Ever since I left my faculty post for a new life in Wellington two years ago, many people have asked me why I would ever leave a secure role. Albeit I wasn’t working at a large research university, but nonetheless it was an academic role that would be coveted in the tight US academic job market. When I was recently on the job market in Wellington, local professors looked through my academic CV and asked me why I wasn’t still in academia.
I’ve mentioned over the past few years that I would begin the tell the story that led to my decision to leave my academic role when the time and place were right. I spent much time this past week reflecting on the story. In doing this reflection I soon realised that there are three distinct, but intertwining, stories that influenced the final actual movement of leaving.
I made the initial decision to resign while sitting in my faculty office during an early evening in January 2012, just a few weeks before I would receive my successful tenure promotion. However, I will save that story for the right time and place.
It is similarly not the right time or place to share the second story, though it’s one I’ve certainly shared informally with many friends over the years. The second story actually built up over time and turned out to be just one of the factors in my move, though it was not the major factor. I probably could have managed the second story, and stayed where I was, if the first and third stories had not taken such dramatic turns.
Similar to the second story, the third one developed over time until there was a point when I could no longer ignore it. I am still realising aspects of it and will continue to do so over this coming year or more. It’s finally time to begin sharing the third story now.
A Love for Performance
I’ve always loved performing and public speaking. I am a typical introvert in that I need alone time to reflect and recharge, but I am quite artistic and performative. Many people do not understand this aspect of introversion because they only see the public, performative person. What they don’t see is that we will often sit afterward in a room alone as we read, write, or just reflect in silence to refresh our energies.
As I entered my teen years, I discovered a passion for public speaking. I completed locally on speech teams and loved speaking in academic contexts. This enjoyment soon led to theatre performance. My love for public speaking, combined with my passion for learning, eventually pointed me to an academic career path. Academia required me to frequently speak at conferences, classrooms, and community groups. In the years before I moved to New Zealand, I had a burgeoning speaking request calendar and was invited to be a keynote speaker around the US.
Losing My Breath
In early 2012, I moved to Wellington for three months to complete a short sabbatical at a university. We established an informal arrangement in which I would teach sessions for faculty while they were on leave. I brought all of my teaching materials with me electronically, so the arrangement worked quite well. I delivered a public presentation on my scholarship to an area Rotary Club early in my sabbatical and made plans to teach a university class session a few weeks later.
All went well as I prepared for the class session. I anticipated that I would be teaching the session alone, but was asked to team-teach the session with another visiting faculty member. I looked forward to the session and enjoyed talking with the new colleagues.
I prepared for the session in my usual way: with great meticulous detail that involved class activities, multi-media, class discussion, and short lectures. I’ve always been very demanding of my work quality, but thorough preparation helped me manage any nerves. As soon as my class sessions started in the past, I could see that the preparation had been worth it and quickly relaxed.
On the day of the class session, I set up the classroom as usual and greeted the students with usual friendliness. I was excited to get back into the classroom. At this time, I was already considering a move abroad from Hope, so I hoped that this class session would help me begin testing the waters. It has been a long-life dream to live and work abroad. I had just begun to allow myself to dream about it again.
The university’s professor introduced us and motioned for me to begin my portion of the session. All seemed fine as I displayed an introductory slide and introduced myself to the students. As I began asking the students where they were from, and began hearing them mention various cities around New Zealand, my heart began to beat rapidly. I dismissed it as nerves and tried to focus on the students’ responses.
Within a few seconds, my breathing’s pace matched my heart-rate and I began to feel hot. My breathing quickened so much that I suddenly could not catch my breath and actually had to stop speaking for a quick minute. I thought I was going to pass out.
A minute passed while the students looked at me in puzzlement and an uncomfortable silence fell over the room. I somehow managed to regain control and continued the class. However, the momentum was gone and I felt humiliated by such a ridiculous occurrence. I struggled to regain my concentration and usual relaxed manner. Though I did not display my feelings on the outside, I was incredibly upset that such a strange thing had ruined what should have been a fun, well-done class session.
Following the class session, I sat in my near-empty faculty office in complete shock over what had happened. I immediately recognised that I had experienced some type of panic attack. Numb over what had happened, I quietly took the bus back to where I was house-sitting and began to research panic attacks online.
The experience completely confused and troubled me. I had had no prior panic attacks and spent years performing and teaching in public. Certainly, I was nervous about teaching here because I wanted to explore the possibility of moving here. I had surmounted similar situations, though, many times before when I had to teach in a high-stakes situation in which I was being evaluated for an award or promotion. What was different this time?
Going Forward
I hoped that the strange incident would quickly pass and I could immediately resume my normal activities. My usual tactic after a crisis is to quickly resolve it or just move on to my next goal. Though I was worried about what happened, I quickly moved forward and made an appointment to speak a few weeks later to a very large Rotary Club in Wellington.
I felt fine during lunch as I glanced as my carefully prepared notes. Just as before, I launched into my presentation with usual enthusiasm when I felt my heart-rate increase and breathing rate change. I experienced an attack for the second time and had to pause to regain control in front of a large ballroom of people.
By the second occurrence, I knew that I obviously had a problem to address. I immediately began to worry about resuming my full-time faculty job in a few months. I worked at an institution that required me to teach every day in front of undergraduates. The institution demanded high quality teaching and the students did, too. In addition, my job required countless other leadership tasks that would require me lead meetings, teach public workshops, make presentations to visiting parents, chair campus panels, and many other similar roles every week. I never gave a thought to those tasks before and enjoyed doing them. How could I manage now?
Moving Forward
When I returned to the US in July 2012, I had already decided to begin the process of leaving my faculty job to move abroad. I actually decided to leave in January 2012, though that’s a story for another time and place. It was only now that I had the courage to put the decision into action.
My experience is a classic panic disorder case in many respects. When someone experiences an attack, the thought of experiencing another one is terrifying. Anticipatory anxiety is brutal. Tasks or experiences that you previously successfully handled become objects of worry.
Like many others with the condition, I thought that a specific situation had triggered the attack. By late 2013, I began to think about alternatives to teaching when I moved to New Zealand. I thought that if I avoided the situation that I believed triggered it, that I would no longer have them. I attributed the attack to my larger high-stress academic lifestyle that required me to regularly work evenings and weekends. I thought that a complete lifestyle shift would resolve the underlying problem.
Avoidance is not a Strategy
I’ve been living in New Zealand now for almost 15 months. I managed to complete my last year as a faculty member in the US without any full-blown attacks. In New Zealand, I initially worked in a media advisor role that required very little public presentations. I found that I missed the intellectual engagement and public performance aspect of academia over the past year.
Unfortunately, I also discovered that avoidance is not a strategy. Though someone with anxiety attacks may avoid the situation they believe triggered the attack, the attacks usually spread to other situations when left untreated. I found that I experienced partial attacks in other situations other than teaching. Although they appear to occur randomly, I do recognise that I experience symptoms in situations in which there seems to be no way to easily exit: in front of a group of people, when leading a meeting, leading a workshop, etc.
When my contract ended in January, I was fortunate to field multiple offers from academic, government, and private sector organisations. With great sadness, I turned down an academic offer because the private sector organisation offered a better package. However, the fear of another attack was also a factor in not trying university teaching again, at least not yet.
Moving Forward in 2015
The irony of the situation is that I accepted a teaching role in the private sector. The reason I did so is because I am determined to defeat the attacks and use my public speaking talents again. I have so much yet that I want to share with others. I refuse to allow anxiety to remove that.
This time, I will consult the appropriate resources to learn how to manage this condition that is often highly treatable. Fortunately, my online research led me to the Anxiety New Zealand Trust, which in turn pointed me to local resources in Wellington.
Though it took me quite a long time to share the experience in a public manner, I’m actually not ashamed at all. I know many, many people who struggle with anxiety and depression. Both are rife within academia, with its high-stress demands and pace that often exacerbate other conditions. Though conditions such as panic disorder are frightening, I want to show that it’s okay to talk about it and that it is possible to seek assistance to manage it. It’s very possible to live successfully with it.
For now, I know that I am teaching in late April. It will be a high-stakes situation in which I will be evaluated. The situation lends itself to an attack and I spent this past week worrying about this situation that I would have successfully managed in the past. It’s very frustrating that the attacks come in a situation that I used to really enjoy. I will be sharing more about this journey as I move forward and confront it head-on this year.
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