Member-only story
The Returning Light
Academia Betrayed Me, but I Found Hope in a Surprising Place
My Rational Journey Into Myth And Metaphor
The collapse
When I was younger, I was a staunch defender of science and the rational mind. I still am, to a certain extent. But, as the years have passed, I’ve learnt to be more open-minded to other ways of thinking.
As a PhD student in linguistics and psychology, I learnt that not all science is based on solid evidence. I learnt that the hard way — I started working with a professor who had questionable research practices, and by the time I realised that they were a complete fraud, things had gotten pretty serious.
One of the most painful parts was that my institution had known. There had been serious complaints before, even an investigation. Yet nothing was done to stop history from repeating, and so it repeated. And I, like the student before me, ended up being treated by the mental health crisis team.
The breakdown of my PhD was the catalyst for a complete mental collapse. Academia to me was the extension of school, and school was a place where you were meant to be safe. Academia represented science, and science was the foundation of my belief system, the anchor to which I hung my perception of…
