Paridhi @Paridhigupta@mastodon.social

Hello Academic Tooters (#AcaTooters), as promised, this is my first thread for desi academics (thought not limited to) who want to connect with each other in this new space, and create a virtual support system. Please introduce yourself under here with your name, field, area of research, geographical location (optional). Once we have the thread going, I'll create a list.
Will be also holding future threads on conference, publishing, writing, and other #AcaWoes you can think of.
Boost and tag!

जो लोग साफ हवा के पैसे देते हैं, उनका मुफ्त शिक्षा सुन दुम घुटना लाज़मी है।

Translation- Those who are okay with paying for clean air, will obviously choke when they hear of free education

#jnuprotest

Hey #AcaTooters, let's choose a topic for this week's academic thread? Also I would like more of you to join, and part of the conversation. Talk to each other without worrying what one thinks. Also suggestions to hold the thread after the ast Mental health (MH) thread #AcaWoes #AcaThreads

Muh par Ram, bagal mein chhuri is the metaphor for the Indian political system today

Translation मुह पर राम, बगल में छूरी - (the name of God on the lips, but a knife under their arm)

Meanwhile, the JNU VC has not ONCE, not once talked to students of his own university. He's given TV interviews, tweeted, and released videos, but not once came out to talk to students, to meet them or their representatives, to try and understand their issue. How disgusting and spineless, and unaccountable does one have to be this insensitive to students? #feesmustfall #JNUVCMissing

Violence have become an everyday part of students' lives it seems in this regime. And every time it gets worse. JNU students were brutally beaten up by the Delhi Police for taking out a peaceful March. Marching to the parliament is a democratic right, which the JNU administration, and Delhi police are tramping upon. Students' heads were bashed, legs broken, bodies beaten with baton, women students were groped and their clothes torn by male police today, for demanding education #jnuprotest

Yesterday I took a break from all my virtual platforms, and the phone itself, it's a break I allow myself once in a while to spend time with loved ones. A life without internet and phones, I was able to get more work done ( finally started my chapter), watch a movie (Klaus, an absolutely brilliant animation on Santa Klaus, I know, but just watch it, it's beautiful), do a bit of party, and sleep early. I slept like a log, tired and happy. #DigitalDetox

@mhi @unicorn @shirishag75

A lot of the #AcaTooters on the mental health (M.H) thread asked for the study I used, so I cannot upload the pdf here, but here's the name; "Depression among Indian university students and its association with
perceived university academic environment, living arrangements and
personal issues" by Deb et al (2015), Asian Journal of Psychiatry. It is a very small study, but that's the one I found based in India. If anyone finds more, please share. Also follow and interact on the M.H thread.

9. Paint, dance, sing, attend a play, basically engage in a cultural activity. You don't have to be good at it. But just do it. I will share more as I come across them. Please feel free to talk to each other, and ask more things.

4. Figure out a work space outside and inside- a place where you enjoy working. 5. Take breaks while working. 6. Talk to your supervisor about what you're going through; an honest conversation might go a long way and help you set realistic goals. 7. An important one, give yourself a break, of days, weeks, months, however long you need. 8. Work towards handling institutional hierarchies by talking to people, and resisting against those who are wrong.

One of the most important things is to cut yourself some slack, go out to meet your friends, call them up, and build networks within your university much like we are doing here. 2. Give yourself short term goals of per day, and stop focussing too much on how to complete future tasks. 3. Excercise/ Learn a new skill: we often feel stuck in phds, lives not moving which is why a new skill helps, where you can map your progress. I learnt swimming this year, and it was the most amazing thing.

Now let us focus on the things one can do to improve mental health illness, if you're feeling like you're unable to handle things, first realise it is normal, and second do seek help in forms of therapy. In India I can share some resources. While this the obvious thing, there are various other things I will talk about which have personally helped me, please feel free to add your own experiences. know what works for one, may or may not work for another. The more we talk, the more ideas to try

There's BPD (Bipolar disorders- often mapped by sort of a limbo between high and low emotions). And please note these are all basic understandings and not encompassing ones, they are not enough for diagnosis. There's also self-harm, and suicides which can result of mental health deterioration. There are so many more which I cannot list, because of space constraints.

There are so many ways mental health manifests itself that I can hardly list them all- depression (which can mean chronic hopelessness, tiredness, unable to work or socialise, withdrawing from family and friends) and has many forms where a person seems to be doing all of these things, but is struggling called high function depression. Then there's anxiety and panic attacks. Both are related to unavoidable often seemingly un-rational fears that a person cannot control.

It is high time that we counter that while introspecting our own privilege. If you seem someone using casteist or Islamophobic, homophobic, transphobic, and mysoginist slurs, stop them, even while joking, you do not know what would their effects be on someone.

It's also important to talk about the effect of bullying and social discrimination as a cause of deterioration. The recent suicides within Indian universities, Rohith vemula, Payal Tadavi, and Fathima Latheef were all 'institutional murders' caused due to harrassment based on their caste, and religious identities by seniors, and professors.

The study further noted instance of depression were more in students from liberal arts than within non-liberal. I do not in any way suggest that non-liberal spaces do not have depression, but I want to delve into why humanities may witness more. It's because we constantly study histories of violence, our theories make us question the hatred we see which makes one anxious and unable to live with the status quo. A person here on the thread in fact from non-lib sc. is talking about how this is hap.