At times when one’s depression is not acute, it’s easy to feel there’s no need to disclose; and when it is, it can seem unthinkable. My past disclosures have been fairly limited. In an academic context, disclosing has particular nuances, for students and faculty members alike. Rationality is the key to functioning in an academic setting; being smooth and continually productive is the basic requirement for survival. Mental illness doesn’t fit into that picture.

Part way into the semester, we were discussing Allie Brosh’s depression narrative in “Hyperbole and a Half.” She describes people trying to help her with “hope-centric” talk, and her inability to convey to them that this approach simply doesn’t compute when one is severely depressed. One of my students spoke up with more than a little anger: “If one of my friends acts depressed, how can I not try to cheer them up?” he asked. “The author talks like it’s wrong to want to help somebody I care about. It’s like there’s no right thing to do.”

An uncharacteristic silence fell.

He added, more softly: “But I’m not the kind of guy to get depressed. Maybe I just don’t understand these things.”

Then another student began to speak; she matter-of-factly told us about her chronic anxiety and fears of telling others about it, something we’d never heard from her. Yet another spoke up for the first time about his depression: “Just let the person talk,” he said. “That’s big. Most people don’t want to hear about it. That’s what she’s saying. They just want you to cheer up when that’s the one thing you can’t do.”

Suddenly the work of the class took on new energy. Part of their coursework involved conducting interviews with other students on campus — about depression and anxiety in L.G.B.T. students, about learning disabilities, about sports injuries in athletes, and more. A group of students presented their results at the George Washington University conference, Composing Disability: Crip Ecologies. (This conference had been one of my inspirations for creating the new course.) All of them had begun to discover for themselves what we’d been reading about — how social environments structure our experiences of disability. The following weeks amounted to a sustained response to the conversation cracked open by that small but honest expression of frustration.

Meanwhile, the unsettled feeling lingered in the pit of my stomach. I never disclosed my depression in class. And I am still not sure why.

Professors are beginning to tell their stories, and to acknowledge what’s at stake for us in disclosing mental disability. Those in contingent positions (nontenured, nontenure track — now the majority of all faculty appointments in the United States) particularly fear the consequences of disclosure. They could be perceived differently, affecting student course evaluations or peer and administrator assessments, effects that are likely to be compounded for women, people of color, L.G.B.T., or older people. Fears of problems with health insurance are not unreasonable.