Episode 5 Transcript: How to Make it to High School or College Graduation with Mental Health Struggles
Good morning y buenos dias. To my lovely friends all over the world welcome to the Noggin Podcast, a cozy mental health advocacy podcast with me, Kyarra Keele. It genuinely means so much to me that you’re here.
On this podcast we provide a safe, loving space advocating for diverse mental health dialogue in the community for people of color, educating about marginalized mental illnesses, and providing resources for mental health recovery. If that's what you’re looking for, welcome home.
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If you’ve already listened to me introduce myself briefly in a different episode, you can skip ahead about 40 seconds. If you’ve never stumbled across me before, again I’m Kyarra Keele. I’m a 4-time published author, healthy lifestyle blogger of 6 years, and an aspiring polyglot currently learning 4 languages, which are Spanish, and American Sign Language and I’m also gradually learning French and Arabic. I’m a mental health ambassador working as a liaison between the community and my local health center to educate, support and progress the mental health dialogue. I’ve been navigating the mental health system for about a decade now and I’m extremely passionate about mental health service and advocacy because I believe that no one deserves to be hurting or feeling alone in this universe. I hope this compassionate podcast will cheer you along on your good days and offer a cozy and supportive haven for you on your more difficult days. As with every episode, this creation comes to you after extensive research to bring you high quality and thoughtful content. That research will be complemented by my experience and perspective as someone who graduated from high school several years ago, graduated from two colleges to receive my associate’s degree and navigated three additional years at my current university in pursuit of my bachelor's degrees in Finance and Spanish Studies. And hooray! I’m finally nearing graduation. If you’re on the path to graduating from your highschool or college as well, comment below to let me and everyone in our home know your graduation month and year so we can all cheer you along! This episode also comes to you with an extra dash of compassion because I truly understand how difficult the final stretches of highschool or college can be if you’re struggling with your mental health and not receiving adequate support. It’s been quite a steep uphill climb to achieve these degrees and diplomas but here are the things that I learned the hard way and am happy to share with you.
But first...it’s time for the Noggin Nurturing Segment where we take a quick break from the episode to do one thing to nurture and invest in ourselves! As I always say, a plant collector, I’ve learned that much like plants, our minds need gentle encouragement. So, For example, you might use this pause to motivate yourself to leap out of bed, make yourself a cozy cup of tea, take a soothing shower, do some gentle stretching...You could make a phone call to someone you love, or make that brave call to make your first or next counseling appointment, journal, make your to-do list for the day, or plan out a healthy breakfast. You could take a short 5 or 10 minute walk or if you’re on medication, you can use this time to take your meds. If you’re in the car or bus commuting you could try listening to a song that makes you feel uplifted, or planning out your day ideal mentally. If you can’t try any of those examples for the segment, you can still participate! I’d like you to make a pledge to yourself of what you’ll do to nurture yourself as soon finish your commute. I truly understand that sometimes even the most simple tasks can feel like they take all of your energy, so please pick a task that’s gentle and kind to your body and mind. For myself, today I’ll spend the segment by enjoying a warm chocolate croissant sitting outside in the California sunshine. It’s still quite cold at around 50 degrees here but I feel blessed to have some lovely sunshine in the middle of winter. Okay, comment below to share with me and everyone in our home how you’ll spend the break for the Noggin Nurturing segment...The Noggin Podcast is brought to you today by Anchor. A service I actually use. The anchor app is the easiest way to make a podcast, ever. It's the only app that lets you record a high-quality podcast, and distribute it everywhere (including Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts) – all in one place. No fancy equipment or podcasting experience necessary, and even better than all of that, it’s 100% free! I’ve tried plenty of other podcast editing apps that make it a headache to import and export your audio files but Anchor’s intuitive platform makes it nice and easy.
Welcome back and bienvenidos! Firstly, if you feel that your mental illness is interfering with your academic performance to the point that you’re severely affected in a negative fashion in the sense that you’re falling behind on coursework in your classes, failing classes, or unable to cope with the workload in combination with your mental health challenges, you may be happy to hear that most, if not all high schools and colleges have some sort of office and program dedicated to serving individuals who experience their symptoms in this detrimental or academically disruptive way. These offices or programs may be called Disability Resources (DR), Disabled Student’s Program (DSP), or Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD). My university recently changed their office name from Disability Resources to Office of Accessible Education (OAE). For the purposes of this episode, I will use the term Disability Resources or DR because that is what I’m most familiar with.
So, if you’re not familiar with the services a DR office could offer, allow me to share with you just a few out of the dozens of possible accommodations.If it fits your needs you could for example have the option of an effective peer note-taker from the class who will upload their class notes for you. Another example would be receiving assignments prompts ahead of time to prepare or being given flexibility for class attendance to some degree. You may be allowed to tape record lectures or be allotted additional time to complete in-class or take-home assignments, particularly writing assignments. You could also be given extended exam time, typically time and one half to double time which is a common accommodation for many students. If you’re interested in an episode that is purely about academic accommodations for student mental health disabilities with input from a disability services specialist, be sure to comment below to let me know. The process of applying for accommodations usually begins after you’ve been accepted and enrolled at the college you want to attend but if you’re already far into your college years or even nearing graduation you can still receive disability services. In order to get accommodations in college, you’ll need to register as a student with disabilities with your disability services office or whatever they call it at your particular school. At my university, they accept new students on a rolling admissions basis, meaning that there is not hard deadline or cut off. To receive accommodations, you’ll likely have to first register with the DR office online which will ask you for basic information and ask about the accommodations that you would like to request. You’ll also likely need to attach any documentation from your doctor or physician that explicitly states your diagnosis and recommended accommodations to your application. If you are in the process of looking for mental health care, say a therapist or a psychiatrist who can diagnose you, definitely listen to my last episode which was episode 2: Tips to find affordable mental health care (low income or no insurance). Also, for my university, the processing time for an application can take 1-2 working weeks, so again, I encourage you to apply early on in the quarter instead of waiting until you desperately need support.
My second tip for how to make it to highschool or college graduation with mental health struggles is to let your academic advisers and professors know if you’re struggling to keep up with your course load or if you’re going through a particularly difficult time that is interfering with your performance. This applies especially if you’re registered with a DR office and receiving accommodations. I strongly recommend that you meet with professors at the beginning of the academic term and at least once or twice throughout the term to touch base. To clarify, you do not need to give your professors that details of why you’re struggling. I’ve never had a professor ask about the details of the situation, they just usually want to know how they can help. So, it pays to visit your professors during their office hours and let them know that you’re going through a rough time and struggling to keep up with the course work and perhaps ask for their advice and patience. You can let your professor know that you’re doing your best and will continue to do so but that this term will be difficult for you and you’d like them to keep that in mind. I strongly believe that establishing this trust at the beginning of the term will help prevent the professor from mistaking poor performance for merely lack of effort desire to succeed. I think you’ll find that most professors really do want to collaborate with you, if you take the steps to demonstrate that you are responsible and willing to advocate for yourself,
My third granule of advice on how to make it college graduation is to be choosey with where you channel your energy in terms of what student organizations and clubs you join. When you’re dealing with mental health challenges and facing the major goal of graduating on time, it’s important to avoid stretching yourself too thin between all of the obligations across different clubs by trying to join them all. I recommend that you simply choose one or two organizations where you can make a profound impact and make positive connections and then adjust accordingly as the term continues and the work flow changes.
Speaking of graduating on time, for tip number four, if you’re really struggling I suggest that you take a moment to sit down with an academic adviser and see where you might be able to give yourself a bit of a break by potentially taking a summer class to reduce to course load during the year or graduating one term later in order to prioritize your mental health. It’s certainly not easy to make the choice to take summer classes or graduate late in order to lighten the load but you have to remember that rushing to get the degree isn’t worth it if you have to push yourself to unhealthy measures and standards. You deserve to retain your sanity in your journey to your next degree or diploma.
And finally, for the fifth tip, I just want to say that it’s okay to lean on friends and family to get you through the final stretches until graduation. Sometimes, when we’re dealing with mental health struggles, we feel like we’re a burden and everyone is tired of us, but in reality most people in your life want to help in their own way. So, if you have a support system or a “village” as I like to call it, please be gentle enough with yourself to allow yourself to let those people help you. And if you don’t quite have a support system or village yet, check out episode two that has a lot of good tips on where you can improve your support system and find affordable mental health care.
For my much-loved hard of hearing and deaf community, transcripts in English are now available on the new Noggin Podcast website and for my Latinx community transcripts in español will be coming very soon on website for you all as well.
If you made it here to the conclusion of this episode, I’d like to say thank you so much. Muchisimas gracias. If you’re interested in learning more information about The Noggin Podcast you can visit our website and subscribe to be a part of our cozy home with new episode releases every other Monday morning. See you in the next episode! Nos vemos en el próximo episodio.
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