Category Archives: psychology

Let Them Eat Snacks

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Next up on the syllabus: snacks.

In what might be the best argument for the abolition of the tenure system that I have personally heard of, a professor at Cal State Sacramento has walked out of his own class to protest the fact that some students didn’t bring snacks.

To elaborate, the professor, George Parrott, has had the following “snack policy” since shortly after he began teaching in 1969: students must “work in teams” to provide a homemade snack for each class, or else he’ll refuse to teach it. Apparently this helps promote teamwork and teach students about the consequences of unreliability.

Well, recently Parrott was forced to follow through on his threat because some students failed to bring snacks to class, and now university administrators are investigating the matter. (I don’t really know what there is to investigate. Dude’s been doing this since the 70s, so I’m sure it’s not news to them.)

Two things disappoint me most about this occurrence. The first is that the aforementioned wingnut is a member of his school’s psychology department. It always seems like it’s us psychologists who fuck everything up. Forcing people to electrocute each other, turning them malicious by pretending they’re in prison, having live sex demonstrations on stage…and now this. Seriously, academic psychology can’t seem to catch a break.

The second disappointing factor is that one of my favorite magazines/blogs, GOOD, has come out with an article in support of this inane policy. GOOD is all about alternative education, which doesn’t surprise me since its education section is “in partnership with University of Phoenix,” which might be the biggest baloney of a “university” I’ve ever heard of.

Anyway, the article claims, among other things, the following:

It’s well established that students who have close relationships with their peers or professors are less likely to drop out. At a time when only 30 percent of adults over 25 have a degree and only 56 percent of college students earn a degree in six years, colleges are looking for ways to ensure that students feel like they belong on campus.

Leaving aside the fact that canceling a class doesn’t seem like the best way to facilitate close relationships, I have this to say about Parrott’s methods: he clearly hasn’t studied his own field very well. The technique Parrott is using when he denies a lecture to the entire class because of one student’s mistake is a grade-school staple called collective punishment. It’s something I’ve fervently opposed ever since I was old enough to understand what it was (which, for me, was pretty damn young). Collective punishment is based on the premise that if one person causes negative consequences for the rest of the group, the other group members will convince bully that person into changing their behavior. What a great way to make students “feel like they belong on campus.”

Of course, there’s lots more wrong with this situation than just the dubious use of social psychology to manipulate people. First of all, if you poll random college students about why they’re in college, things like getting a degree and acquiring knowledge in their chosen field are likely to be higher on the list than learning about teamwork. Is teamwork important? Sure. But that’s not what we’re paying thousands of dollars for.

If he were that passionate about students learning how to work together, the professor could’ve taught a class about teamwork and petitioned to have it made mandatory. Or he could’ve had the class work in groups to carry out research projects or make short presentations at the beginning of each class. Or any number of things that are less stupid than forcing people to make their own snacks on their own time and money.

Some might defend this, saying that many of his students like the policy and that it’s not that hard to make snacks and whatnot. But I would argue that, when it comes to education, it’s the principle of the thing. Nobody should be picking classes based on whether or not they have time to bake cookies. Nobody should be denied a class because some random idiot forgot to.

Sleep: Forgotten Martyr of College Life

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See? It's even on a shirt.

“Academics, social life, and sleep: pick two.” -popular advice given to college freshmen

I’m sure you’ve heard that one before. Most college students, it seems, pick the first two.

What surprises me isn’t so much the fact that they do, but the fact that sleep deprivation is considered such a routine part of college life. Nobody seems to see anything wrong with this idea that getting through college necessitates depriving oneself of sleep.

I have a different way of looking at things because I have a different body. More specifically, living with depression means that sleep takes on a central significance in my daily life. Get too little, even by an hour, and I’m facing the sort of fatigue most people experience only after an all-nighter. Get too little too often, and I’m significantly increasing my chances of relapsing.

Most people don’t have depression (though many do, especially in college), but everyone knows, in the backs of their minds, that sleep is really, really important. Lack of sleep is implicated in all sorts of health problems, from susceptibility to stuff like colds and flu, to obesity, diabetes, attention and memory problems, and, of course, depression. Fatigue also makes the other two items on that list, academics and social life, nearly impossible to handle.

What’s strange is that sleep is probably unique in its complete invisibility as a college health issue. Dining halls increasingly provide healthy options, including full salad bars at each of Northwestern’s. Campus medical centers provide free condoms and cheap STI testing. Campus gyms are open from 6 AM to 11 PM each day and provide plenty of free (or cheap) classes, intramural sports teams, and what have you. Counseling centers provide free counseling and stress management workshops (though of course there’s much to be desired in that department). Anti-binge drinking initiatives abound.

But sleep is that subject that nobody ever seems to touch. After all, exercise makes you look good and can be fun, grabbing a free condom is easy, and getting a salad instead of a pizza is no big deal. Getting enough sleep, meanwhile, requires actual lifestyle changes–and, sometimes, actual sacrifices.

Ultimately, though, I think that the whole “pick two” joke is a false dichotomy (trichotomy??). I know that having all three is possible, because I have all three. I have great grades, I have great friends, and I sleep a solid 8-9 hours a night.

(A few weeks ago, frustrated by the fact that I’m usually exhausted by the time I come home from classes at 6 or 7 PM, I called my mom to complain. She said, “Of course you’re tired. It’s normal to be tired after a long day of classes.” Until she told me this, I’d never realized that. Because the campus culture I’m steeped in tells me that I should come home in the evening, go to meetings and do homework until midnight, and then engage in a social life until 2 or 3 or later–or, if I’ve been procrastinating with my homework, I should just stay up all night.)

What worries me most is that people wear their sleepless nights like badges of pride. You never hear anyone say, “Dude, I’ve legit been eating three slices of pizza EVERY DAY this week,” or “Man, guess how long I’ve managed to go without working out!” or “Guess what, guess what? I totally didn’t use a condom last night!”

But they make those comments about their lack of sleep. The only comparison is the way people talk about binge drinking.

Why is sleep deprivation cool? Probably for similar reasons as binge drinking is. It’s a mark of physical endurance, in a way, and it’s a way of displaying that you have the “right” priorities–socializing, usually–and not the “lame” ones.

Yet colleges actively try to combat the culture of binge drinking, but they ignore the problem of sleep deprivation. Why?

You Can Leave

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[TMI Warning]

You’re allowed to leave. You’re allowed to walk away from things that hurt you.

Nobody ever tells you that, so I will.

~~~

Tonight should’ve been a great night. SHAPE, a campus organization that I’m involved with–it stands for Sexual Health and Assault Peer Educators–was holding an event in which a documentary filmmaker screened and discussed her documentary, which concerns college hookup culture. The event was mandatory for SHAPE members, but I would’ve come anyway because the subject interests me.

I should’ve known what I was getting into, but I didn’t really…

The documentary took a critical view of hookup culture and interviewed various students, as well as some professors and campus health professionals. It also interviewed a few frat guys, who were, of course, allowed to remain anonymous with their faces blacked out in the film.

The things the frat guys said stuck with me.

I can’t remember exact quotes, but it was the typical stuff–about “picking and choosing” girls, about how alcohol makes them less likely to protest, about how a girl who’s slept with at least three of the frat brothers is called a “toaster” because she’s “toast.”

Suddenly, I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable and anxious. It was hard to breathe. It made me think about the past.

~~~

“Come on. You know you want it. You let me touch your tits before.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve already told you. I’m interested in someone else and that’s the only person I want to sleep with right now.”

“You know, you’re lucky. Some guys would just…”

“Would just what?”

He just smirks at me.

~~~

Nothing happened to me that night. Nothing physical, that is; he left me alone after spending three hours trying to manipulate me.

But emotionally, I was never the same again.

~~~

Another night, many months before that. My first college party. It was “registered” so there wasn’t even any alcohol.

I’m dancing with my friends. None of us have been drinking; we’re just happy to be at college and at a crowded, noisy dance party. He comes up to me and starts dancing with me. He’d clearly pregamed before coming to the house.

“You’re such a good dancer. Are you a music major?”

“No, journalism.” I smile.

He nods and we keep dancing.

The song ends, and we dance for another one.

Then he leans in to kiss me. I pull back.

“Sorry, I have a boyfriend at another school.”

“You have a boyfriend? You should’ve had that written on your forehead!”

He storms off. I’d enjoyed just dancing…

~~~

Another time.

We used to be good friends, or at least so I thought.  We hung out all the time, talked about our lives and about school. We were attracted to each other, so one day we hooked up.

After that, things change. He only texts me at midnight, asking if I want to walk all the way to his frat and “chill.” He never asks me how I’m doing anymore. We stop talking after a while.

Months later, he messages me on Facebook.  “So, honest question. Did I start to annoy you after we hooked up?”

I say, “No, it’s not that. I just got the impression that you were more interested in me for just sex rather than actual conversation or friendship.”

“Alright, fair enough.”

“I mean, is that true?”

“To an extent, yeah.”

~~~

I should consider myself lucky. If the estimates of unreported sexual assault are accurate, the fact that I’ve never been raped puts me in the minority. But, like most women, I’ve been catcalled, groped, followed down the street, pressured for sex, offered unidentified drinks, called a bitch for not acquiescing.

That’s why I don’t go to parties. That’s why I don’t participate in hookup culture. And no, to any radical feminists reading this, it’s not because I think it’s a woman’s responsibility to prevent herself from being raped. It’s because hookup culture makes me want to throw up, cry, hurt myself.

I choose to walk away from it all. You can choose that, too, if that’s what you want to do. Don’t ever let anyone convince you otherwise.

~~~

So I didn’t stay at the film screening tonight. I probably should’ve, because it was mandatory and all. Because my committee was planning to meet afterwards and I don’t want to have to explain why I left. Because, on some level, it was interesting to me. Because I wanted to introduce myself to the filmmaker and ask her for advice about researching this topic.

But in the end, I didn’t stay. I walked away. Because I felt so uncomfortable, because I just wanted to go home so much.

So I stood up, swung my bookbag over my shoulder, and walked right out.

I walked home through the warm night and I felt so free. I wasn’t happy, by any means, but I felt like I’d made the right decision. I listened to my iPod and started to breathe easier.

~~~

I don’t mean to imply that it’s always possible–or even desirable–to just walk away from anything that makes you uncomfortable. Sometimes you need to examine what’s happening and confront your fears.

But I’ve examined this through and through. I can’t change the things that have happened to me, and there’s just no way to make myself believe that those things are okay and that anyone should ever have to go through them. And I don’t see the need to keep reminding myself of them.

Some people might read this and think, “Gee, that’s stupid. What’ll she do, avoid every painful thing in life?”

Obviously, no. Some people think that just because some pain is unavoidable, we should just accept every painful thing in our lives and let it in. Perhaps one can build up an immunity that way.

But I disagree. The fact that there are so many unavoidable painful things in life only proves to me that we should avoid the ones we can. After all, even a psychologically healthy person goes through so much–death of loved ones, illness, financial difficulty, heartbreak–and psychologically unhealthy people have it even worse. Shouldn’t we find a little corner of life that’s happy and fight to defend it?

I think so. That’s why I opted out of hookup culture, and that’s why I opted out of tonight’s film screening. I went home to my beautiful apartment. After I finish writing this, I’m going to make a cup of tea and read my psychology textbook and plan my research project and talk to my friends online and maybe call my mom.

Because, in the end, those are the things that make me want to keep living for as long as I possibly can.

Mental Illness Is Not a Punchline

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Damn, I’m certainly on a crusade against humor these days.

That was sarcasm, by the way. I love humor. I just think it should be deployed carefully.

A few days ago in my Psychology of Personality class, the following happened:

Some people were having their own conversations while the professor was trying to give a lecture. The professor cracked a joke–“Hey guys, I have ADD so I can’t focus if other people are talking, so please stop!” followed by “I don’t really have ADD, but still.”

Now, for the record, I totally get that it sucks for a teacher when people are talking in class. But I also feel that there are other ways to address that situation without making a joke about having a mental illness that you don’t actually have. Especially, you know, if you’re a person who has a PhD in psychology and conducts research on people with actual mental illnesses.

The sad thing is, before he followed his comment up with that disclaimer, I was actually really touched. I thought it was wonderful that a professor of psychology would take a stand against the stigma of mental illness by stating in class that he has one. But then, you know, it turned out to just be a joke.

~~~

Last spring, I took a class on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It was an advanced class, with just around ten students or so, taught by one of the most esteemed professors in the department. We got to the chapter on Borderline Personality Disorder, which, as you may know, is considered one of the most frustrating mental disorders–both for clinicians and for the patient’s friends and family. So naturally, no discussion of it could be complete without my professor’s bombastic explanations about how she tries to avoid treating BPD patients because they’re just SUCH a pain and about how she once had a friend with BPD who was just SO hard to deal with. Everyone gasped and laughed at her descriptions.

Then, of course, the other students had to start raising their hands and talking about their own friends that they’d taken the liberty of diagnosing with BPD, and how  horrific those people were.

This was a time in my life when I was seriously wondering if I had BPD myself, so, yeah, that was pretty unpleasant.

~~~

Last fall, I took a class on psychopathology. It was my second psychology course ever, and my first that related specifically to mental disorders–a topic very close to my heart at the time since I’d been diagnosed with major depression only a month before.

Before the course started, the professor sent out an anonymous survey to the entire class about our experiences with mental illness. On the first day of class, she disclosed the stunning results–more than half of us said we’d been diagnosed with one.

So we got to the chapter on depression and the professor started talking about depressive cognitive distortions, using specific examples. The professor started listing them off in such a way that the whole class started laughing. And laughing, and laughing.

Now, I totally get that it sounds funny. Consider this dialogue:

X: I’m getting a B in calculus. I’m a total failure.

Y: You’re not a failure at all! You have straight As in the rest of your classes.

X: Well, those don’t count. They’re easy anyway.

Y: Yes, and calculus is pretty hard, so it makes sense that you wouldn’t do as well. Besides, a B is a pretty good grade.

X: No, it’s a shitty grade. Everything I do is shitty and I’m always going to be a failure.

That is an example of several cognitive distortions, including overgeneralization, disqualifying the positive, magnification, and labeling. And, when read aloud in a particular tone of voice, I can see how it might sound kind of funny.

But having been through it myself and studied it extensively, I can also hear the pain behind what X is saying. It’s not a punchline. It’s a cry for help from a person trapped inside their malfunctioning mind.

~~~

Here’s the thing. I get it. People with PhDs in psychology have spent years and years reading, writing, and talking about stuff like this. I’m sure that it’s completely normal for two psychologists to crack jokes about mental illness to each other.

Knowing that many people who pursue degrees in psychology are spurred to do so by their own experiences with mental illness (I’m an example of this), I understand the urge to joke about it because I joke about it myself. It helps alleviate the fear and pain of living with mental illness.

That doesn’t mean I’d joke about it to a room full of 100 people who don’t know me well and who may be dealing with their own issues, though.

Case in point–at the time I took the aforementioned psychopathology class, I was still learning how to recognize cognitive distortions in myself, and I was beginning to realize the extent to which they’d ruined all of my previous interactions, friendships, and relationships. To have a room full of 100 people laughing uproariously about something that nearly brought you to suicide just three short months before is, well, no laughing matter.

~~~

I’m not saying there’s no room for humor about mental illness. There definitely is, and humor has been one of several strategies that have helped me process what happened to me. But humor must be used carefully.

I’ve written before about the complex relationship between humor and mental illness–here, here, here, here, and here. But this time, the situation is very different because the off-color jokes are coming not from comedians, television writers, novelists, or clueless friends of mine, but from people who know more about psychology than 99% of the population.

Unfortunately, I still haven’t quite worked up the courage to tell a person with a PhD that they’ve offended me.

But I’m working on it.

On People Who Think They’re so Damn Funny

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[Snark Warning]

Like many depressives, I have a love-hate relationship with humor. A well-crafted joke, anecdote, or cartoon can cheer me up during the worst times, but because of the various cognitive deficits associated with depression, I have a lot of trouble processing humor when it’s directed at me or my life.

Enter another thing I have a love-hate relationship with: Facebook. As one of those rare people who’s “out” about having a mental illness (to shamelessly borrow terminology from the LGBT community), I occasionally post something related to my current troubles on my Facebook. Most of the people who bother reading it are fairly good friends of mine who know what’s going on and often stop by and leave a nice comment or a simple “<3” on those posts.

But then there are people who insist on trying to force a joke about the situation. These well-intentioned but insufferably clueless people are the bane of any depressive’s life. They’re our friends, sometimes even pretty good ones, and as much as we know that they mean well, it can be very painful to have a really difficult aspect of your life reduced to a dumb joke like that. And it’s nearly impossible to find a way to respond–any suggestion that the joke was out of place is inevitably met with “but I was just trying to lighten the mood” or “I just wanted to cheer you up.”

Here’s the thing, though–you can’t fix a depressed person anyway. (Sometimes, you can’t even fix a depressed person if you’re a psychiatrist or psychologist.) The most you can do is offer a message of support and refrain from trying to turn a depressed person’s misery into a big huge joke.

Honestly, I doubt that even healthy people are actually “cheered up” by jokes made at their expense. I can’t imagine that’s pleasant for anyone who’s already in kind of a bad mood. But it’s especially unpleasant for a depressed person and can trigger all sorts of nasty stuff.

I think people have a huge fear of others’ unhappiness. The moment you see a sad person, you immediately want to drag them, kicking and screaming, out of their sadness, whether they asked you to or not. This is understandable, but it should be avoided, not only because there’s so little you can really do, but because you should try to understand people before you try to help them.

If anyone ever bothered to ask me what they could do to help me feel better, you can guarantee I wouldn’t say “crack a dumb joke at my expense.” And, don’t worry, I wouldn’t say “sit here for hours and listen to me cry,” either. I would probably ask you to have a conversation about something interesting, like politics or culture, with me. Or I’d ask you to come over and bring a good movie. Or I’d ask you to bake some cookies with me. Or, I’d say, “Nothing, but thanks for asking.”

What people don’t understand about depression is that it’s different from normal sadness not only in quantity, but in quality. To put it more simply, it’s just a different kind of sadness. When someone has a depressive episode, they go to a really dark place that healthy people don’t go to ever. Not even when their significant other breaks up with them or something like that. It’s a darkness that can’t be lit up by a stupid joke. Really, it can’t be fully lit up by anything. But human connection, love, and support can sometimes help.

Obviously, not everybody is willing to provide that for everybody else. That’s fine, and that’s how it should be. But if you can’t give me what I need to feel better, don’t give me something that makes me feel worse, either.

Like many problems that I come across in my life, this turns out to be something that’s actually a much larger issue. I believe that the reason people are so desperate to immediately try to “lighten the mood” the instant they see something unpleasant is because our culture has an extreme fear of negative emotion. We avoid it like the plague, and it comes as no surprise to me that most of our culture’s solutions for achieving happiness seem to focus on eliminating things like fear, sadness, and anger entirely, rather than incorporating them into one’s life in a normal, healthy way. Clearly, what I have isn’t healthy, but it’s only the extreme end of spectrum. I see this sort of blind and terrified avoidance of anything that’s sad, whether it’s severe like depression or totally normal, everywhere I look.

If you’ve just read this and realized that what I’m describing sounds exactly like you, I hope you’re not offended. If you are, my apologies. But I hope you trust that behind all this snark is a lot of pain.

And, if you’re still reading, I have a challenge for you. Next time you come across a post from a friend that’s unhappy in some way, don’t rush to make a joke about it. Don’t try to drag your friend away from what they’re feeling. If you absolutely need to comment on it somehow, say “I’m sorry, that really sucks,” or “I hope you feel better.” I guarantee that unless you happen to be Jon Stewart, that’ll work better than any joke.

I’ll leave you with a quote by Dutch priest and writer Henri Nouwen:

“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion… that is a friend who cares.”