Ep4_Perfectionism and OCD_Daniel Ranson.mp3
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Emily:
A quick warning before we start. This episode contains discussion of suicide. Please be mindful if you continue to listen and reach out for support, if you need it.
Emily:
Academia is rewarding, but it's also a huge challenge. It's too easy to feel invisible. Please, let's just talk about it all the difficult things you think you have to hide. I'm Emily and this is the Voices of Academia podcast. Each month you'll hear a conversation with a different researcher released in fortnightly episodes. First, you'll hear the story of mental health in academia. Then you'll learn how the experience was managed. You realize that actually you're not alone.
Emily:
There's a global community of researchers that want to talk about how hard this is and how it could be better.
Emily:
Welcome back to Voices of Academia. I'm your host, Emily, a third PhD student in Melbourne, Australia. Today, we'll hear how academia has impacted the mental health of Daniel Ranson. The next episode, we'll hear how he's learned to manage. Daniel is a society for the Study of Addiction, Ph.D. research fellow at the University of East London in London, UK. He's exploring the mechanisms of alcohol addiction using Drosophila flies. Welcome, Daniel. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast.
Dan:
Hi Emily. Thanks for having me.
Emily:
I have to ask I'm so fascinated by this. When I read your research focus, how do you work out alcohol addiction using flies?
Emily:
I just have this image of you like dipping flies in like a pool of ethanol.
Dan:
Such a great question and I get it so often. So fruit flies are natural addicts, I could say of addiction. If you think about what a fruit fly is, it finds itself hovering around fermenting fruit and a product of fermentation is alcohol. So within a rotten banana, let's say there is probably between five and seven percent alcohol. So flies are naturally always seeking this alcohol. So by challenging and using their natural behaviours, we can induce that ethanol seeking behavior just by ramping up the concentration of alcohol that we give them and they can actually seek this. So by making them like a higher concentration of alcohol, just like a human alcohol addict would have, we can then challenge behaviour with different pharmacological interventions and also look at their genetics and try to map out the mechanisms by which addiction is happening. So, yeah, fruit flies are super awesome for that.
Emily:
Yeah, fascinating. I work with mice and muscle cells, so I've always been interested in people that work with like zebrafish and worms and the flies. So very cool PhD.
Emily:
So, I mean, given that we're recording this in the middle of a pandemic, I also have to ask, how are you?
Dan:
Well, that's the million dollar question. I myself, I'm doing OK. And I'm sure that would be the average response if you were to ask every one of your listeners.Right now.
Dan:
I'm doing fine. I'm making the best of a bad situation in terms of my research. In terms of how am I doing on a personal level? Yeah, things are definitely tough right now, but trying to find coping mechanisms by trying to work out what's feasible for me to do, what are my limitations.
Dan:
I guess the main thing is learning to understand that my productivity is not going to be the same as it was pre pandemic. And that's been one of the big struggle factors for me, is that I guess being frustrated with myself, that I'm not working as quickly as I once was or also thinking that people can't expect the same level of productivity as before.
Dan:
So especially doing a Ph.D. by going one hundred miles per hour and all of a sudden hitting this brick wall with lockdown and the pandemic in the world, things definitely de-accelerated very, very rapidly.
Dan:
And it was hard to get, I guess, the momentum to get going again. But now we are months into this pandemic. And in the UK where I am now, we've just had a second national lockdown. Things are definitely much better than if you was to have asked me five months ago. So thanks for asking me.
Emily:
No, and thank you for the honest response, because I think it's so easy to be like, yeah, that's fine.
Emily:
And I think that low in productivity is something a lot of people can relate to. So I appreciate that. Thank you. And glad to hear it's it's difficult but you're finding some ways to to manage.
Emily:
So a couple of careful questions. Audience can get to know you a little bit. What were you like as a child?
Dan:
What was I like as a child? Wow, that's a that's a big question! I'm sure my mom would have a different response to me. I was, I was an average child. I would say an average child being that, you know, I had a big group of friends at school, I had a good upbringing. I had rebellious moments, as most kids do. But overall, I think that I was a good child, a model child, let's say, and I had an average childhood. When I become a teenager, so moving slightly away from childhood, I was quite lazy as a child, as a teenager at secondary school, high school, and I probably didn't do as well of things as I could have done if I put my heart to it. But maybe that was just being a lazy guy syndrome with just wanting to do other things other than the things that I should have been doing. But no, normal child,
Emily:
That sounds like my partner. He's an incredibly intelligent that didn't didn't want to do it when he was at that age. So I imagine a lot of people can relate to that day.
Dan:
We could turn back that magic time button. I would definitely do things differently, especially at school, put more effort in and tell the bullies to go away and definitely enjoy school a little bit more, high school this is. I'm sure other people can relate to that too.
Emily:
Well, you might not have had as much fun that way. And what drew you to academia?
Dan:
Inspirational teachers! Like I said, I wasn't necessarily as engaged as I could have been, especially in my teenage years with school and college. But when I got to to college, I especially to the later years of college, I had a inspirational teacher. I guess it's important to add again that i'm from the UK. So when I say college, I mean age 16 to 18 years of age. And I had a fantastic teacher and she was so inspirational to me and she really made learning fun, she wasn't a stereotypical teacher, where it was an hour long lesson, get your book out, copy what's on the board, and it's time for you to go. She really made things engaging and fun and put a real life perspective on everything we did. And I'm thinking of science lessons here, especially biology and chemistry as that's what my Ph.D. falls around. And she was inspirational. She really pushed me to do my best to be a fun way; a fun and supportive way. And I think to be a great teacher, you have to really invest in your student. And she definitely did. And if it wasn't for her, I definitely wouldn't have engaged with my biology and chemistry like I did, and I wouldn't be here at the end of my PhD, three degrees later, thats for sure.
Emily:
So fantastic. I wonder if she'll ever hear this.
Dan:
I really, really hope so. I did reach out to her a couple of years ago, which is really nice to say that I started my PhD and she was definitely happy. So I'm really looking forward to acknowledging her in my PhD thesis and sending her copy. If she doesn't know it to this day, she definitely had a really big, profound effect on my life.
Emily:
That's awesome. So I want to shift gears now into your mental health story. So I know you mentioned that your mental health concerns started during your undergrad degree and got progressively worse, so I was wondering if you'd be comfortable talking us through that journey then maybe starting with your your first memory of that first experience?
Dan:
Yeah. So it seems like a long time ago now, but it was it's definitely still very very clear in my mind. I started my own graduate degree in biomedical sciences, and it was made clear to me from the beginning that you had to work hard on this course, and I was prepared for that.
Dan:
I was the first person in my family to go to university, to ever go to university, so that in itself was a big challenge for me, in a sense that my family was so proud.
Dan:
I was at the time in a friendship group where I was the only one going away to university to study. And I felt very pressured. I felt like I had done something that, although it's very common for people to do within my circle of friends and family, it was you know, it was a big adventure, a big achievement for me to get to that point.
Dan:
So I already started on my first week with big shoes to fill and people who were expecting great things.
Dan:
As time went on, I developed OCD tendencies lets say. I was very obsessive about getting things right, putting my all into it. And again, I think that comes from my college experience as well. I've always been very aware that I hadn't put my best into my high school years and I was very average as a result. But when I went to college, I realized that I could study hard and get good results and that you get out of your studies what you put into them. And that was very overcast to me at the beginning of my university undergrad studies and these perfectionist traits got more and more intense until the point where I had to seek help from medical professionals and my general practitioner at the doctor's surgery to say, look, I think things are getting out of control here. And when I say out of control, I mean to the point whereby if I was to be making some notes on a lecture that I had done the day before, for example, when I was writing the notes, if I made a mistake, it wasn't wasn't acceptable for me to maybe cross out that marking or use eraser fluid.
Dan:
It would be I'm going to have to start this again now, because if I look back on this in two months time, it's not good enough. I'm not going to be able to engage with this piece of paper or piece of work.
Dan:
And it became very, very controlling of my life in that I was put in everything I could into this work because I wanted to succeed and I wanted to do well.
Dan:
And I was again having this unofficial pressure around me building and saying, you know, you've got exams coming up in January after your first semester. You know,how are you ufeeling?. Are you prepared for them and it was very controlling and exhausting for me, so as I said, I went to the general practitioner and they said, you know what, you have OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and that things are very, very much taken over. Of course, this was sprinkled with words like anxiety, worry and and uncontrolled thoughts. And that was the unofficial diagnosis also and I was prescribed some medication.
Dan:
The medication wasn't so great for me. It was very, very much rejected by my body. I had so many side effects and the drugs that I was given was actually worse than having these obsessive, perfectionist tendencies that I had. So I didn't take them. And after my January semester exams, so this is after four months of my undergraduate studies, I had my first set of exams.
Dan:
That was, again, when I realized, you know, things can't continue like this, it's time to go back and try some other medications or make clear to these professionals that things aren't great for me.
Dan:
So I went back and was prescribed medication and luckily they helped me a lot more than before, even at the lowest dose.
Dan:
So still in the first year of my undergraduate degree. So this was back in 2012.
Dan:
The semester was continuing and I guess myself still having these desires to perform in the best way possible. The perfectionism got worse and worse to the point where the medication I was on no longer suppressed this desire to do well and to control my overactive worrying. And it got to the point where I was commuting to university at this point on the train. And I was so anxious, for example, of missing my train or having thoughts of getting on the wrong train that, that I was spending so much time on a train platform, for example, in the station, checking what train I was getting on, that I would actually miss the train itself.
Dan:
And I was worried in the first place of getting on the train because I knew that if I didn't attend the lecture, I would miss it. And therefore that would have detrimental effects on my studies as well.
Dan:
So I hope you can see these underlying effects of perfectionism and this over overwhelming burden of pressure to do well became all too much.
Dan:
And again, I went back to the general practitioner and said, you know, I think I need some extra help.
Dan:
And they they referred me for CBT therapy, which overall was very effective.
Dan:
And within this time as well, I got to the point where I was so obsessive about things that I would video record myself locking the front door of my house, because if I didn't, I would get all the way to university after commuting and think, did I lock the front door and have to leave my lecture to go home and check that I had locked the front door. So I was having to record myself to say, you know what, I have, I've done everything that I needed to do, all of this kind of stuff. So therapy definitely helped override these tendencies. But it's definitely safe to say that my mental health at this point still wasn't good and the anxiety and overwhelming thoughts of failure were definitely increasing. So the OCD definitely got better, but the anxiety was getting worse. And I guess that's the first stage of when I noticed that things weren't quite right.
Emily:
Wow, I can't imagine what I would feel like.
Emily:
You know, I'm, I am a perfectionist, but I've not experienced to that level. So thank you for being so open with that.
Emily:
And I guess I have a couple of questions, because I think medication is a, is a tricky one for people. And and I'd be interested to know what your initial reaction to the suggestion of medication was. And also then when you had those significant side effects and felt like you needed to try again, how you sort of felt about that as well.
Dan:
Yeah. So the medication, I would definitely say to anybody listening, I see it as very much being a coping mechanism. It's not a cure. It's not like going to the doctors with a throat infection. They give you antibiotics and you get better. With or without the medication, such as anti-depressants or serotonin reuptake inhibitors or anything like this.
Dan:
The condition is still there. But what's happening is your behaviours are suppressed. I think it's definitely a patchwork mechanism, a bandaid effect, and it doesn't necessarily make the problem go away.
Dan:
And I only now, eight years later, understand that. And I'm not saying it's a negative to take medication. What I'm saying is that I think it's important to understand that there has to be other mechanisms of treatment available to you or things that you embrace or make changes in your life in order for yourself to get better. Of course, I'm not a medical practitioner, so please, this is only my personal opinion. But in terms of the medication that I took first of all, it definitely wasn't right for me. I experienced severe nausea, sickness, a general lethargy, and I felt absolutely awful.
Dan:
I knew within days that this was not for me. But the GP that I saw made be very aware that it's common with all medications, that it's my body rebalancing itself, to having the new drugs in my body.
Dan:
And there was always a very clear, even to this day, there is very clear instructions from medical professionals that you should not go cold turkey with these kind of medicines and stop taking them, because the effect of not taking them is often worse than having the side effect from taking them, because it's all about balance in your body. You're changing the chemical imbalance and I stuck with it.
Dan:
He said it would take maybe a week to two weeks.
Dan:
I did stick with it, but after that, we agreed that it was the medication for me. And I do remember and it was not the not the best advice that I followed. He said, come back and we'll sort something out. And, you know, I was a bit nervous about that. I was like, well, I've asked for help. It didn't work. I'm just going to carry on. And I didn't I didn't go back. It was exam period coming up as well. And I was thinking, you know, I don't want to be sick during this period and have worry of doing exams. So I left it. But it was after the exams I thought, you know what, it's time to go back and going back to talking about medication as well Emily, there's the stigma of having medication as well. People are always scared of taking tablets and seeking advice from your doctor.
Dan:
But, you know, mental illness is, it is an illness. It's called a mental illness for a reason.
Dan:
And you wouldn't avoid seeking advice or taking medication for something else. So I don't know why there's a negative connotation with taking medication as its just one pill day. People wouldn't say no to taking a hayfever tablet or a contraceptive pill. So what's the difference? You're getting the effect from, from what it is you're taking. And if it makes your life better or more comfortable, then that's a positive.
Emily:
And we might talk a little bit more about CBT in the next episode. So maybe I'll ask you some questions around that then.
Emily:
You mentioned that was sort of the first stage.
Emily:
So what happened as you got towards the end of your undergraduate degree or sort of further into your academic career?
Dan:
So further on into my undergraduate degree, my course was for four years, I done three years of study and one year in the middle as a sandwich year placement where I went and worked in a hospital for one year and gained clinical experience and my registration documents to become a UK accredited biomedical scientist.
Dan:
And as I said, OCD sort of whittled away, but these perfectionist tendencies remained. But I guess I use them to my advantage in that in the laboratory, it was very much a great skill to have perfectionist traits because it made me very good with attention to detail, observing results and being quite good. So I kind of used and learnt to to use these perfectionist traits to my advantage.
Dan:
So I'd done two years of study just to recap, two days of study, then went to work in the hospital for one year and then I returned from my third year. So it was right at the end of my undergraduate degree when things a really big turn for the worst. And I was working five days per week in the hospital Monday to Friday, standard hours, nine am to five pm, and this gave me my clinical experience. I was not paid for this. It was voluntary. But that's the way it worked. In the UK the system is generally, that they see it as doing you a favor, that they're giving you the experience and the time to give you your portfolio because it's so competitive, which really, really sucks. But at the time it was you know, I was one of ten people that interviewed out of the whole year group, the whole cohort of intake that were, that were applying. So I was very, very lucky.
Dan:
So I couldn't say no and miss this opportunity, but it meant that I had to still work. So I had a part time job. And at the time I worked at an airport just outside London, at an International Airport. I worked on the ramp as a baggage handler.
Dan:
So I worked there Saturday and Sunday. So I work seven days a week for about nine to ten months and it was really, really stressful. Come back and into my final year of undergraduate studies. Again, my anxiety is sky high. Final year, the last chance to get the highest degree classification possible. Remember, I've still got this pressure riding on me that I want to be successful. I've got pressure from family and whilst I say pressure, they're not actively putting the pressure on me, but I guess it's the pressure that I'm putting on myself in order to be the first person in university to get a degree and all of this kind of stuff.
Dan:
So the final year is looming and it was too much, I was having suicidal thoughts, I had plans in my head of how I would end my life. And whilst I never acted on these, these thoughts that I was having, I guess I used it as an unofficial comfort blanket that if things got too much, I would know how. And to say it now, all of these years later, it makes me really sad inside that I feel this way and that I didn't do anything to challenge these thoughts. But it was really comforting for me knowing that if it really did get too much, that there was a way of dealing with it. And yeah, it was really comforting to have these thoughts. And I must reiterate again, I never acted on any of the thoughts that I had in my head because they were very, very severe.
Dan:
I went to bed one day and had an argument with my partner just before. It was very, very minor, before we got into bed.
Dan:
But it was upsetting because of my frame of mind. I was very stressed and anxious and depression had set in at this point where I was overwhelmed with the anxiety and the tiredness and the stress of working seven days a week.
Dan:
I woke up in the morning. My partner already left for work.
Dan:
Things were still a little bit frosty from the night before from where we had had a disagreement. It was so insignificant, this disagreement that I still to this day, I can't remember what it was.
Dan:
I woke up to my morning medication. And something in me said, you know what, take them all, just take them all, so every piece of medication that was on my bedside table, I took.
Dan:
And I know now that it was twenty six times my daily dose of medication. And that was that. It was very impulsive, I didn't have any plans previously of that was how things were going to turn out. But it happened nonetheless.
Dan:
My mother in law, as I was living with my partners parents, my mother and father in law at the time. My mother in law was downstairs. I thought, you know what, I can't let her see me like this. Whilst the effects of the medication hadn't set in yet, I knew that they would and I didn't want to impact that pain on her. So I left for a walk.
Dan:
I was walking and walking through my local park near where I lived. Nobody was around, it was a lovely summer's day, I remember it as clear as day.
Dan:
And my mother called and she could sense something was wrong.
Dan:
I was not speaking very coherently and she could sense this. I at the time did not know this. I only know this from her recollection, her account years down the line. And I ended up at her house. I walked there because she told me. Again, I have no recollection of this. And she spoke to the pharmacist and said that I had clearly taken something, what do I do? They said call an ambulance.
Dan:
Next thing you know, I woke up two days later, I think it was in, the hospital and it was like, I felt like a superhero, that I cheated death.
Dan:
I woke up two days later and it was people around me. The only thing I can remember during this hospital visit before this, was moving beds and there was a commotion. And I just remember blood dripping down my arm and onto the floor where I clearly moved the canula needle that was in my arm and something happened.
Dan:
I just remember a big commotion and having blood drip down my forearm, onto my hands and fingers, and that is the only thought I can remember.
Dan:
And to this day, I still don't know what happened. It's something that isn't spoken about openly in my family. It was definitely a taboo subject, and I'm cool with that. I don't need to know what happened. It was a sad moment in my life and I don't necessarily want to reflect on that. But I remember waking up very, very vividly and I saw this nurse and she said, How are you feeling? I said something along the lines of I absolutely feel crap. And I started to learn what happened.
Dan:
So after I took the medication, there was clear observations that there was something wrong with my heart. Where I had taken twenty six times my daily dose of medication, I had interrupted the electrical rhythm of my heart and I was put on a twenty four hour watch ward where there was constant nurse surveillance because they didn't know how my heart was going to carry on performing or if it was going to carry over for me.
Dan:
I remember being told that I'b being given medication to put my heart into a protective state with the administration of different magnesium salts and it basically puts it into a protective sedative state to try and stop it from overworking and to get the electrical rhythm back. It was a very sad time and I was having an ECG every hour to try and understand what was happening with this rhythm. And I just wanted to see my family. I wasn't allowed to do so until I had had a psychiatric assessment. I had this assessment and it was deemed safe whilst in the presence of hospital staff, that I was allowed to see my mother and my mother came and hugged me to death and said,you know, what was I thinking, etc..
Dan:
She was clearly angry, but at the same time she was loving and caring and visibly upset.
Dan:
I wanted to see my partner and understandably, she was a bit reluctant at the start to want to see me. She couldn't understand why. She knew that I was in a depressive, anxious state at the time.
Dan:
But it was something that I'd never spoken about, suicidal thoughts. And in my life, as I said, I had no plans to do anything.
Dan:
In reality, it was just a nice comfort thought, that I always had in my mind, and it was only the next day after waking up that she came to see me. I went to the toilet and I came back they said, you have a guest? There was my partner. And understandably, she was upset, disappointed, shocked, and seeing her face that first time was something that I'll live with for the rest of my life. Seeing the stress that I caused, it was a selfish, instinctive thing that I did that day on the 18th of August.
Dan:
Was something as I've said, I will remember forever and I'll never, ever do that again, no matter how, how bad things get, because I now see what I would have left behind and how things would have been if I left them behind. It was a very, very selfish thing to do. But at the time, as I said, it was an impulsive I didn't want to do it. It was just that I thought there was no other way of coping. It was the easiest way, just to run away from that situation.
Dan:
But yeah, that's what happened at the end of my undergraduate degree.
Emily:
I feel really privileged to, to have you open up to me like that, you know, we've never met before and it's such a personal part of your life and I don't know if you can see through the zoom screen, but I was tearing up as well as you were telling that story.
Dan:
Yeah, it was a big part of my life and it was certainly a big part of their lives and it's something that.
Dan:
As I said, the 18th of August, every year is a sad day for me because it was the day when I nearly lost everything and it would have been a catastrophic loss, not for, not because I now know everything I have gone on to achieve and everything I have, but because I would have left my distraught family behind.
Emily:
And like I said, I woke up as a superhero. I felt like I cheated something that should have happened. I'm very lucky and happy that I did get through it.
Emily:
So where do you I mean, you know, I will talk a bit more about some of your support systems in the in the next episode.
Emily:
But after going through something like that, like how do you make the decision to to stay in, in Science?
Emily:
Like, what was that a difficult period for you? I mean, how do you do that?
Dan:
So after this period, you know, it's important for me to say that it wasn't me sailing straight into my final year because remember, this happened at the beginning of my final year.
Dan:
I had a psychiatric team that was looking after me, and they had home visits every day where I had a mental health nurse come to my house and I guess make sure that I was mentally stable and that things weren't going to go down an avenue like they were before.
Dan:
But it was important to say that I did get lots of help in that I had therapy daily from these mental health support workers. I had a psychiatrist come to my house. And I think one of the most important things that came with the support and this experience was that my family had support from the mental health social worker, where they were trained not to deal with me, but to deal with my family and put support networks inside the house 24/7.
Dan:
My partner and my mother and father in law were almost trained on how to deal with somebody who had mental health issues, and they all provided me with the support to go on and finish my final year. You know, and I'm happy to say that I got the highest degree of classification that I could. I got a first and all of that pain and suffering was worth it.
Dan:
So how did I go on to how did I go on to stay in science? It made me realize that it's what I was good at. I could do things if I put my mind to them. And I didn't have to be at breaking point for success to happen. You know, I've had, I still have had positive experiences up until now with science. I have my amazing college tutor, Janine, and I have achieved my first, I supported more than ever in my final year. And I started to develop these treatment and coping strategies. And that's when I fell into research. I did a master's degree, a master of research we have in the UK.
Dan:
I'm not sure if you have these in other places around the world, but a master of research degree, which is specifically a year long research project. We call it a baby PhD, in essence. Where you do a one year project and then have a baby thesis and viva at the end and it's to see whether you like research. The end of my final year of undergrad, exams were not for me! I was done with the books, I was done with the the exams, and the anxiety that come with it was not for me. I never wanted to experience that ever again.
Master of research meant that I could stay in science, do something I loved and also put my teeth into something, one single project that I could grow and develop with. And that was when I decided to do my master of research.
Dan:
And it was on the molecular mechanisms of alcohol addiction using Drosophila, and I loved it. Again, I achieved the distinction. I got the highest grade possible for this year of work, and I was awarded a place to do my PhD based upon the findings that I had of my, my master of research degree.
Dan:
Again, it wasn't funded, though, and this was a big problem for me in that I didn't want to work for free and experience again what I did in that one year working in the hospital.
Dan:
So what was I to do? I made the decision and said to myself and also my director of studies at the time and said. Well, I'm not doing this unless I get some money. It was very clear that the uni didn't have any money for me. And if I want to do this project, it was myself, get money or pay for it myself. I scurried off with my results that I got from my master's degree and I approached a charity, The Society for the Study of Addiction, and they've being part of my family ever since in that they awarded me fours years of money.
Dan:
And here I am at the end of my Ph.D., still having support from them to this day. And I owe it to them as well for being there every step of the way.
Dan:
So that's why I'm still in science Emily!
Emily:
So you gave me goosebumps in some parts of that. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm so glad that you were able to get funding to do something that you're obviously very passionate about and that you had so much support in your final year and continuing onwards.
Emily:
So I guess, is there anything else that you would like to to add to this part of your story before we wrap up this episode?
Dan:
Yeah, I think it's really important to sort of summarize that whilst there have been extreme highs and extreme lows throughout my journey since 2012 in academia, starting with my undergraduate degree, I'm much more of a stronger person in 2020 whilst we are recording this despite still having problems with anxiety.
Dan:
I'm definitely not cured. But I'm much, much stronger than I was before.
Dan:
And I can only say that it was the experiences that I've had that have made me stronger. And I'm not saying that I want people to experience what I experienced, but I hope that by me talking about these things, it makes you live through myself in that you don't need to experience what I'm experiencing. And what do I mean by that? I think people talking about mental health is the killer factor and we all need to talk about it more. I'm still on medication. I have had other medications before. I still have therapy to this day. I have had therapies before.
Dan:
And I think that every single experience that I have to date, has made me become a much more resilient and stronger person to deal with this issue. As I said, I don't think tablets are a cure. I think they are definitely a coping mechanism. But you yourself have to change in order for things to get better. And yeah, I think that all of these things put together have made me able to cope with my academic journey so far.
Emily:
And I think that's probably a really good place to to wrap up. I wish we could talk. We could talk forever. Like I've said, I love hearing people's stories. I think that will be a lot of people that will benefit from your story shortly.
Emily:
So thank you so much for your for your honesty and being willing to be vulnerable with me.
Emily:
So that does wrap up today's episode of Voices of Academia. Thank you for joining me.
Emily:
On the next episode, we'll hear how Daniel's managed to manage his mental health.
Emily:
I'm Emily King and I'll see you next time.
Emily:
So that was Dan, we actually split the content, had so much fun recording that episode, and I still can't believe that people I've never met are willing to open up to you and me like this. If you'd like to get in contact with him. He's available on Twitter at @MrDanielRanson. And you can also find out more about him at his website. www.danielranson.co.uk. For information found in this episode, refer to the show notes or visit our website www.voicesofacademia.com. If this episode brought anything up for you, there are mental health resources and emergency numbers available for various countries at www.checkpointorg.com/global/. This podcast was written, hosted and produced by me, Emily, with support from some very special people in my life. You can find me on Twitter at @EKing_Sci but I'm part of the larger voices of academia.
Emily:
Thame we have a website, a Twitter account at @academicvoices and also share stories in blog form with the option of them being anonymous.
Emily:
If you like this podcast and want to hear more stories plays later, if you subscribe, tell me what you think on Twitter and tell your friends. The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple podcasts and most other major listening platforms. You can also follow the Voices of Academia blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Just head to our website. www.voicesofacademia.com to sign up. If you have a mental health awareness story to share, we absolutely want to hear from you.
Emily:
Whether you're a team leader, research assistant, postdoc, student, x academic or any other type of research. A fuller academic voices on Twitter. Visit our website www.voicesofacademia.com for details on how to share your story. It's time someone gave you a voice.
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