Life of the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education

"If you want to understand how higher education is built, and not built, for people with disabilities-especially mental health-related ones-Pryal's book is for you." -Book Riot"This is a book about mental illness and academia. But this is also a book about so much more than that: it's about grief, and friendship, and collegiality, and accessibility, and tragedy...."While strides have been made to improve accessibility and inclusion in the workplace, for the millions who are neurodivergent or struggle with their mental health, the quest for acceptance often happens in the shadows-if at all.
In higher education, where competition is stiff and job security tenuous, neurodivergent academics suffer in silence to avoid stigmatization and suspicion. In this collection of deeply personal essays, Dr. Katie Pryal, a bipolar-autistic activist, law professor, and author of A Light in the Tower: A New Reckoning with Mental Health in Higher Education, traces her journey through her years as a student and professor to the moment she chose to publicly disclose her mental illness, leave her teaching career, and begin her fight for a better world for neurodivergent people.
Adeptly weaving her experiences together with the stories of colleagues grappling with the management of their health within the walls of some of our most revered academic institutions, the stories she tells are as universal as they are harrowing: the constant worry, the fight for accommodations, being passed over for advancement, attracting the groundless suspicion of others, and the raw reality of living in a world that pushes mental health to the margins.
Life of the Mind Interrupted is an essential and ultimately hopeful addition to the conversation on how society can treat disabled people more humanely and foster allyship in the workplace and beyond."Pryal writes with a refreshing and raw honesty. ... A must-read, not just for those in academia." -BookTrib Magazine