My Prof’s Words and their Imapcy on my Mental Health
tw //
I can finally post this now that I’m graduating but this semester I had a really tough professor who said some words that I’ll never forget. I won’t go into details about what department they’re from but I’m from a ‘pre-med’ course. I was really struggling with the class and as someone with a mental health condition, I was advised to inform my professors of it (something I never considered doing at all because I was scared).
I consulted with this professor about my LTs and asked them about my standing and what I needed to get in the final to pass. Somewhere during the consultation, the professor goes, “you’re going to do this again in med school. What makes you think you can go to med school if you can’t even make it through undergrad?”. Mind you, this consultation was after the professor knew about my condition. It was in that moment when I felt myself fall into s****da* ideations again and found myself planning and making my goodbyes. Because a professor had literally told me to my face that they didn’t think I could make it as a doctor. To say I was destroyed would be an understatement. Other consults with this professor continued to be passive aggressive (and yes I stuck it out because I needed to pass the class and graduate). There was even a consult where the professor flat out said they didn’t think I was studying at all (despite me showing my notes and consulting with them) because my scores were subpar. Luckily, my OGC counselor was very helpful when it came to processing the whole incident but those words will forever stick with me.
Why am I posting this? Not for people to feel sorry for me but rather to hopefully remind professors that their words matter. It was definitely a bad way to end the semester but at least it’s over. I hope we all continue to choose kindness.