OPINION
4 Obiter Dicta
You’re not Alone
-ian mason
To say law school
is a stressful environment would be
both an understatement and a statement
so ridiculously, blatantly obvious that
you’d probably dislocate your jaw trying
to say “duhhhhh”
emphatically enough.
I overheard someone say, “everyone in law school has
an anxiety disorder: it’s called law school.” We end
up balancing about 500 pages of readings a week with
social and family obligations, bill payments, basic
housekeeping, and for some incredibly driven and
brave souls, work. And you’re also expected to add
into the mix stuff like mooting or CLASP or intramural hockey (where – as a goalie – I’m trying to pull off
two kinds of networking). To some extent, it’s nothing short of miraculous we don’t all snap at some
point in first year, and end up standing on the roof of
the Ignat Kaneff building, screaming about how the
government wants to steal our teeth.
It’s enough to make a sane person crazy, but what if
you weren’t exactly “all there” to begin with?
Enter me. I’m a big, brash guy of about 30 with an
eccentric sense of humour, a forceful personality,
and a voice so loud Hutch only asked me to speak up
once during first semester. Though most people are
too polite to say it (thanks, by the way), I’m sure most
people wouldn’t mind if I shut my proverbial pie-hole
more often than I do.
I’ve also been open about some rather sketchy aspects
of my personal history, like bar fights and years spent
getting loaded with deviants. With these things
in mind, it might surprise people to know that I
also suffer from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and
Depression.
And that’s what I want to address. This isn’t necessarily some plea for sympathy to the vast majority of
people who don’t have a psychological disorder – law
school as an anxiety disorder in its own right aside.
The object of this article is to assure those of you who
do struggle with mental illness that you are not alone,
and frankly, you are needed. Mentally ill people are
overrepresented in the legal system, and those of us
who have shared their experiences can be both competent and sympathetic advocates. We can also be
sympathetic to clients whose legal woes are the result
of one really bad day: after all, we have dozens of
them every year.
Perhaps the most important thing to tell yourself
is that you can make it. I’ve struggled with anxiety
and depression since I was three. The less said about
my adolescence, the better. I went to rehab at nineteen. I keep forgetting how often I’ve been kicked
out of a home for reasons beyond my control. Two
months before I started law school, I came home
to find my fiancé – who I’d been with for five years
- had dumped me via note. I almost dropped out in
October because I spent more time crying than reading. I couldn’t go to a torts lecture on psychological
shock because I feared it would be some sort of trigger. My life was a sad joke and every day a pointless
trial waiting to be adjourned for a tomorrow I didn’t
care to see. I suffered.
But I kept going.
As I said, it’s important to remember that you’re not
alone, not just in the sense that there are other people
like you who have had rough lives marked by psychiatric issues, but also in the sense that there are
people waiting to help you. People want to help you.
Osgoode has counselling services that did wonders
for me. Having someone say “after all that, you’re
still trying” meant a lot on its own. York’s disability services can accommodate you (though admittedly, I’m not sure what happens after you fill out the
paperwork: I decided having it and not needing it was
en