Date: 11th Feb 2024
I feel like there is a lot of responsibility on my shoulders in my new role and I'm not a lecturer. But I'll be working with students - some of whom I will be meeting on the 14th at their student conference. And my primary concern right here and now, is "how do I delicately balance the whole power imbalance between students and staff members without screwing anything up". I want to work WITH my students, I want them to be comfortable (and feel free) to question things, to suggest new ideas/ways of working, to trial new things out, to make mistakes, screw up and know that someone will catch them if that happens. But I've never done this before as a member of staff and my little autistic brain is currently panicking over the unspoken rules of being a staff member at my uni I will likely never pick up on, unless I ask about them. And the whole anxiety thing in general. I'm worried being staff and having that power will trigger me, make me nervous and I won't be able to support my students as they would need/want me to. And I'm not sure how to feel about that or what to say about it to my line managers. Because how do you explain to people you've just met that you have YEARS of trauma around academic staff that you've only just started to heal from in the last year and a bit? And then follow that up with, "despite this, I still want to be in academia because it's the ONLY thing I feel like I am vaguely good at doing in this world". It's not the type of convo you can just 'have'. And as much as I get on with Karen and Chloe (obvs not their real names), this is TWO YEARS we are talking about here. Two very real, very busy years and I cannot think of a way of broaching said academic trauma subject without risking said 2 years going VERY BADLY if that conversation results in anything close to them thinking I cannot do this job.
I'm also going to be working with children and young people who may well have VERY similar life experience/s to myself. And again, my brain worries that if someone who's 8 mentions something that relates to the trauma I have from that age, that it'll unsettle me. Asides from my therapist, nobody up here where I have moved to, knows my history of trauma and again, HOW DOES ONE BROACH THIS CONVERSATION IN A WAY THAT WONT GET ME FIRED?? I want someone to be there to catch me if triggers crop up but that won't happen unless I tell people. Unless we have a plan in place. And said plan, requires that horrific moment of risking everything to open up to my employers and tell them I'm a trauma survivor.
I know I can do this job, I know I am a good fit for everything the role requires. I'm calm under pressure. I'm empathetic. I'm organised, like working in creative ways, love researching, love analysing data, working on solutions to things, helping people. But like everyone else out there in the world, there's areas of this job that make me feel uncertain of my mental strength. Because in the worst case scenario, either one of my students or one of my participants discloses abuse (or worse) to me and I (ME AND NOBODY OTHER THAN ME (and maybe Karen), will have to sit there and help them through it. And that thought is really scary. I may be trained to deal with stuff like this and have various certificates to prove it but until it happens, I don't know how I will react.
And do I tell my students? Because what happens if I get anxious around them and they notice me shaking? How honest is too honest with students? In fact, how honest is too honest with anyone really? I feel like I have so much to work out in my head and so many things to ponder over and work out how comfortable (or not) I feel about certain things. I kinda wish there was a guide book on how to disclose various shit to various different groups of people without the world falling apart. I want to do this right but I don't know what "right" looks like outside of "don't be an abusive arse to your students".
Maybe I should just be brave, take a risk and assume Karen and Chloe would talk to me about their concerns rather than seek an immediate replacement? After all, they've been lovely thus far and maybe a leap of faith would result in a new flavour of trust being built between me and people who at one point in time, would have scared me. After all, my main promise to myself this year was to never hide who I am at my core and be my truest version of myself. And part of me is that traumatised, strong as fuck, survivor who is empathetic to a ridiculous degree and will stop at near enough nothing to help and build up those around her. Who knows, I'll ponder over things a bit more and see what my heart says is the right thing to do. Heaven knows I should listen to my heart (and gut) much more than I do at the moment, they're normally right about people and the world.
That's all for now, if anyone reading this has advice on approaches to disclosure or advice on working in academia as a disabled human, I'd love to chat to you in some fashion. But 0 pressure
B xx
Comments