Committed To Talking About Mental Illness in Higher Ed: @BreakDrink No. 6 #HEdCommits

Are you hankering for more of the @BreakDrink podcast now that you’ve got a taste? No need to fear, Jeff & I are back! We recently caught up with our friends Sue Caulfield and Kristen Abell to discuss how mental illness impacts our colleagues who work in higher education and have them on the podcast to share about their work with The Committed Project  a.k.a.#HEdCommits

Do you remember the @BreakDrink Daily Dose? It was a bi-weekly higher ed news podcast Sue produced/hosted with Sarah Maddox & Shawn Brackett. Other updates since BD days: Sue got married, started drawing #suedle(s), started The Committed Project, and she podcasts with her #poopfriends on The Imposters podcast. Besides working as a kick-ass web developer and manager at her institution, Kristen has pushed all of us to think more about the impact mental illness has for colleagues in higher ed. If you haven’t seen her 2015 ACPA Convention PechaKucha Talk – Depression: A Love Story, you should — NOW!

Also, props to her work with Committed’s campaign for #StompingOutStigma and getting more of us talking about mental illness (I gave a shout out to this in my #SAspeaks talk last month in San Antonio, TX – hola!):

If you have not heard about the book, Committed: The Stories of Mental Illness in Student Affairs, it is created to share narratives from higher ed practitioners dealing with mental illness accompanied by #suedle visuals. From this book project, Sue and Kristen’s work with mental health awareness led to developing the blog series into The Committed Project, an organization that advocates for and supports higher ed professionals experiencing mental illness. For the past few years, they have been sharing stories – mostly firsthand accounts – from other professionals in higher ed who experience mental illness. YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  Please read and share the stories of your peers who struggle with mental health in higher ed on The Committed Project Blog.

As usual, I learn so much from these @BreakDrink discussions and there is a wealth of information/resources shared by The Committed Project on their website (thanks, y’all!):

• Twitter @CommittedPrjct
• Educational Toolkit http://thecommittedproject.org/toolkit/
• Resources http://thecommittedproject.org/resources/

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. While The Committed Project will be sharing one person’s story of mental illness through many voices on the blog this month, the group would also like to hear from YOU about how it feels to experience mental illness – your own or a loved one’s. If you are so inclined, please share a short video clip of you or someone you know talking about one aspect of your experience with mental illness – whether at work, at home, at school, or wherever to The Committed Project. You can submit videos at admin@thecommittedproject.org

Take a listen here to episode no. 6 #HEdCommits:

@BreakDrink Podcast Shout Outs:

• The Imposters Podcast
• FiveThirtyEight Podcast
• RadioLab – Episode Shots Fired Part 1 and Part 2
• Pod Save America
• Lovett or Leave It
• Radical Candor
• Modern Love
• Code Switch
• Politically Re-Active

@BreakDrink Recommended Reading:

• Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness or More So
• A Tragic Kind of Wonderful
• So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed
• The Psychopath Test

If you are in need of support or need help, please reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255) where you will be connected to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area, anytime 24/7.

If you have comments, questions, or feedback about this podcast episode, please feel free to post a comment below, or follow us on the following the “BreakDrink” podcast channels:

• Website: http://breakdrink.com/
• Twitter: @BreakDrink
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakdrink/
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/breakdrink/

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