our theories make us question the hatred we see which makes one anxious and unable to live with the status quo. A person here on the thread in fact from non-lib sc. is talking about how this is hap.

It's also important to talk about the effect of bullying and social discrimination as a cause of deterioration. The recent suicides within Indian universities, Rohith vemula, Payal Tadavi, and Fathima Latheef were all 'institutional murders' caused due to harrassment based on their caste, and religious identities by seniors, and professors.

It is high time that we counter that while introspecting our own privilege. If you seem someone using casteist or Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic, and mysoginist slurs, stop them, even while joking, you do not know what would their effects be on someone.

There are so many ways mental health manifests itself that I can hardly list them all- depression (which can mean chronic hopelessness, tiredness, unable to work or socialise, withdrawing from family and friends) and has many forms where a person seems to be doing all of these things, but is struggling called high function depression. Then there's anxiety and panic attacks. Both are related to unavoidable often seemingly un-rational fears that a person cannot control.

There's BPD (Bipolar disorders- often mapped by sort of a limbo between high and low emotions). And please note these are all basic understandings and not encompassing ones, they are not enough for diagnosis. There's also self-harm, and suicides which can result of mental health deterioration. There are so many more which I cannot list, because of space constraints.