Well, let’s see. I have, over the last ten years since the beginning of my PhD, been faced with multiple crises that were not under my control and affected my ability to advance my career. Some of these are permanent features of my life and some of them are arguably temporary, though they have had relatively long-term impact on my life. I don’t know whether they should be called disabilities or not. I will just tell you what’s happened. I am still trying to get a tenure-track job, and I feel that I am behind my cohorts because of what has happened to me in the last ten years, but how to deal with this or accommodate it, or even whether it should be, I don’t know.

Let’s start at the beginning. I have had a rare form of migraine, hemiplegic migraine, since I was 13 years old and for which the new miracle drugs, apparently a cure for migraines, are contraindicated for me. When I get a migraine, I can take only opiates. This makes work impossible and even when I don’t have to take these drugs, the other symptoms make work virtually impossible. My migraines can last anywhere from a day to a week. Of course, people are aware only of the most common form of migraine, and so do not understand how migraines can still be disabling. Thankfully, I don’t get them that often and I cope with this relatively well. Still, it would be nice not to have to worry that when I can’t teach because of it, that people don’t think I am just making excuses.

Second, I also have PTSD, which I only recently became aware of, and which has progressed over the years to the point where I can take an interest only in one thing: philosophy. That, at least, also hasn’t affected my work life that much for the obvious reason, though it probably has affected the social aspects of my work life in various ways of which I am not aware.

What’s more, in the last ten years, I have lost both of my parents. I lost my father, who I was very close to, suddenly after my first year as a PhD student, and proceeded to take a year and a half leave of absence as a result. It took me seven years to complete the PhD in part because of this leave. This fact likely affects how I am perceived on the job market because of how long it took me to finish. Perhaps this effect can be moderated if letter writers mention this fact or something, I have no idea. What I can’t do, however, is list counterfactual publications on my CV.

On a side note: I am also on the austism spectrum and I have no doubt this has affected professional perceptions of me in social contexts. Though I doubt that it is perceived as autism by others, since I am female and I am quite sure that it expresses itself very differently in those socialized in completely different ways. I have no ability to gauge how others perceive me and find myself violating the expectations of social interaction in social contexts with other professionals. And if you think philosophers are somehow liberated from these expectations, think again, especially when it comes to standard expectations about how women are supposed to talk and act.

Last, I have bipolar disorder, now well-controlled with medication. It peaked at the same time I was defending my dissertation and going on the job market for the first time. It took two years for me to get stable. I cannot mention this on my CV. I hardly tell anyone about it. Having a mental disorder is not seen in the same way as having a physical disability. I don’t know that they should be, and I have no idea how they should be accommodated. There are aspects of my disorder that speak more directly to job performance than others. For instance, some of the meds I am on have been known to induce cognitive deficits. People also don’t seem to understand that putting an abnormal brain on effective meds does not make that brain normal. I still have those days where I need to be able to take a mental health day without guilt or consequences and I cannot. Also, the time from diagnosis to effective treatment was long and painful, and even if I could tell people about it, it wouldn’t change my publication record. Last but not least, I had two major surgeries in the last two years that took more than six months to recover from, cared for a mother dying with cancer for nine months in her home town and had to take another nine month leave of absence from my post-doctoral studies. These issues, of course, needn’t remain hidden. But again it doesn’t help my publication record. I do feel that I still have a chance on the job market though as I recently published something in a top ten journal. I am keeping my fingers crossed that this alone will help me get a job. I am also currently employed at a good place as a VAP. I don’t know what the point of all of this is. I also have no idea what should be done about it. It would require significant epistemic risk to start judging candidates potential rather than their actual accomplishments. Plus, I just may consistently underperform because of my bipolar disorder.

What’s to be done?