Stoppage triggers student’s anxiety
Ontario faculty strife has far-reaching consequences as determined social worker finds herself lost,
Haley Yabsley knew early what her dream job would be.
In high school, she spent every noon hour volunteering in a class for developmentally disabled students, spoon-feeding them lunch and other tasks. She felt a connection, even though many of them could not speak. “They would recognize me, which is really cool. I’d walk into the room and they’d smile.”
Yabsley enrolled in a program at Algonquin College to become a developmental services worker, determined to get a job in the field.
That dream is getting hammered as the strike by faculty enters its fifth week. Thousands of students across the province have been out of class, anxious and at loose ends, wondering how and when their semester will be finished.
But for Yabsley, the uncertainty has triggered a worrisome spiral downward. Her mental health has been precarious ever since she developed an eating disorder in her last year of high school. Yabsley spent three hardscrabble years after that in and out of hospitals. “I have a history of suicide attempts.”
She enrolled in Algonquin last year, but by mid-year the pressure was too much and she was hospitalized briefly. “It gave me a bit of a kick in the butt.”
But with the help of a supportive academic adviser, she lowered her course load and aimed to complete the two-year program in three years. “I knew exactly what I have every semester and what I needed to graduate.”
Things were looking up. After a summer working at a group home, Yabsley was excited to be back at Algonquin this September. “I was doing great.”
Now she worries this semester will be lost, possibly forcing her into a fourth year of school. She feels her equilibrium slipping.
It’s hard to study, since the books for two of her course are “fill in the blanks” workbooks — the blanks being the lectures she is missing. She picked up a cleaning job a couple of hours a week.
“It’s really hard not having anything to do, especially when you struggle with your mental health,” she says. “It can turn self-destructive really quickly.”
Time is eaten up worrying about the strike. “I’m losing class time ... it could get worse.
These days, “everything is up and down with my mental health,” Yabsley says. She worries about other students, noting that one in five people struggle with mental health issues. For many, events that are moderately stressful or just an inconvenience can escalate into full-blown depression and anxiety. She finds negative thoughts echoing in her head: “How can this be happening? What is the point anymore? Did I work so hard for nothing?
“The longer (the strike) gets, the angrier I get.”
Yabsley doesn’t fully understand the issues behind the strike. “I read the stuff, but it doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s very political and I don’t understand the terms they use.”
But she feels like a bargaining chip in the dispute. “These people who were going to help me reach my dreams? Now I feel like it’s the same people who are taking away my dreams.”
It’s really hard not having anything to do, especially when you struggle with your mental health. It can turn self-destructive really quickly. ... The longer (the strike) gets, the angrier I get. HALEY YABSLEY, above