People are beginning to talk

[glowdart]

I'm so sorry to hear about your husband, and I hope you can internalize what we're all saying and let that overwrite the thoughts your colleagues have gotten stuck in your mind.

Two weeks is absolutely not a long time after the death of a spouse. Period.

I suspect we all have a colleague who ends up being gone a lot during a stretch of their career, and yes, people can get jealous or snippy about it. The conversations I have about these folks in our school always come down to: "if it is a problem for this person to be gone, then the school needs to deny the request. Or, the Provost supports their work. This isn't your call." It's not like you can head off to a fellowship with no notice and no approval. Clearly your admin supports you by letting you go.

FWIW, normally I advise my colleagues in your situation to occasionally send a department-wide email to remind everyone that you're just working elsewhere — good news about a graduate, conference call that looks interesting, reminder of a program or event you're running, etc. That has gone a long way to counteracting the "they're never here" talk.

Students may be their own messes or may be parroting lines from grumpy colleagues. Your other colleagues should step in with a pointed "Brego just lost a spouse. Don't be a cad." Or "Brego is on a competitive fellowship. This is how academia works - email if you have a question." Sadly, I've had to say both things to our students and colleagues, but sometimes chastising them is part of the professionalization process. 

I'm sorry you work with insensitive clowns.

[Volhiker78]

+1 to everything glowdart wrote.  I am very sorry for your loss.  If I ever lost my spouse, it would take me much much longer than two weeks get back to work.

[Brego]

Have you considered moving to a different university?
Attempted and failed.  Two years ago I was a finalist at one of the top 50 public R1s in the country.  They spent two days talking to me about diversity and then hired an Ivy graduate who was, to put it bluntly, as diverse as 51% of the professoriate.

It is very difficult to find jobs in my field (as is the case for many of us).  My job is not transferrable to industry. 

some close allies in your department who you can vent to
The situation is now so toxic that I don't dare do this.

You have, I'm sure, both health insurance that will cover mental health
The state employee system has made it clear that I will be uninsured until August.  My university has promised to assist.  I'm stockpiling medications.

The stress that you are feeling can have real physical effects and you should try to get ahead of them.
Too late.  Pre-diabetic, cardiac disease, ulcers, chronic stomach issues, and chronic pain.  Given my health history, I don't expect to make it for another 40 years.  I'm okay with that.

they wanted to give you a helpful heads-up that there are some matters that need attending to.
My informant is young and new to the business.  They're a caring person, but they can't tell me what's going on.  Without that knowledge, I had probably just keep my head down.

people you thought were friendly colleagues turn out to be so terrible at empathy and basic humanity
Yes.  They have done a good job of convincing me that I am a cunt.

you may want to take control of your narrative by talking to that person and then sending out a message to strategic people about your loss
Unfortunately, there is no one left for me to trust in the department.

I advise my colleagues in your situation to occasionally send a department-wide email
In other departments that might work, but I worry that I'd be pilloried (again) for daring to have accomplished things some of my colleagues haven't.

For disgruntled graduate students - they can sometimes misinterpret something and blow things up.  These are not your biggest issues now.
My tenure case depends on my contributions to the department (including how many graduate students I advise.  One in several years is a pretty bad look. 

Where is your Chair in all this?  They should not be allowing this kind of atmosphere. But are they part of the problem?
The department includes a serial sexual harasser who contact me right after my husband's death.  As for where they are, I keep having to remind them of the conditions of my fellowships, etc. 

Keep taking their money.
Now this I can get behind. 

Thanks to all of you for your patience and generosity.  I have no support system near or far.  I am entirely on my own.

[Hegemony]

Brego, you sound very depressed. And certainly you have great cause to be down, but another thing to remember is that depression distorts thinking, and that it may make your current situation seem more black-and-white than it actually is. One of the evil things about depression is that it makes things seem pervasive, hopeless, and unsolvable, and induces a sense of despair. I can sense some of that coming from your comments. That means that a) some of your perceptions will be distorted by the depression, and b) extra support is called for.

You can certainly ask the person who told you that "people are beginning to talk" what "people" are saying — you don't have to trust them to ask them.

And however toxic your local environment, I think that 100% of the people at your university cannot be toxic, nor can all the therapists and counselors in your town. I know it all seems hopeless, but I encourage you to put the sense of hopelessness aside for now — just put it in a compartment and don't think about it for a brief spell — long enough to get a good therapist or counselor, and to find a few of the non-toxic people in other departments or elsewhere in your town.

Hang in there and take good care of yourself.

[Istiblennius]

Oof. Sounds like you are off to a very good start documenting some serious issues that will support an eventual lawsuit. Based on what you've written here (especially the bit about the serial harasser and the communications that people resent your accomplishments, which is thinly veiled sexism), you may be able support yourself in the years to come with the result of this legal action!

I'm so sorry you are going through all of this.

[AmLitHist]

I'm so sorry, Brego. Sending good thoughts, and wishing I (and we) could do more.

+1 to the "keep taking their money."  It's what has kept me in this job for the past decade--that and the health insurance. It's not ideal, but it's pragmatic, and if they want me gone, they're going to have to fire me and then pay my unemployment. Do the bare minimum, and keep off TPTB radar, and keep cashing those checks.

[Ruralguy]

I am going to have to  didagree with "do the bare minimum."  Take time off, then get back into something resembling normal , realizing it can take a while to mentally and physically do that. But whether your goal is to stay or go, i cant see how bare minimum, as gratifying as it might be, would really work.

Theres no point in pursuing "people are talking." The person who told you is a troll and cant be trusted.
Therefore, no information from them could be useful as it is likely tainted, if not false. Associate with positive people.

[Brego]

Thank you as always, Hegemony. 

I've had clinical depression for years.  My therapist and I talk once a week; we've been working together for three years, and she's excellent.  But an LCSW and antidepressants only do so much when one is feeling really bleak.  Adding injury to insult hasn't helped; I've had a resurgence of acute pain from old injuries, and this was a week that should have been really good but turned out bad. 

I have two close friends off-campus, but I'm at the other end of the country from them and the university right now.  One friend is mired in moving her business to a better location south of campus.  The other friend can't even pick up a phone, much less talk over one.  That's the trouble with having hooves instead of hands.

I think I just need to feel shitty for a while and cry a lot.  And be less reluctant to call friends, too.

Funny that people have mentioned a lawsuit.  That is exactly where this is going . . .

I am winging it with teaching, but I have been at this game long enough that I can do that and not feel compromised.  On the days I can concentrate, I write a lot.  On days like today, I cry and snuggle with the cat.  By this spring I'll have another three articles in submission and the first set of reader reports for the book.  If I am somehow to get another tenure-track job elsewhere, I need to keep producing.  The bare minimum is not my style anyway.

[Wahoo Redux]

Peace be with you, Brego.  I'm so sorry to read of your loss.  I cannot believe your colleagues-----what a nest of self-centered vipers.  You deserve better, and maybe this is the break that will allow you to move to a better place.  I certainly hope so.

[mamselle]

You may already be doing this with your therapist, but it sometimes helps to have a simple anti-mantra to repeat when an ear-worm like your title tries to bore itself into your brain....which they do try to do, insidiously,  of course.

"I am productive, creative and loved" might do for a start...you may think of more specific ones.

Don't let the idiots rent space in your brain.

M.

[Caracal]

I am so sorry to hear of your husband's death. I hope you were able to have special moments together during his illness.

I think this is a lie:

A colleague took over my class for two weeks after the death.  It occurred to me, and much too late, that this was an excessive period to be away.

Two weeks is not an excessive period to be away after the death of a spouse. Not even taking into consideration your actual mourning, death initiates a lot of other activities: family to contact and maybe host, funerals to plan, subscriptions to cancel, paperwork to file. There are other practical things on this thread more useful than my comment, but don't let yourself believe this lie. This is not excessive.

AR.

I agree completely with Avid. Seriously, that would never occur to me. Some people dealing with that kind of loss might prefer to take less time, but that would be completely about how they prefer to manage and deal with grief, not obligation.

Grad students always talk about professors. Constantly. It's just how it is. I'm sure it has something to do with power relations in very personalized contexts, combined with the process of professionalization that grad students are going through. Also, it's always more pleasant to talk about your weird professors than your own work, which brings up intense anxiety. The grad students are talking about you-in great detail-but they are also taking about every single one of your colleagues-also in great detail.

[glendower]

I think I just need to feel shitty for a while and cry a lot. . . .  On days like today, I cry and snuggle with the cat. 

That is wise. Grief is not depression and you can't medicate it. It sucks bigtime but all you can do is endure the process, which is not linear. I am glad you have a snuggly feline to keep you company on the bad days, and that there are some days when you can write a lot. Just getting through the day is an accomplishment. We'll keep you company, too.

[mamselle]

Checking back in.

Brego?

How are things?

How are you doing?

Thinking of you.

M.

[Puget]

I think I just need to feel shitty for a while and cry a lot. . . .  On days like today, I cry and snuggle with the cat. 

That is wise. Grief is not depression and you can't medicate it. It sucks bigtime but all you can do is endure the process, which is not linear. I am glad you have a snuggly feline to keep you company on the bad days, and that there are some days when you can write a lot. Just getting through the day is an accomplishment. We'll keep you company, too.

I know this is well-intentioned, but I'd like to correct this a little, as your friendly neighborhood depression researcher-- 

First, yes, grief ≠ depression, but it is quite possible to be grieving AND have major depression at the same time. (In recognition of this, the last major revision of the DSM eliminated bereavement as a rule-out for an MDD diagnosis. I have many problems with the DSM, but that is not one of them). Not everyone who suffers a loss develops depression, but a loss can certainly trigger depression, or a worsening or recurrence of previous depression. It sounds like that may well be the case here.

Second, whether it is depression, grief, or both, you don't have to just "endure the process". Therapy (especially CBT) and grief counseling may both be very helpful. The goal isn't to get over the loss or stop grieving, but to do so in a healthier way that enables someone to function better and suffer less.

Wishing you the best Brego!

[mamselle]

Glad you clarified, I was wondering about that, too.

Brego, we're thing of you.

M.