Latest / College Is Fine, Everything's Fine / #34 The Cost of Hustle Culture and Its Unrealistic Expectations of Resiliency: A Conversation with Emi Nietfeld

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#34 The Cost of Hustle Culture and Its Unrealistic Expectations of Resiliency: A Conversation with Emi Nietfeld · College Is Fine, Everything's Fine

It is so exciting to have you on right now. Uh, I think our audience is gonna be really happy and just feel heard some of the things you're gonna share with us. So why don't you go ahead and hi to the students listening and tell us a little bit about yourself.great to be here. My name is Emmy Feld and I am a mental health activist journalist and the author of Acceptance, which is a memoir of my journey through high school, including troubled teen treatment, my parents' mental illness, my own mental illness, um, foster care and homelessness. All obsessed with college admissions. eventually I did get into Harvard. um, and then really struggled having had this goal that defined my whole life and then realizing that it, wasn't gonna save me. And so I started writing this book when I was in high school applying to college, and I felt like that process of marketing yourself a 16, 17, 18 year old was just so emotionally grueling and took so much outta me.I felt like many other people must be going through the samenobody is talking about it.it's this most pressure-filled essay you'll probably write in your life. How do I wrap up nice little narrative of myself, it to a various range of people who don't know me. Um, it's it, yeah, it, I'm sure it, I know it ties a lot of people in K Nuts.and it's so damaging because of the rhetoric around it where people, I would ask people, what do I need to do to get into college? And they would tell me, just be yourself. And there's this conflation of the self with the personal statement the self with being somebody who's worthy of admitting to college or not.Sarah and I. Are in the thick of it in terms of a lot of college students worrying and ruminating about what they put in their essays and their applications as they sit and bite their nails about their acceptances and whether or not they're gonna get in or not in these next few weeks.So it's a timely conversation to be having.One of the things I was really excited to hear you talk more about is this idea of healer culture or resilience. I think there's some words that just start to lose their meaning after a while.So we saw resilience as this thing. remember in graduate school when I was there eons ago, it was like, oh, we're gonna study resilience now, how people can be resilient. And then now it's just become this, don't know, I just feel like it's lost its meaning little bit. It's now sort of like a branded word and I think it can be harmful when that's the idea of how anyone needs to overcome something.Thatis the expectation as if we can control all the factors that lead to resilience. you talk a little bit more about that idea?I'm so glad you're asking me about this because this is my pet peeve. There has been a huge uptick in resilience and also grit as this panacea, right? Young people are struggling and no matter why the solution is grit, and so we all want to encourage other people to have. Inner strength in the face of challenges, but oftenHmm.struggle because there is something going wrong in the world or in society or in our family. And often those problems, they need to be addressed in order for a child or a family to have a good outcome. And I feel like resilience. in my life was really this bandaid where I came in and I was dealing with depression and I was like, Hey, you know, my mom, um, I didn't have the words like this, but my mom dealt with hoarding disorder. We lived in a house that was very dirty and we didn't even have clean air. And told like, you have to be stronger. You have to learn how to deal with it, and. You know, obviously you want people to be, to not be affected too much by the bad things that happened to them,Hmm.some problems need solutions  I just get really mad when people act like the resilience is the thing that the child needs to do.remember my, one of my mentors back in the day when we were talking about childhood trauma and had a impact, have impact in it, and he's like, you have a girl come in if she has an issue with the fact that she has. You know, a lot of trust issues in her home. She doesn't have a door. She's constantly being aled by her older brother because, you know, and she gets really uncomfortable. The first thing you do is you go and you get her a door.your first intervention, and then you can start to work with all the other ways to help her stro go stronger and be assertive.But first you get the door and I think not enough people pay attention to that aspect ofThat's such a good story, especially because it's so. depends so much on class where kids who are disadvantaged, whether it's you know, class or family or gender in some way, the more disadvantaged you are, the more likely other people are gonna tell you to be resilient. When really sometimes what you need is, is a door. It's food, it's safety. Um, it's an equitable school. I remember a patient was telling me once, if I'm not resilient, then there must be like something wrong with me, right?There's something wrong with my personality or makeup in terms of why somebody else was able to overcome, you know, uh, their circumstances. But it's clear that there are a lot of systemic issues and environmental interventions that, that are needed. So I'm glad, I'm glad we brought it up, and your book speaks, I think a lot about that. Okay. Is there any advice, like thinking back, I was saying earlier that Sarah, it's been a while since we've been in college, right? So Emmy might be a little closer to her graduation date, but, um, you know, we're really passionate about college students., kinda like demystifying some myths or beliefs they have about what college is gonna be like. So thinking about your. When you've stepped on campus that first say, is there any advice or something you wish you would've been able to tell your former self, that would've been helpful to you?I imagined that college was going to be a campus full of other people just like me, and I didn't realize that.Hmm.dominant culture could be so different than the one that I grew up in. Um, and that. There were places on campus that I ended up feeling really welcome and really a part of something like I joined the rowing team, which is something I never thought I would do. joined a women in computer science club and I moved into a house that was like a great community. Um, but I wish I had known that I was really going to have to seek out those specific places where other people would have similar values and similar goals and that. a campus withMm-hmm.undergrads, alone one with 20,000 or 30,000. It just wasn't gonna be like a warm, protective bubble in the way I kind of imagined and the way that these other places were. They were a great little bubble for me. Yeah.So if you were gonna say, instead of resilience, as you're sort of seeking out mental health resources or bubbles, um, communities in within the campus, which I get, you know, that's probably pretty normal to sort of find the people that feel most like you. Do you find that there's another word or a piece of advice besides be resilient that you would say instead?that's a great question. For me, the, the anecdote for toxic resilience has really been. acceptance, in a way of recognizing, you know, these, these bad things happen to all of us and we are affected by them, and that's okay. And we don't have to be made stronger by every single thing that happens in our life for us to be. strong worthy humans. And that's really where I've, I've found peace. Um, also just in, in the idea of kind of taking, taking care of yourself and advocating for yourself, right? So often telling people,resilient is a way to shut them up. And so instead recognizing, okay, you know what you need and. You have as much right as anybody else tothose needs be metAnother thing and it's a big concern of college students and I think universities are finally paying attention to, is the lack of resources for mental health treatments on college campuses as well as in communities of college campuses, awareness of even mental health issues that college students are struggling with.What was your experience like at college with that?Yeah. When I got to college, I tried to seek counseling from the mental health services department, and I went through an intake and as I remember it, I was asked questions like, oh, are you harming yourself? Do you have an eating disorder? all of those things had been true in thethe time I was really like trying to take care of myself, like by not doing those behaviors. And so. I was denied. I was told, you know, you're not, you don't meet our criteria. And I was sent to another agency luckily that other agency actually did provide counseling it wasn't so much focused on like mental health conditions as much as just generally student life. Um, but I consider myself really lucky that I was able to get that. Um, and so this was about. 12 years ago now. So it was a while ago. Um, but you know when things are obviously even harder today. And so I wish that I had been able to be more about what was going on for me, um, and about what had been going onI think that's really hard when you're. on a phone call with a stranger you've never talked to before, and there's a lot of stigma, or maybe like me, you've been blamed in the past for having those issues. Um, but that might have, that might have helped me get more help to be able to be more honest. and I also wish that I had been able to maintain a relationship with from high school. I hadn't had a therapist for a few years. Um, but if I had and I were able to justTranslate, right.that might have been a lot smoother than trying to find somebody new.I wrote a piece for the New York Times about, Student disclosures of mental health in college applications. And one thing that I learned researching this article is if a student has really specific mental health needs and they. Generally have, have resources to, um, be able to pay for college that it can be really worth looking into, like what resources does the schoolwhat resource does the community have? Because I know in some rural areas, there just are no therapists for anyone and there's really nothing that the school canit. Um, and for some students that just might not be safe, and that's totally valid to take into consideration.I think a lot of people struggle and there, you know, the laws are changing around this, where you can see people across more state lines, but I know that. talk a lot about, you know, we're sending this person to school in a place where there's no mental health resources. We're technically not allowed to see someone in that state.You know, and it becomeslike ethical versus legalquestion of, do I leave this student hanging? And I think most therapists would say, you know, no, I, I'm willing to risk it because I don't wanna send them off. But sometimes that's not the case. And you, for various reasons, they aren't able to have that bridge. Um, Actually thinking about some of our listeners who, all right, so they've applied to college, they've made the decision to disclose or not disclose, but now they're starting to think about jobs or summer internships, um, you know, next steps after college or just something even within the college experience itself, you know, work, study, et cetera. How much to talk about. Mental health, and I know some of your more recent articles too, you think about the idea of quiet quitting. You know, this idea of the tension between really holding up to the life is short, let's take care of ourselves, but also feeling engaged and excited and enriched by some job opportunities in some settings.So maybe you could think about the job part of college and your experience sinceAbsolutely. I personally draw a pretty big distinction between disclosing school or at work activism, and I think it's totally possible to never tell a university or an employer that you're dealing with a mental health condition to be great advocate for other people going through it to work on destigmatizing it becausethe truth is like, You don't know how somebody is going to respond.You don't know what their. Stereotypes are, or they're preconceived ideas. Um, and so I personally have people, like a manager at work, um, that I was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. And, you know, he responded as well as he possibly could have. And in hindsight, I still kind of regret it, you know, because he wasn't a therapist, he wasn't even my friend, right?He was my manager. And everybody's navigating that differently, I think.Mm-hmm.are more likely to be making those disclosures. Um, but I do think, you know, if you ever feel uncomfortable with saying something, you know, you have a right to privacy too. Um, and so that's something where I really tried to give myself grace and just think about if I need to go to a doctor's appointment or I need to go to acupuncture, just think about it as Would I like, it's just a medical condition like anything else. And like, I don't need to tell my like what that diagnosis is. I can just like, ask for the time that IthenYeah. I think, um, I'm glad you bring that up because I think, um, a lot of college students, which Sarah and I are so grateful for this, there's so much more activism and there's so much more. Kind of openly speaking about their mental health experience. Um, and I can see how even some of the people I work with get really polarized between like, like, wait, my value is to be open and honest and spread awareness around this.And am I acting in a way that's like, Communicating to myself that I should be shameful about this. So I love how you presented that in a really like, balanced way that both those things could be true. I can still kind of pay attention to this value or priority in my life and still, um, observe a limiter or boundary in terms of sharing something where the reaction is really subjective.Hmm. Yeah. Thank you. I also think from my journey working in tech, I had this idea that I needed to just give a hundred percent and always work in the most intense jobs, and that if I took my. Mental healthinto account that that would be failure. Failure in some way. Um, and then in my last job, I really learned the hard way where I joined a team that was really intense.I knew it was gonna be intense, and I, my health really suffered for it. And so I think, I think honestly like Gen Z.is the role model here in terms of like making better decisions. Um, but I wish that I had treated at the ti like my post-traumatic stress disorderwould any other, like disability or illness. Yeah.I couldn't agree more that Gen Z does feel like they, they figured a few things out and yet, there's this generation gap the people who are hiring and making the choices and managing, and the people who said, Hey, we actually wanna have. that feel purposeful, we want a more well-rounded life. Um, you know, they, they, they've, they're sortYeah.what's the word I'm trying to think of? They've evolvedYeah.evolved, and yet the decisions are still being made by people who have just grown up in a different time and a different era and have different ideas. So I think that there can be some confusion about that.Where did you find that you were able to say, How can I navigate the people who aren't in the same place as me and who maybe don't have as much, don't know, I don't wanna say the word woke but who maybe aren't as progressive in their thinking around mental health?Honestly, it was much easier than I thought it would be in some ways where my, like a manager or somebody who's kind of your boss and in charge of you, that that is very different than like your coworker or your colleague. And that once you're kind of in a space, it, it can be easier to suss out. Like, how are people thinking about things?How are people feeling about things? And when I was in my first job out of college, like a couple years in. I, I went on mental health leave and then I started meeting other people who were also going on leave. Um, or it would be like, oh, this person's thinking about it. Would you talk to them? And that was really great because I think it is really possible to feel super accepted at work like embraced. And it just might not be from your manager or from a boss. It definitely won't be from an HR representative. Um, Yeah, but so it's not I, in my experience, it was not just a totally isolating experience. I just had to be more selective about who I was letting in and how. So what is your biggest focus now and like kind of next steps or any goals in terms of your work?so I'm writing a number of stories focused on mental health and how that's intersecting with other things in the world. Um, right now I'm working on a piece, about inequalities role in the teen mental health crisis. And I think that there's so many social justice issues that are really intersecting with mental health, often the emphasis is on. Um, on medication and therapy, which obviously are super important also those are often really inaccessible to people anddon't, sometimes don't deal with some of the underlying. Issues. And so for me, standing up for those things has really been a way to feelI'm taking my mental health like into my own hands. The general sense that I have is that a lot of times people, parents, college counselors, et cetera, will say, you know, oh, what do you think the mental health crisis is about and how can we help and we need more resources.I'm like, first of all, even if, if you can afford therapy right now, it's hard to get just because of the backlog of people who've needed help And other piece to it is that, part of it is that some of the adults making the decisions in the world, the people at the head of the college campus, they need to worry more about it so that the teens and the students and young adults don't have to worry as much. it just, again, it's a little bit like, hey, it puts the ownness on the therapist or the psychiatrist and the student who's seeking help, and it's not saying, Hey, this kind of has to come from top down somewhere. the grownups, government, those, those people to be making decisions that allow for easeof mind, in this population or that can allow for ground up support in this world. So I, I love that you're paying attention to that and I think that's a voice that hasn't really been out there or or raised. Very much so. Will you keep us posted?Yeah.sure we list thatYeah, I love that. Yeah.um, and our resources.Yeah. One other thing that I know is really important to you is this idea of, I don't know, you hear this a lot, the hustle culture.our surgeon general is talking about why. mental health can be such a difficult time or why students can experience so much distress, anxiety, depression, et cetera.It's cuz there's this wholesale culture and you're somebody who actually has hustled right. Um, and quote unquote achieved things. And I do find that a lot of times when there's that achievement, it's, it's a moving target you achieve. Okay, you're supposed to feel great and then the target moves again. Can you share a little bit more about your experience with achievement?Absolutely. . When I was in high school, I was in a situation where I felt like I have to achieve so much in order to have a better life. And I was coming of age during the financial crisis, um, in the late two thousands, and my family was, um, in the Midwest, like working class, um, and. Because of my parents' mental health issues, I was in just some really precarious situations and so I felt like, okay, I have to get into a school that can gimme a full ride in order to be able to like get out of here.And something that I've been frustrated with and I was back then was how a lot of the narratives about hustle culture suggest that the cure is just to stop hustling when. The reason that people are hustling so hard is because we live in a winner take all world. Like we do not really have a social safety net.Um, people believe like, Hey, I have to be a high achiever in order to have. A home and food and the ability to have a family. And so I think that there's really deep roots to where that fear and anxiety is coming from. And not to say, oh, we should just accept it, but that it's like really the sign of some bigger things going on in our world and just to say like, Hey, kids don't stress out.I feel like that almost disrespects young people's awareness of what's going on around them. And, um, And what needs to happen.All right. Their eyes are open,Yeah,so to say. Don't, don't see what you're seeing feels so disingenuous.absolutely. Yeah, and I think that the other part of that is, you know, we do live in a world where we're told all the time, if you just get into Harvard, if you just buy a new car, if you just get your dream job, you're gonna be happy. and I, I mean, I really, really bought into that in part because I needed to.I needed to believe like my life is gonna be easy peasy if I just achieve these things. And then when I got into college, that was really my first. Time experiencing what I now call post achievement depression, where I worked so hard for a goal and then I realized like, Hey, it doesn't solve all my problems, and it was this real physical come down that really kind of shook a lot of my ideas about the world and I had to work through in order to move forward.Right. It, it's almost like a big, you know, I can imagine like just a big smack in the face or like the rug pulled out from under you that you'd been si, you know, standing on this whole time where you're like, okay, so. This is the thing. This is the thing, and you're just waiting for the reliefor the joy to come. There's a few myths that I think everyone has about happiness, first of all, which is that that's an achievable statebe constantly happy. you know, when really life, when you're doing things that are meaningful to you, engaging in relationships or having jobs or studying at a place that you either love or don't like, there's.There's highs and lows to all of those things, so that happiness is so hard to achieve anyway. So the idea that you could get it from something that's external, like diploma from a certain place a myth. And the other part is that. There's nothing that really can lead to lasting happiness cuz that's not an achievable thing. Every single day, even when we're in a good place in our lives, we have a whole range of emotions. We have a memory that makes us remember a sad time. We have a future worry that pops into our head. So I think you're mentioning sort of two things. One is that happiness has to be the goal in the first place and that something external can get you there. and so. Yes. The minute someone says, okay, the, if I win this race and get my best time, then I'll feel like I have a achievement. Well, no. Then the target moves. If it's all right, I'm gonna go get into this school. And once I've gotten in, whew, what a relief. Um, then the target moves. Well, now I have to get the right job.Now I have to get the right, you know, cuz it's all externally based. So I think that starting to get that message out of like everything that you. Do, if you feel like you can have some acceptance of, to back to your point, some acceptance of where things are right now and all the things that come with it, the highs and the lows, and the pros and the cons, and that the next phase two will also have those things. Um, it's not as fun, right, because you, you feel like, huh, but it's a much more reasonable, I think, in the long term actually, a much more contented place or fulfilled place versus happy place.Absolutely. Totally agree. Yeah.You've been so gracious to give us the time you have today, and it's a thrill to meet you after getting a chance to read your book and to see that. That just feels like it's the start of a really exciting career advo and in writing and advocacy. So, I'm not just saying this to the podcast.Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. It's been so great to talk to you too. And I'm so, I love college students and I'm so passionate about college student mental health, so I'm so grateful to be on this show today. Thank you so much, Emmy. You've been wonderful.Thank you so much for having me.