Richard Harland
Certainly as a developmental biologist, I find it astonishing when anybody makes it to adulthood. Never mind with the level of function that most of us have. So I think it’s not surprising at all that there’s such a prevalence of depression. I’m Richard Harland. I am a member of the molecular and cell biology department. I’ve been the chair of that department twice. And I now work in the dean’s office as an associate dean.
Elva Diaz
My name is Elva Diaz, and I am a professor in the Department of pharmacology at UC Davis.
Elcin Unal
My name is Elcin Unal, I’m a faculty at the MCB department in the Division of genetics, genomics and development here at Berkeley.
Randy Schekman
My name is Randy Schekman. I’m a professor in the Department of molecular and cell biology here at Berkeley and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Kathy Collins
I am Kathy Collins, and I’m a professor in biochemistry, biophysics and structural biology
[Text on Screen – Experience with Mental Health]
Richard Harland
Have I struggled with mental health conditions? Yes, I struggled with depression, I had a major episode back in the 80s. and subsequent cycles of mild depression, which I learned to recognize for what they were fortunately.
Elva Diaz
I have a long standing history of anxiety and depression since my undergraduate years, but I didn’t know that at the time, I only recognized it in retrospect.
Kathy Collins
Do you ever get the answer, that people know no one has struggled with mental health conditions? I’m not sure that would be possible in today’s world? So the answer would be, yes.
Randy Schekman
Perhaps four or more years into being an assistant professor, all of a sudden, I started having what can I can only call panic attacks.
Elcin Unal
Yes I have personally struggled with mental health conditions. And I also know people who has struggled as well.
[Text on screen – Effects of Mental Health Struggles]
Richard Harland
How does it affect your work? I think at its worst, where you have a feeling of self loathing, and lack of value. And you really don’t know what to contribute. It’s very difficult to do anything.
Elva Diaz
These episodes would get worse as I progressed in my training, so in graduate school, I remember there was one or two days a year where I just couldn’t get out of bed. And I didn’t recognize that as a depressive episode until much later. But, but as I was progressing through the academic ranks, and going through tenure, I hit this wall where I couldn’t ignore it anymore. And the stress and anxiety just really got to me.
Kathy Collins
I believe that it’s these mental health challenges that make me withdraw from a lot of social and professional opportunities that I should be taking. Because I don’t want to take on too much.
Randy Schekman
It was very frightening. There was nothing that I could do, I confided in my wife. You know, within a short period of time, I have a best friend who’s with whom I’ve shared a close, friendly relationship since I was a graduate student, and I confided in him and, and his interpretation was the you know, that my success had been so meteoric that I wasn’t able to cope somehow with it, but well, for whatever reason, initially, and then for some years, I would get really panicked before I was making a public presentation, I could almost always predict when it would come on. And you know, it would seem irrational. But there it was, you know, and sometimes I would have a sleepless night before I was giving a public presentation. Sometimes it would only come in within, you know, less than an hour before and I would start, my heart would start racing. And I tried a number of things to deflect this. And really nothing. I mean, it would occasionally start even in the middle of a seminar, I’d be fine and then all of a sudden.
Elcin Unal
So at a personal level, it has both positive and negative effects, in my life. From the positive perspective, it allows me to be creative and think a bit outside the box. And from a negative perspective, at times when I feel lower, obviously, the productivity and just, you know, day to day events can become a bit more of a struggle. But knowing oneself, it helps to be able to deal with, you know, both the good and the bad
[Text on screen – what helps?]
Elcin Unal
Getting help via therapy, proper medication, and getting support from people that I trust, and connected to.
Randy Schekman
Over the years, I developed ways of coping to the point where it eventually melted. I never sought, talk therapy, it might have been helpful. I didn’t. Instead, I found that for at first a Valium would calm me, and then eventually Propranolol for many years, I just took a Propranolol before I was. It clearly was some kind of performance anxiety. And I, and I’ve come to learn that it’s, it’s so common. I think a lot of people don’t admit this. But you know, I mean, I think there are some very famous performers who have this. And I realized over the years that it’s not bad. It’s not great. I’d rather not have that I, I don’t have that now. But I, I’ve learned that people often can somehow use the energy that comes from this kind of heightened attention, you know, and, but it, but when I was at its worst, it wasn’t helpful at all. There was a distraction.
Kathy Collins
I think, if I am feeling a lack of respect for myself, or not motivated for a reason, that’s clearly by a chemical. Doing what you’re avoiding is great, just throwing myself into a social network. And I really didn’t know how valuable that was.
Elva Diaz
So I fortuitously became involved in a study through the Academic Staff Assistant Program, which is the counseling equivalent for faculty and staff, to be involved in a study for counseling interventions in faculty and outcomes, to predict better outcomes in overall health and wellness. And with that, I became involved and worked very closely with a counselor that I still see today. Now, eventually, I also needed medication, I wasn’t able to manage with simply psychotherapy. But that coupled with medication allowed me I felt to develops strategies, strategies and skills that I could use, when I experienced periods of anxiety, panic, and depression.
Richard Holland
The first episode was quite severe. But then I got out of that was the help of medication, therapy and time and success of the lab. And then there was subsequently several episodes, milder episodes, which I learned to recognize and learn to recognize that they would come and go until I decided that I didn’t want to deal with them anymore and permanently went on medication, which fortunately has prevented any subsequent episodes.
[Text on Screen – Advice for Students]
Elcin Unal
I would say that you’re not alone, that you’re not weak, or you’re not helpless. There are a lot of us that have struggled through different states of mental health. And it’s good to know what kind of state you have and get help. But it doesn’t define your capacity or your potential, it may actually be very helpful, in certain ways.
Randy Schekman
Just recognize, okay, that it’s not uncommon, and that people can deal with it. There are solutions, and they should find a solution that works for them, that you don’t have to live with this. And that would be good to know if there are other people who’ve taken a completely different approach to controlling it and that that would, you know, another be another item on a list of things that one could try.
Richard Harland
Main thing to say to students is that it’s remarkable how much your colleagues will give you support. It’s amazing how effective modern therapies are both verbal and chemical. They really work. And so those are really important messages to pass on. You don’t need to suffer, forever, it can end.
Elva Diaz
I wish I had known that it was, it was going to get much worse, because maybe I would have done some interventions earlier. So I always tell, if I’m a graduate advisor in as one of my service roles as a faculty member, and I always tell them right from the beginning, you know, you have access to all these resources. And maybe things are fine now, but but you might need them in the future. And just keep that in mind that it’s there for you. And it’s free.
Kathy Collins
Talk. Share. It’s like, there’s a thing we say about questions. The only stupid question is a question not asked. So the answer here is the same. Don’t worry about imposing, you’ll get a response quickly. If someone like your mentor doesn’t want to be involved in this, then you can go to the next person. We confess our science problems to each other all the time. So why shouldn’t we talk about the things that are affecting our science also.
[Text on screen – Final Thoughts]
Kathy Collins
Science is about interaction. You don’t have ideas in a vacuum. You have to go to seminars, you have to go to lunch with your peers, you have to talk over the centrifuge in the hallway. And if you’re not motivated to do that, if you’re not feeling engaged, then you’ll pass up those opportunities and you’ll never know what you don’t know. So I think that it is extremely helpful to think about it in terms of being part of a group because science is a group effort.
