a day in my life vlog + ramble about my health and the incompatibility of academia with humanity 

Vi - I so appreciate your open sharings about your experience as a student in social work academia. I was a social worker in the midwest for over a decade, most recently in education (I taught full-time on faculty for 4 years, part-time much longer - I'm still adjuncting a couple classes). What I witnessed & experienced inside that role totally changed my life & shifted my perspective on social work/what it means to help people...especially within the context of academia and how we are teaching/socializing students. UGH your words on textbooks and the feedback on your essay...I totally totally totally agree. The cognitive dissonance in social work & social work academia is REAL, and largely undiscussed/unrecognized within the profession. I too feel deeply called to speak out about what I've seen & experienced. I want to share here a video from my own channel...An Open Letter to Academia (about why I am "unsubscribing" from the cult of academia) - as it feels in line with your messages, and maybe will offer some validation hearing a "reformed academic" affirm your ramblings;) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tXGOCCUmDpA.html

Great video! I'm an occupational therapy graduate student, so things aren't exactly the same, but I've experienced mirrored issues. I'm white, but I do hold some other marginalized identities that push me to align more with the farther left political ideologies. I deeply relate to receiving feedback on a paper you were so confident about and just feeling attacked. I feel like within professional programs classes are structured to create specific, professional organization approved, thought patterns to create a unified and reliable body of professionals. But academics and research are often highly outdated, and skewed towards white eurocentric ideas. So even in fields that are viewed as progressive there are many many blind spots. When professors leave comments on student work they see themselves as critiquing the students comprehension of these thoughts patterns, but often the reality is that they are invalidating marginalized individuals lived experiences that do not neatly fit into approved patterns. Also professions that involve mental health often require intense levels of disclosure of personal experiences throughout the coursework. How is a student supposed to remain neutral when being pushed into using unhealed experiences in course work? I definitely wish there was more discussion around professors not being infallible. These subjects often are not cut and dry, and some acknowledgement of fallibility would go a long way.

thanks for sharing! I completely agree with your assessment on how hard grad school is on the body and mind-definitely difficult times. good luck on everything, and keep resting as you can while pushing through! I love watching your videos 😊

I enjoy your videos so much!! It feels so personal, and I love hearing how you navigate life, healing, awareness, and progress. Listening to you you reflect makes me reflect on my own experiences and awareness of myself and the world around me. Wishing you the best in everything!

Would be very interested to hear about your final essay, and also your thoughts about yoga!

I came to this video after reading your blog post. I was wondering if you could share what reading your professor had assigned? I know it can be hard to have your beliefs challenged, even though that is the whole point of university, particularly when it's something you feel and care deeply about. I also relate to you in that school was always easy for me so I wasn't really met with much challenge, and like you, I used to be a very radical leftist. You write in your blog post, "Deep down I always feel inadequate, incompetent, and not intelligent because I do not engage in the learning process through traditional means and there is no one like me who I can look up to as a reference point in academia. That is who is going up against a white man who was traditionally educated and employed at a higher learning institution. As these dialogues become more involved, in my body these interactions feel adversarial and antagonistic. I feel like I am fighting for my life for my worldview to be acknowledged. They are triggering stress responses. It is emotionally exhausting to try to have something recognized that is a given in my plane of existence." I also have never felt like the traditional means of academia worked for me, and I hated school with a passion and have chosen the route of self-study. I also deal with mental illness and have a lot of experience with the adversarial, fight or flight response to people who mean well or at the very least are not being adversarial. Since you are interested in mental health work, I am curious about your view of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I feel like it is something that can be helpful for a lot of people who deal with these emotions when it comes to conflict. I was also wondering if you have read "Coddling of the American Mind" by Jonathan Haidt, because it will show you how the academic system encourages these sort of cluster B responses to regular academic discourse, and the pain it is causing. Wishing you well.