Asking for Help
Humans are a social species. Helping one another has been a key part of our survival strategy. Yet one theory to explain mental health conditions is that we have moved outside of our natural survival strategies. While there is still a lot that we don’t understand about the brain and about how mental illness works, this would explain one reason why it is more common in the legal profession.
As anyone who lives with generalized anxiety disorder will tell you, the constant stress and anxiety over things that aren’t actually life or death is exhausting. This might be because one possible evolutionary advantage to anxiety is to keep us on alert when predators are near. However, anxiety is supposed to diminish with the threat.
However, modern living, especially the modern legal profession, lives with “threats” and stressors that continue not for hours but for days, weeks, months, or longer. Simply put, the body wasn’t meant to live with anxiety like that, which is why it turns into a disorder which, among other things, has negative impacts on our physical health as well.
Living socially allows us to ask for help when we are in such a situation. It allowed those of us who were sick or injured to survive during the time of the cavemen due to our social bonds. Yet in the legal profession this is a double edged sword, often cutting against our training to not show weaknesses. Add to this aggressive opposing counsels, abrasive judges, and internal competitions within our law schools and firms.
Yet asking for help is what our profession needs to start doing more of. Living with a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety, or living with challenges like substance abuse or suicidal ideation is not a weakness. Just as we ask for help from those around us if we have a broken leg, we need to start asking for help when struggling with mental illness. And the profession as a whole needs a far more empathetic response to these challenges.
That is part of why The LegalMind Society exists, to not only fuel this conversation, but to also offer help to those who need it. If you want to learn more about our peer support options, please email us at info@thelegalmindsociety.org. If you are struggling, there is no shame in asking for help. It is what we are here for and one way that our social strengths can help us conquer the darkness of mental health conditions.