This blog post comes from two places - first, the fact I am writing my first cover letter of the job season and second, a series of tweets I sent yesterday that I've been thinking more about. Here are the tweets:

I have spoken before about my chronic illness, and my finishing my PhD as a single parent, and the hardships that those things brought upon my work, my career progression, my ability to work (effectively) three full time jobs: the one I was paid for (that is, the teaching), the one I had to do in order to get my publications and research in order to get a permanent job, and the one I had to do to ensure the tiny human in my care was... well... cared for. You might notice that this does not account for any time I may have to manage my illness, care for myself, or have any kind of a life that didn't revolve around either the academy or my child.

Several years on from that, I've reached a point where I am exhausted. I have been in various full-time teaching-only roles for the past several years and, if I'm honest, I just want a break from it so I can build up other parts of my CV. No doubt some will say that this is proof that I think I'm too good for teaching or that I don't value or enjoy teaching. In fact, I love teaching and I think it's hugely worthwhile and therein lies my problem. The past few years I have worked above and beyond in order to deliver innovative, engaging classes and this has left me precious little time to get my research and publication on track.

Why do I bring this up, though? Because I want to highlight some very serious issues in the way that permanent academic jobs tend to be won and lost. And, in so many case, it's in research (either not enough of it, or what's there isn't good enough). Teaching is something that is ticked off as experience rather than by quality. This is, I think, demonstrated in the way that teaching and research requirements are articulated in job adverts. So, when I have a limited amount of energy to give, and I want to move toward my goal of a full-time, continuing (i.e. permanent) academic position of course I will, in part, want to stop doing one of the things that's taking so much time and energy. That can't be parenting, and it also can't be research. That's a simple calculation based on my energy levels and my long-term goals. It is not a value judgement on any of the activities I am currently engaged in.

And, of course, this directly links back with mental health and ill-health. Mine, here, is obvious. I have a serious but well managed set of illnesses that demand some work, time, and energy on an ongoing basis. But more generally academia is demonstrably bad for the mental health and well-being of early career academics - whether in teaching-only, research-only, teaching-and-research positions, or are not currently employed in academia (which may occur for a whole host of reasons from being too ill to the simple fact that there are far fewer academic positions than qualified candidates). The mental well-being needs of each of these groups will be different, not because the positions or pressures are different (indeed the pressures are pretty generally something like do all the things) but because people are different.

I assume that my musings on mental wellness and early career academia are not over, but, at least for now, I am going back to my CV and cover letter, trying to get ready for the job season without scrawling across applications in desperation: "I've had a pretty tough time of things and please keep that in mind when judging me!"

Sometimes I get asked if I'd 'recommend' having a baby during a PhD. That's a difficult question for me to answer for a few reasons. First, I haven't done a PhD without having had a baby in the middle of it. I don't know what that experience is like. Second, the right time to have a baby is always when you want to have a baby - if that's mid-PhD then you will make it work. Like I did:

I started my PhD on Monday 6th September, 2010.
I had Kiddo on Friday 11th October, 2011.
My PhD viva was on Friday 14th November, 2014.
I graduated on Wednesday 22nd July, 2015.

Having a baby during your PhD and finishing "on time" is possible. It's doable. I did it. Would I recommend it? Probably not. There's a lot of time that goes into a child, and a lot of time that's needed to go into crafting an academic career for yourself - if you (like me) get a teaching only position out of your PhD, how and where do you find the time to do the publishing required to get a permanent job, for instance?

And there's a difference, too, between having a child and having a child and a chronic mental illness. The latter necessarily makes the former harder, and together they make crafting the academic persona much, much harder. Trust me when I say that there is no instance in which a mental illness does not make a pregnancy, birth, and parenthood more difficult, and no instance in which a mental illness does not make crafting the academic persona more difficult. So...

Some days I feel like a total superhero. I want to shout from the rooftops: I did it, I survived! Hoorah!

Most days, days like today, I berate myself for thinking about how much easier my life - and particularly getting into my chosen career - could have been. I do feel jealous when people who haven't had the kinds of set backs I have get permanent jobs. Of course, if we're all honest about it jealousy is another huge part of the early-career run-around, so I don't think that's a particularly wild statement to make. But it's being hung up on how unfair the whole thing seems. Not that academia was ever fair.

I would never give back my child, obviously. She is a joy. But being a person who survives in the world with bipolar (type 1), or BPD, or chronic dissociation is hard enough. Keeping up with a bright, excitable, energetic, wonderful, six-year old when one feels completely removed from the world*... that's tough. Trying to finish my book - a book I have been trying to finish since I finished my PhD - as well as writing two grant applications (because - lets be honest - my 10 month job will come to an end before I have time to sneeze) and trying to get my two 'new research' articles through seemingly-endless revisions.

When I think about how much further behind I am because of my illness and my Kid I don't get angry. I feel a resigned hurt in my chest that these are the things which probably will cost me my academic career. But there's nothing much I can do about that but just keep plugging away.

*This is how I described it to my husband in a text message this morning: "I feel like an astronaut. I mean, in actual space. Like inside a life support cage in a totally alien and unknown environment where I have really limited vision and no understanding of the change of gravity so I can't really walk properly".