Anyone with experience with Disability Services

[yezzy123]

Hello all,

I have suffered from anxiety for a while and even sought counseling at my undergraduate institution. I didn't want to be medicated or have an official diagnosis because I wanted to keep options open for military service. So I pushed through. Managed a 3.49 in undergrad with over a 3.8 in my major (anthropology) and am sitting at a 3.69 in my graduate program (public health). My biggest problem has been attendance due to anxiety. I am no longer considering the military and I want to do better so that I not only do well in my masters program, but can also perform well in a PhD program.

Do you all think a diagnosis and/or accommodations this late in the game will be beneficial or hurt me? What I'm thinking I would need is just advanced notice of assignments or big projects (or whatever people with anxiety normally get), definitely counseling, and possibly medication but that would be up to a doctor. The big thing for me is that I want to be able to explain my lackluster GPA on PhD applications and prove that I am working on it and will be able to manage PhD work. I have no doubts that I can, but as my condition ebbs and flows, so does my work. So the question is really whether I will always be doing my best. I am only going to be applying to schools that have a really good focus on teaching and advising because I perform much better when I have a solid relationship with my teachers, so I will talk about that in my personal statement.

This is sorta a ramble, but advice, stories, and general information about experiences with disability services, mental health in grad school and the application process, and coping mechanisms would be helpful.

[knp]

On 11/4/2016 at 9:22 AM, yezzy123 said:

Do you all think a diagnosis and/or accommodations this late in the game will be beneficial or hurt me? What I'm thinking I would need is just advanced notice of assignments or big projects (or whatever people with anxiety normally get), definitely counseling, and possibly medication but that would be up to a doctor.

BENEFICIAL BENEFICIAL BENEFICIAL!

However, the diagnosis will lead to two separate parts: treatment and accommodations. As for treatment, I'm not sure there are many people who wouldn't benefit from some counseling, and when they have ongoing life issues, from ongoing counseling. If your doctor suggests a medicine to help you, and it helps you, this will also by definition benefit you! It will do that whether you start now or in thirty years, though—from the very little I know about anxiety, it doesn't get that much harder to treat if you wait a few years. I say this not to discourage you from seeking treatment now, but so that you don't feel like you missed an opportunity by not seeking treatment already. You haven't aged out, and if it helps you, it helps you, no matter the age.

I do worry that you are conflating diagnosis and accommodations a bit too much: the concern about these being two things that could hurt/help you in academia seems somewhat misplaced. Diagnosis and treatment cannot possibly hurt your career in academia. They will help you function better, or if you are very unlucky, will have little or no effect. Because of ableism, the worry about accommodations hurting your career is legitimate. One thing that helps is not to view the staff and faculty of your graduate program as part of your treatment team. Accommodations aren't exactly a part of your treatment, so much as something that will help you cope with your condition. So I, personally, tend to the private side, but I would no more disclose the details of an anxiety treatment regimen to any graduate program any more than I would disclose the details of a cancer treatment program—that is to say, I would never. They need to know what you need from them ("two extra allowed absences per class per semester," e.g.), but after you get the policy, you don't need to explain why you took advantage of it. Kind of the point of accommodations is to make sure somebody who actually knows their stuff—the disability services office, not individual faculty who are not trained for this—adjusts the policies to make sure you can try your hardest, and then when you take advantage of those accommodations, the fact that you have them covers you so that everybody, including you, already knows that you're working no less hard than anybody else, just sometimes in different formats.

I also don't think your grades are worth apologizing for or explaining. Your major GPA is higher than mine and my GPA was characterized as "high" by one of my professors. If you're getting Bs in your anthropology courses—if any—during your MPh,* that's maybe worth a line explaining, but the format of the graduate essay is such that anything more than a sentence and a half about a couple of Bs will be a "doth protest too much" kind of situation.

*You are applying to anthropology PhDs, yes? I ask because occasionally people post on field-specific forums without realizing they have done so.

On another note, what do you want to do with your PhD?

[yezzy123]

Thanks for your reply @knp! I tend to get weird when trying to explain things so i think you captured more of what I was trying to say than what I wrote-- thanks for that. I definitely will take your advice and neither disclose my condition nor explain my B's. It's probably not a big deal and I would be making something out of nothing. 

I think I will look into treatment for now, since I still have a year of my MPH to go. I think that will help me determine if I also need to look into disability services. If the treatment works, I may not even have to-- no use in even potentially damaging my career. 

And about the other note: I plan to work at a teaching college or at a medical school (teaching qualitative methods, anthropology, or something in diversity). One of my major goals is to "popularize" sociocultural anthropology, or rather, make it relevant in order to increase interest, respect, and job opportunities for those in the field. As far as my research goes, I would also like to use my PhD for consulting on provider education, medical access, and brain drain related issues. This is all related to my research interests in healer culture in the US, like provider training and identity formation.

[knp]

I'm glad I was helpful!

2 hours ago, yezzy123 said:

I think I will look into treatment for now, since I still have a year of my MPH to go. I think that will help me determine if I also need to look into disability services. If the treatment works, I may not even have to-- no use in even potentially damaging my career. 

One thing, though, is that I would encourage you to register. Unfortunately, I can't guarantee that using accommodations won't create a challenge of some size (whether big or small) for your career—although I would hope that medical anthropology would be understanding, as a field—but I've never heard of a case where having them made things more difficult. Registering should let you activate them more quickly and seamlessly if you decide it would be helpful, so I encourage you to do that.

3 hours ago, yezzy123 said:

I definitely will take your advice and neither disclose my condition nor explain my B's. It's probably not a big deal and I would be making something out of nothing. 

I worry I stated my case for not disclosing your condition too strongly. It's not that you shouldn't disclose at all? It's not DADT. Once you're in your program, I think my emphasis wouldn't be on not disclosing but on not apologizing. I've briefly brought up some personal challenges with some of my professors, because when you have to miss class, you have to miss class: but I have tended to do so rather briefly and with a focus on what I need. They need to know you need advance notice, but I'd just be a little careful about giving all the background of why. (This is my philosophy for life in general, actually: rather than, "Oh, gosh, I don't want to bother you, but I'm feeling chilly, you know I have an odd metabolism and my blood sugar isn't so high right now, could we close the window?" to moving straight to, "would you mind if we closed the window?" Need communicated, backstory omitted.) Moreover, there may be diversity statements where it would be relevant—personally, when asked about that, I did the rhetorical equivalent of flashing a giant neon sign that said "none of your business!", but I have been talked into revealing some more of my challenges in grant applications this year (although it felt like pulling teeth). Additionally, depending on what you're researching, anthropology may actually be one of the few fields in which a careful disclosure of this in a statement of purpose or research proposal would be acceptable—if you're not researching anything about anxiety, don't, but if it involves your research, a brief mention would be increasingly acceptable. I don't have the background to walk you through exactly the line to walk here, but it's possible: e.g. Bipolar Expeditions.

[yezzy123]

Totally get what you're saying. I was talking about disclosure in the application process only. 

[knp]

Yeah and I'm waffling there now, on two conditions: if you have research reasons to disclose in the application process, go ahead if you have someone wise and smart from your academic past you can talk about your framing with; or in diversity statements, as one of but not the main theme. Otherwise yes, full steam ahead, and I hope you start feeling better soon!