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[leeway]

Hi, I'm new.  I'm a second-year grad student.  I'm fairly confident that I am suffering from anxiety and depression (screening has indicated this, and I'm seeing a therapist this week to confirm it).  Both are fairly mild, but it is interfering with my academic performance. 

I'm wondering if it is a good idea to talk to my professors about this.  I'm afraid that, if they don't already do so, they may start to perceive my work as inadequate if they know that there is a reason that it might be.  I certainly don't think that it would make them regard my work any more highly - it shouldn't!  I feel that revealing the matter to my professors could only serve as an excuse for my mediocre performance, which in no way makes up for my mediocrity - explaining why my work has been poor would only serve to spare my pride, which is not a good reason to do it, in my opinion (in that my work is poor, period.  My academic self-image should reflect that fact, rather than sugarcoating it with an excuse for the poor work).  Of course, my judgment is very likely colored by my mental state.

So: if mental health issues are interfering with one's academic performance, is it a good idea or a bad idea to let professors know what's going on?

[sciencephd]

If you're working closesly with/for someone, such as working in their lab, then you would probably want to discuss this. 

But it sounds like you are talking about professors that you are simply taking a class with.  In that case, probably not.  I can't see a benefit, unless you need to take time off or turn in a late asignment.

[neutralname]

One option is to see if you can take a semester or a year off.  If this is appealing, then you could see what justification you would need to do so, and what the consequences would be.  It might be that you could use the depression/anxiety as a medical reason.

If you just want to explain to them why your performance is not as good as you think it could be, then I think you also need at the same time to explain what you are doing to solve the problem.  It's no good to explain to a professor that you have a problem interfering with your studies, but you don't have much of a plan to solve it.

I'd also be careful about which people you tell.  A case of mild depression is not necessarily going to gain you much sympathy, so choose someone who you are pretty sure would be understanding. 

[kedves]

I wouldn't say anything at this point.  You can decide what you want to say and to whom you want to say it later, but once something is said, you can't un-say it.  I would give my therapist and therapy a chance before deciding what to do next.  Good luck to you.

[mended_drum]

I wouldn't say anything either.  I'd wait until you have a concrete plan of treatment and an improvement in your performance becomes evident.

[namazu]

I agree with the previous posters - I'd probably not say anything at this point. 

However, if you are diagnosed with something, I'd suggest getting documentation and putting it on file with the disabilities office.  You can keep it confidential, but then it will be in place just in case things go south, or you need something in writing to justify time off while you get your head together.

Hope things start looking up for you soon.  (Only about a month and a half until days start getting longer!) 

[thebuffster]

I'm a psychology grad student, and even in my department, disclosing mental health issues is generally frowned upon. It could backfire on you later.

I would keep it to myself until it became absolutely necessary. Have documentation, just in case the person in question doesn't believe you later.

[amiens]

[bitter aside]I know in my department the answer to this question depended entirely on your gender.[/bitter aside]  I 100% agree with the folks who think you should not say anything to your professors, and you should consult a professional in order to build a documentation trail in case it is needed later. 

[leeway]

Thanks everyone, that's very helpful - I wouldn't have guessed there would be such a consensus!  I'll keep this to myself for now unless I'm entirely unable to keep up with my work (which isn't the case at this point).

[tuxedo_cat]

Hmmm, I guess my perspective is a little different here.  I think that announcing to any of your advisors that you are suffering from anxiety and depression might be like announcing that you have 10 fingers and 10 toes.  I am frankly having a difficult time thinking of more than 5 people I've known in the profession who have NOT been through at least mild depression -- and those five probably just didn't tell me.  I think this is a pretty standard occupational hazard for academics.  This is not to diminish the distress of experiencing this -- and certainly people can go through anxiety and depression in very different ways.

So that's another vote to just keep it to yourself, but for other reasons -- not because it's stigmatizing but because it's rather ho-hum.

[greenman]

First, I'd talk to your adviser (assuming you have a good relationship). Get a sense of what s/he thinks. How much is your illness likely to affect your grades? Or is the issue more that you simply have some really bad "off" days when you're in seminar?

Speaking generally about your question, I'd say it also depends on the "culture" of your department. If people are comfortable and open with each other, I'd say sure. It might generate some useful support for you. However, if it's a more distant, "every man for himself" sort of place, there's little point.

Let me tell you I empathize with your with problems. I am currently an ABD and feel that my "hardest" time emotionally/psychologically was at the end of my first and through most of my second year. I recall drinking significant amounts alone, feeling completely lost--not exactly despairing, but extremely numb. That was a bad time. Try to force yourself to do things like exercise--all kinds, anything from a sport, to a self-defense class, to taking long walks, to hiking. "Movement is the surest cure for melancholy," to paraphrase Burton's famous quote from Anatomy of Melancholy.

[bell_bottom_blues]

IMHO, I think that whether you talk about it or not depends primarily on the climate of your department and on how it is affecting your work. I agree with greenman there.

If you're in a small department with a low faculty:student ratio, your profs are going to notice if your work suddenly declines or if you have a number of unexcused absences. For example, if you're an A student who suddenly stops coming to class or whose work suddenly declines in quality, they will notice. Smaller departments, generally speaking, aren't usually as cutthroat as departments in larger R1s, however.

If you're at one of those larger, competitive R1s, I would certainly never reveal any weaknesses or perceived weaknesses to anyone (except counseling services, of course). At my graduate institution, it would have meant academic death  to be branded by faculty as a "nutcase" (even if you had depression or anxiety, which obviously doesn't make a person a "nutcase") and fellow grad students would have used it against you at every opportunity.

If you're in a smaller department with an open climate, it might not be a bad idea to at least give your profs some indication of why you've been absent, or your work has declined, or however this has been manifesting (you seem to think it has, otherwise you wouldn't be concerned about it.) No need to go into great detail, especially if the prof looks uncomfortable with the info.

As for taking time off, I would caution you to check the schedule of course offerings. If something you need to graduate is only offered every other year, taking a semester off could set you back another year or longer. In this case, perhaps a reduced work load would be a better option. In grad school (and sometimes in our first year in a "real" teaching position), we do tend to work ourselves to the point of exhaustion, which would only exacerbate an anxiety/depression situation.

Good luck! And let us know how it all turns out.

[tchan]

Finally, a topic I can speak on more authoritatively than other forumites!  No, I'm not a mental health professional... I have suffered from severe anxiety disorder for several years.  It dominates my life, pretty much 24-7, so I'd say I'm an expert.

I strongly recommend that you do NOT take a year off.  In my experience, at least, avoiding work/stress is a very bad path to go down.  You have to learn to be in charge of your anxiety, to plow through it.  Otherwise you will become a victim of it.  It will start controlling you, and once you start a list of things you can't do due to your anxiety, it snowballs.  I couldn't watch baseball for two years, because I had my first panic attack while watching a game.  I was deathly afraid of baseball-- how's that for being f**ked up?.  I ended up with a laundry list of things I couldn't do-- I couldn't watch baseball, go to the beach, fly on an airplane, go on vacation/stay in a hotel, talk to people I didn't know... I also suffered from agoraphobia for some time.  I'm still struggling with some/many of these.  It's unpleasant, I know, but say you do take a year off and improve.  You will likely be scared s***less of the problem returning when you restart your program.  Yes, you may be getting some help from therapy/medication, but these problems don't just disappear in a year.  I know you said your anxiety was mild-- my point is you don't want to make it more severe by avoiding important things in your life.  Don't let me scare you here-- it sounds like your problem is not nearly as severe as mine.

As to telling profs, that's a tough one.  I don't.  It's my little secret.  Actually, I lie.  It's easier, and it's a white lie/white exaggeration.  I have only mild irritable bowel syndrome, but I blame a lot of my anxiety related stuff on that.  Sorry, can't meet you to night, I have stomach problems.  Sorry I couldn't get to class, I have stomach problems... I know it's not the greatest solution, but I never use it to get out of important things, like missing tests or not handing in assignments.  On those, I just suck it up.

I'm only a PhD applicant and my problem is already having a negative impact on my career-- I just took the GRE last week and during it had not one, but two full blown panic attacks.  I obviously did not do as well as I had hoped, or as well as I had on my practice tests, but I am so used to panic attacks by now that I just plowed through them and came out with a respectable score.  I was disappointed at first, but then told myself, "Hey, I probably just set the GRE high-score record for a dude who had two panic attacks during the test!"  I guess the point is, you learn to live with it, and while it may affect your performance, it is no reason to give up on your dreams.  I'm still applying to grad school, and will not let this bulls*** deter me.  There are tons of people who have succeeded with physical or mental disabilities/conditions.  Anxiety disorder is no different from any of these.  Other than the fact that it's still taboo and looked upon as a weakness by many, at worst, or dismissed as 'just nerves' by others.

Sorry for the long post, I just had to get that off my chest! 

[tinsmiths_scoop]

Neophyte to neophyte, I don't think you should confide in your professors but mainly because I don't think that telling them about what you're going through will provide the relief that you're hoping for.  It may even make your anxiety worse in the long run, and you certainly don't want to do anything that will make your anxiety worse!

Rough patches pass, so in the mean time do your best to find the inner resolve to not let it impact your work as much as possible.  Also, lay off the double-shot espressos.  Though a handy research tool, I find they tend to exacerbate the anxiety issue.

[bacardiandlime]

Amiens - which gender has an advantage, in your view?

OP - I agree with tuxedo_cat, a response to such an admission is likely to be at best a sympathetic 'aren't we all', but could also involve eye-rolling and the assumption that you're another shirker with a 'life's all too difficult for me' snowflake attitude (walk past any coffee house in a college town and you'll hear grad students talking about how depressed and 'stressed' they are. It's 3pm and you're out drinking coffee, people would kill to have such a 'stressful' life). To be particularly harsh, the grad student lifestyle actually enables people to nurse this type of attitude far more than a corporate job would.

I'm not for a moment suggesting that you are workshy, and I know the type of problems you are suffering from are very real. But as tuxedo_cat says, they are common among academics, and people who have dealt with such issues themselves may actually be less rather than more sympathetic.