Why I Lead a Double Life

In the Twittersphere, if you're reading this, chances are good that you know me as CurtisTMEd (That's Curtis T., M.Ed., in case the format is confusing). You may also know me as 80mins (that one's 80 min(ute)s, as in 80 Minutes of Regulation, for reference). My name is Curtis Tarver, and I lead a double life.

Or rather, it may seem that way online. After all, who has two Twitter profiles except someone trying not to acknowledge their professional life in their personal life and vice versa? Well I do, and there's a story. See, what had happened was...

I won't lie to you. I've been known to give the side-eye (usually more mental than physical) to pros who had, say, separate Facebook accounts for their students and their "real life". My personal belief is that there's one me, and while there are multiple facets, when all's said and done, I'm just Curtis. People can make their own choices as far as if they want to engage with students (or in some cases, colleagues or other work folks) in that space, but to choose to assume the squeaky-clean, safe-for-work alter ego just hasn't been my style. That's what privacy settings (admittedly easier to navigate on Facebook than a few years ago) are for.

Then Twitter came along. I was far from an early adopter with Twitter. I mostly sat on the opposite shore, looking through binoculars, deciding whether I would choose to embark on this strange new journey. After all, the customs seemed strange over there. I didn't quite understand them. "Why do people need to know everything I'm doing in 140 characters?" was the common refrain. Even when I chose to dip my toes in, it wasn't for me, per se. At least that's why I told myself from the start. No, I was creating a Twitter account to correspond with my blog, which is why they share similar handles. I would only post sports and marching/athletic music content, same as the blog itself. All of my follows were in that narrow spectrum.

And then the beast took over.

Having the medium, I couldn't help but engage. I'm sure it started with folks I know personally/virtually--followed because they walk in the sports/marching/athletic music world--and branched out from there. Soon my account wasn't simply 80 Minutes of Regulation, it was Curtis (luckily, there's significant overlap). I was on Twitter. For real this time. But now that I was being honest with myself that I was in the space, how do I engage in the space as a whole person? After all, I was hearing of #sachat and various other opportunities to connect in the field on Twitter, and the excuse that I don't use it was no longer valid. I wanted in. And while I initially started to participate and connect with folks via @80mins, it quickly became clear that I wanted to go another route with it. And thus, @CurtisTMEd was born.

It was my initial belief--one I continue to maintain--that I do this far less for me than I do for you, the possibly-hypothetical follower. If you're familiar with Google+, they provided me with the language with which to talk about my dual identity: Think of it as circles. Folks on 80mins get my sports/band side, while folks on CurtisTMEd get my pro side. Conversely, it's my belief--founded or not--that the majority of my professional connects would be annoyed at my tweet rate during a game or DCI show, while my sports/band folks couldn't care less about the play-by-play of a NACA conference. This gives folks a choice as to what they choose to follow. I've got folks who follow me on both; some of whom I touched base with before the dual account, some of whom found out about 80mins (I put it right up front in CurtisTMEd's profile) and are legitimately interested, and most of whom I consider friends beyond the professional or topic-centric realms.

After all, beyond the topical tweets and the professional tweets lies a nebulous third persona: Regular-ass Curtis. Because of the manner that I came into the space, and the fact that I spend more hours (hopefully) away from the office than in it, most of that resides at 80mins. Non-work-related tweets come through on CurtisTMEd as well--mostly between 9 and 5 (ish) but I think I'm far more work-friendly over there, even though the other me is just a click away. Does it mean that those folks are missing out on the "real" me? Again, only a click away.

I don't know if I'd do it the same way if I were to do it again. I might go strictly topical as one and strictly Curtis (personal, professional, and all) on another. There's no telling, and I'm too far down the rabbit hole to to turn back now.

There you have it. A tale of two Curtises. Follow one, follow both, follow neither. It's all one me.

It could drive a guy crazy!

When I began this blogging endeavor, you'l recall I made no promises as to how often you'd hear from me, but I figured I'd bubble up from time to time when I had a topic upon which I felt the need to expound. Got one!


The topic for today's #sachat was "Mental Health of Student Affairs professionals," as voted upon by participants and followers of @The_SA_Blog. I intended to participate, as I usually do when I'm free, and this topic was of particular interest: I have an undergraduate degree in psychology in addition to my graduate degree in student affairs; I'm married to a counselor, and there's mental illness in my family. So with that in mind, and knowing that "mental health" means different things to different people, I asked a simple question:

CurtisTMEd Curtis Tarver 

Question: Are we talking "Mental Health" as in "I don't feel at my best when...", stress, etc., or actual psychopathology? #sachat

Never was there an answer. In defense of this session's mod, it was quite clear in her questioning that she was allowing the community to take ownership in the definition, but there was quite a bit of confusion. Consider that "health" has two well-accepted definitions: One is the overarching field, while the other is [good] health, as in being healthy. The same is true with mental health, which was pointed out by folks engaged in the chat sharing two different definitions from two different NIH sources. As such, in the conversation, some were referring to things such as work-life balance and on-the-job stress, while others were speaking counseling and medication.

The distinction is, to me a big one; the methods for dealing with both are quite different. Many in our field are qualified/trained in counseling-related fields, but in most cases, we are not counselors. The trouble is that we are a helping profession, sometimes to a fault. It is important for us to know that which is beyond us and needs referring out, and depending on which definition of mental health you are answering for, those answers can be different. To compound things, it seemed to me that when speaking of simple stress, platitudes regarding work-life balance, taking time to oneself, and destressing techniques abounded, making bits of the conversation seem like a chat with a pullstring toy. I was sharing this frustration both off of the tag on Twitter and in a chat window; as I said there, "I've probably dropped more curses into a chat window in one sitting in the past hour than I ever have on my work account."

Why, it was enough to drive a guy mad.