About 15 months ago I suffered from a brain injury, a grade 3 concussion to be precise. Concussions are often referred to as mTBIs – mildly traumatic brain injuries. There was nothing mild about my brain injury. As I wrote elsewhere, for the first 6 months, I was mostly bed ridden, unable to get up, unable to socialize with anyone (not even my family), and just barely able to shower. In many ways the worst symptoms and the ones that I haven’t tended to talk about much were cognitive. For example, my visual memory was affected. This made it not only hard to remember things that I was reading but also hard to process and work with what I was reading. As a professor, this was my worst nightmare come true.
Most of this is behind me now. About a year after my initial injury, I was able to return to some of the things that I did before. One of the very first things that I did in my return to my “normal” life was to give a job talk. I know. Crazy. I had been recovering from a brain injury for a year, which meant that I hadn’t given a talk in a year or done anything even remotely close to giving a talk (like teaching) in over a year. Going through an academic job interview is horrible under the best circumstances. It was obviously going to be much worse under the worst circumstances.
I suppose I was ready to take the risk in part because I had a difficult time the first time I was on the job market. I rather arrogantly and naively viewed myself as a job market warrior. At that time, I was a breastfeeding mother who decided to take her daughter with her to the APA. It should be no surprise that my daughter cut her first tooth the night before my first early morning interview for, what was at the time, my dream job. She woke up every two hours and my breakfast didn’t come. I arrived at the interview hungry and tired and one of my interviewers “intuitively” just didn’t get my project, despite my attempt to argue otherwise. Suffice to say, I didn’t get the job. So, I thought to myself, what could be worse than this?
What also motivated me is that I had a shot at securing my ultimate dream job. I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to be at a truly great department with truly great people and, on top of this, to be so close to my hometown (where my family is). So, I had to take the risk. I had no choice, so to speak.
That’s the backstory about my injury and why I decided to do a job interview when I was far from my best. I would like to talk a bit more about the pragmatics of doing the interview. As a previously healthy and able person, I had never thought about the challenges of being on the job market with a disability (temporary or permanent). I had some good advice to get me started (thanks EB!) and the rest I just did on the fly. I write what follows in the hopes that it might be of some use to those with disabilities or health problems while they are on the job market.
It is important to know that much of how things will work depends on what you are able to do, what you need, and what you are comfortable disclosing to the search committee.
I was in direct contact with the chair of the department and the administrative staff who were planning my visit. Just to be clear, you are under no obligation to disclose the nature of your disability or illness. You can simply state that you have a condition that makes certain things a necessity. I, however, decided to be very open about my injury (it’s nature, the symptoms, etc.) and my related needs. For example, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go for more than 1.5 hours without a break. I also knew that I needed a dark and quiet space to have a break in. I also knew that I needed to arrive an extra day early to recover from the travel. I offered to pay for my stay myself, but the department generously ended up covering the cost for me.
In my case, the department that was interviewing me was very generous and kind. A number of people – that I told – knew about my injury and were careful to help me meet my needs. We worked together to plan a schedule that would work for me. And, in the end, it worked out. I managed to get through the day without a debilitating migraine (which was my worst fear because of their typical severity). This isn’t to say that I didn’t have some symptoms. I did. During my talk, my vision momentarily went black and my knees went weak. I thought this is it: I’m going to pass out. And then I didn’t. I gripped the podium a bit harder and managed to keep going.
I have often wondered if I shouldn’t have been so explicit about my injury. It can be a very risky thing to do. Being “out” about one’s disability – especially a cognitive one – may work against you for all of the obvious reasons. I already had a tenure track job. So, it wasn’t as risky for me as it might be for others. I had a great job to come back to, if this one didn’t work out. In the end, I am glad that I was open about my injury. It gave me a chance to see just how great the department that I’m going to be working at is. They handled my injury with grace and compassion and generosity. It also gave me a real chance to do my best. If I hadn’t disclosed my own needs, then I might have had a great story about the time I blacked out at a job talk in front of Elizabeth Anderson.
--Meena Krishnamurthy
Thanks for sharing. Your narrative left me wondering about the disconnect between how to treat some disabilities such as your concussion and other invisible disabilities such as major depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, etc. My sense is that while being open about a concussion was the right thing to do--however risky and difficult it may have seemed at the time--it would be a positively bad idea to be open about mental illnesses/disabilities. I wonder what others think...
Either way, thanks again for sharing. We need more stories like this out in the open.
Posted by: Thomas Nadelhoffer | 05/18/2015 at 08:09 AM