I don't care anymore but I really want help.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Where to start? Let me preface my ramblings with an acknowledgment that yes, I do have it pretty good compared to most people in the world. I have two loving parents, a girlfriend who loves me, a master’s degree, and everything but a dissertation to write before I become a Ph.D. I don’t have major health problems (other than depression and anxiety), and no one I know is in immediate danger of dying. So for many people, my life would be great to have. I realize that things could be (and are, for many who might read this post) much, much worse. I get it. If the only thing you have to say is, “Buck up, you whiny little bitch,” or words to that effect, reading the rest of this post is not worth your time.

Lately, I’ve been wondering if I can stand 60+ more years of this: life. I feel numb most of the time, as if nothing really is worth going on for. I’m not seriously considering ending my life, because that would hurt the people I love, but on the other hand, I’m finding it hard to see what happiness is. Precious little these days “does it” for me. I’ve become jaded about the future of my country (US) and the world, and about life in general. I’m not “feeling” much these days. Everything I do, and everything that others do that seems so important, rings hollow to me. This causes me a great deal of sorrow because it’s leading me to not perform at my best.

To cite one example of how my attitude is affecting others, I’ve become rather apathetic about a course that I’ve been “teaching” since I began the doctoral program two years ago. I put teaching in scare quotes because I don’t, in fact, do much teaching at all. The class is a discussion/lecture format with a weird twist: I’m the instructor of record, but I don’t actually lead the lectures, assign the work, or prepare exams. The course coordinator does all of these things, and directs all of us discussion instructors. All we do is help students with presentations and grade them. Since the course coordinator wants to keep things as homogeneous as possible among all the lab instructors, we aren’t allowed much freedom in how we conduct our classes. Since last semester, I’ve essentially been phoning in my work for this class, and it doesn’t seem to matter (haven’t gotten teaching evals back yet, so maybe it did show, we’ll see).

Okay, so I’m apathetic about teaching. Problem is, I don’t really think I’m cut out to be a top researcher either. I don’t want to go into all the details on my journey to ABD-ism, but let us just say that I should have taken many, many more advanced math classes before I began my business statistics degree. I’ve been working hard to fill in the gaps, and I have done a fairly good job at teaching myself basic analysis, linear algebra, and probability theory. But when looking at the literature in my field, I feel woefully unprepared. I just don’t see how I can become any kind of tenured researcher.

Let me conclude this…whatever it is with an admission: There is one thing that I really love and that makes me happy. Video games. I think it’s the escapism that it allows, but I’m not sure. I can play for hours and not be worn out. I’m not great, but I’m not bad either. Problem is, I don’t see how this hobby can fit with my schedule. Every waking moment, it seems, I should be doing research, you know, advancing my professional career. But all I want to do is escape into video games. How pathetic is that?

Oh, and before someone thinks this is going to turn into another mookieblaylock-type thread where I shit on everyone’s advice, let me assure you that I am open to advice/suggestions/well-wishes. And I am on Paxil, Wellbutrin, and Buspar, and I see a therapist once a week (a grad student in the psych department).

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Is your therapist working with you to figure out why you are trying to have a career in a field you don’t seem particularly interested in? Your career doesn’t only have two paths, you know - teacher or researcher.

3

I have no advice, only commiseration.

I am (and I bet a lot of others are) in a similar boat. From the outside, everything looks hunky-dory, but inside it feels empty and pointless. I am not on meds, and do not really have depression, but I understand your apathy in at least some way. (I am not trying to discount your experiences and say I “know” how you feel, because obviously, as someone without clinical depression, I cannot “know”.)

I work in business, have an MBA, and just don’t see the point of working hard anymore. The people who get ahead aren’t doing so because they work hard, its because they have an interest in networking that I do not have. Even worse, is that because I am just an ordinary person, I know the deck is stacked against me.

Plus the economy is in the shitter, the world is turning into a bunch of assholes who want to make sure that the law of their land reflects their personal beliefs, and we have all lost any consideration for any people.

You escape to video games, I escape to books. But in the end, what matters is the people that you love, the people whose lives you light up. When someone sees your smile and smiles back. Try to find a little pleasure in the little things in life, that’s all I have been able to do.

4

I think it’s really unrealistic to tell yourself that you should be putting every waking moment into research or advancing your career. Even PhD students need to have work-life balance. :slight_smile: I don’t know much about statistics, but there must be a lot of jobs in industry (and maybe the financial sector?). The only company that I know of is SAS but there must be many others. Maybe you would feel less ambivalent about your studies if you could convince yourself that academia is not your only career option.

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Missed the edit window. I’m not trying to say that it’s easy to find a job in the present economy, but rather that your specialized skills should be valuable to a lot of different companies.

6

Hoo boy, can I ever relate to this.

What should you do? Damned if I know. You could do what I did, and quit your field for a job doing something else. You can certainly find a job that doesn’t require putting in so many hours that you can’t play video games or read books. You’ll never make a huge amount of money or have a high-status job that way, and you might feel like a failure, but you can make enough to live on.

I’ve seen the process of looking for a faculty research job (in astronomy) up close, too, and let’s just say it ain’t pretty. You’ve got several more years of spending almost all of your time on research, if you choose to go that way. There’s a good chance that the job you will eventually get will be in a part of the country far away from your family and friends, and might not be somewhere with a desirable climate. I can tell you why it is that way with a story about something I heard at an astronomy professor’s retirement party. He was being praised for his career, including training 17 graduate students. When he retired, he created a job opening for one of them. Unless most graduate students in your field leave academia, you’ll have the same problem.

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Don’t go into academia. Really. It sounds like you’re not cut out for it.

I was in that same boat five years ago (and I actually really liked my Ph.D. program; I just didn’t like research enough to do it more-than-full-time) and got a 40-hour-a-week job in industry. (Okay, some weeks it’s more than that, but usually not too much more.) No one expects that job to be my life (whereas in academia? Everyone expects that everything else in your life is subsumed to your passion for research, or possibly teaching), and I have time for what I really enjoy doing, like books and jewelry classes.

One of the hardest things about doing that, for me, was this idea I had that one ought to feel significant passion for one’s job. Turns out not that many people actually feel that way, and the ones I know that do have lives that are actually seem pretty awful to me in every other way (e.g., my doctor friend who is very passionate about being a doctor, but works >80 hours every week and has no life). I don’t dislike my job, I really like the company I work for, and I’m pretty good at the work – and really, that’s better than a lot of people get.

And there’s nothing wrong with having a hobby that isn’t, you know, changing the world. That was another thing that took me a while to get over. I really suck at making jewelry, actually, and reading books isn’t going to do anyone any good, but hey, it turns out that these things make me happy, and that is a good thing.

Oh, and I agree, what makes it all worthwhile are the connections I have with family and friends. Do you have a grad school support network of friends? Or a college one? I actually don’t have a lot of close friends at work, but I have a couple of awesome high school/college friends who sometimes keep me sane.

8

I’d say time to do a med check and maybe see a different therapist. (Not to rag on grad student therapists, but I’ve seen grad student therapists, too, and they just weren’t as good as an experienced PhD.) That’s the first order of things, IMO. Who prescribes your meds?

9

Oh, yeah, that’s a good point. Get a physical too. The last time I felt like nothing mattered, even though my life objectively seemed pretty good, it turned out to be because I had a thyroid imbalance. Even if that’s not your problem, at least you’ll know that.

10

I wasn’t clear in the OP about the fact that I really do enjoy the interaction-with-students part of teaching. And when I help them do well on projects, I do feel a sense of satisfaction.

The field of statistics is intensely interesting to me. I love reading the advanced textbooks, and seeing how relatively simple the proofs of some fundamental results (like the central limit theorem, which in its simplest form needs only Taylor series) play out. If someone were to say to me, “Your job is to learn. We’ll pay you to read textbooks and papers about statistics,” I’d be happy. It’s the prospect of contributing something original to the mix that has be daunted. I can work through most of the math that I see in these papers, but to come up with it? I just don’t see that I have the chops.

Yes, I don’t have much experience with therapy. I went once, for a short while until the insurance ran out, to an older lady who didn’t really help much. The reason I like seeing my current therapist is that she is also a doctoral student, and has no emotional connection to me that could sway her advice.

As for the meds, I’ve been on Paxil off and on since about 1998, and a little over a year ago was upped to 40 mg/day from 30. The Buspar is 15 mg/day, and the Welbutrin is 150 mg/day. My primary care physician (actually, her nurse practitioner) prescribes them to me.

And thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I’ve considered a career at a teaching school, since that seems to be what I’m more into. Since I attend a rather large university, there is a palpable sense of disdain in some areas about teaching. I asked a fellow doctoral student about this a while ago and he put it this way: “Anyone can pass knowledge along; only a few can create it. That’s why research is more important than teaching.”

Do I buy that? Not really. But that is the sense that I get from some departments.

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That is a good point–I never thought of the thyroid as affecting mood, but obviously it would.

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I’m firmly entrenched in corporate hell now, but gee, I sure wish that I’d had the cojones to apply to teaching-college jobs while I was still in the academic world.

I didn’t cut the mustard for research jobs… or quite possibly my area doesn’t cut the mustard. I’d really prefer teaching to what I’m doing now, though.

Academics don’t quite have their feet on the ground. They do indeed have biases towards research rather than teaching, but their biases don’t have to affect *you *or inform your decisions about what will make you happy.

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Gotcha. I firmly believe that psych meds should be prescribed by a psychiatrist. BUT if your NP is skilled in assessing and prescribing these meds, then that’s different. IME, I find that a specialist is just… better… in this case.

In any case, I do hear your despair. I do want you to know, however, that what you are describing is absolutely, positively solvable. You can come out of this place, and this absolutely can and will get better. Sounds to me that you’re on the right path, the path that begins with talking about it.

14

When did you start feeling this way? I felt this way every once in a while, and then I noticed that everyone else around me was feeling down too. You know what the cause turned out to be?

Winter.

It’s dark when you get up, dark when you go to sleep, and it’s cold in between. It makes it feel like you’re getting up too early, working too long, and when you get home, it’s already bed time. Subconciously, you know it’s too cold to go out and do anything so you feel like sitting at home by yourself, reading or playing video games.

The world looks like it sucks right now, because when you look out the window, it literally looks like it sucks.

Now, I realize that I’m just grasping at straws here and thinking “maybe he’s like me”, but it makes sense. You hate your job, you’re run down, and you just want to stay to yourself- sounds like you need some sunshine.

If this sounds like you, then IME, just recognizing the subliminal message is enough to thwart it. Wikipedia on SAD:

ETA: What’s your location?

15

I agree, but he seems knowledgeable and genuinely concerned about my mental health, and not just a pill-pusher. He makes me come in for followups when my refills run out, and it’s always very easy to get in to see him.

But there is a part of me that says “See a specialist. That’s what they’re there for.” I’m wondering if anyone has any experiences they’re willing to share about getting psych drugs from a primary care physician versus a specialist?

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::waves hand:: I do!!

(Oh, maybe you’re hoping I’ll stop hogging this conversation? Not likely!)

I’ve always had my GP prescribe my meds. They do ok, and I do believe they do their best.

HOWEVER, I just went to see a new psychiatrist recently because I was starting to think that I needed to be more thorough and see the specialist. My actions didn’t match my beliefs, anyway.

Turns out, she gave me a completely different diagnosis, and I’m on a different medication regimen. I don’t think anyone but a specialist would have caught the finer points of my situation, or have known what questions to ask. This is not a dig on GPs, but they have to know something about everything. I like that my life may be markedly improved because I - hopefully - am now on the correct meds. Hell, I didn’t know, none of my GPs knew. But the psychiatrist saw it immediately.

17

I see from your profile that you are in West Texas. How long have you lived there? Your entire life?
I know plenty of people live and die within 50 miles of where they were born but to me that spells depression and insanity.
Sometimes you just need a change of scenery. And NOT just a vacation.
I was born and raised in Milwaukee and by the time I turned 25 I loathed that place. I felt like I had been everywhere and done everything and I just got very depressed contemplating living there for the rest of my life. Same friends, same family, same roads, same stores, yech!
So I upped and moved to Florida. Different job, different friends, new places to explore, different talk radio, different news people, etc.
I loved it. I felt reborn.
And when that got a little stale 7 years later I moved to Minneapolis. New town again, new people, new everything.
And if I start to get depressed here I plan on moving again.

18

Fuck that. Who the hell the “taught” him in the first place so he could get to the point of being a researcher"? If he had better teachers, he would be a better researcher now wouldnt he?

If you enjoy teaching and would be a good teacher do that. I would think your pleasure in just learning stuff for the hell of it without the pressure of breaking ground would make a much better fit for teaching. If you happen to do some interesting research on the side publish it. If not, keep enjoying the day job.

If teaching and research aint your thing, I am sure there are plenty of jobs where your statistics knowledge comes in handy. Maybe a biology lab where the other folks are biology experts and your thier stats guy that designs experiments and such. The fun thing about those kinda jobs is you have your field of expertise, but you learn a bit about some field you might find interesting and different but you arent the one expected to be the phd expert in.

Its all good in theory to do whats “important” or “successful” according to others/society/yourself but if you cant really do it or won’t enjoy doing it, thats just one long assed road to continued misery IMO.

**There are some **schools that realize that good teachers are as important as big name researchers that can barely teach themselves, much less anyone else. Yeah, you probably won’t get rich or famous at those, but I’d wager you’ll be a damn sight happier.

And get a hobby. NOT one on the computer. One that gets you out at least once a week with real live people. One that has plenty of folks that are from a different “background” than you. Hiking, camping, surfing, astronomy, birdwatching, stuff like that. Socializing on the computer is NOT a substitute for getting out an about with real humans.

Get a schedule of stuff you like to do on a weekly basis. Your hobby for a day nearly every weekend. Maybe your favorite (or a new) place to eat every friday night say. Make Tuesday night your sci fi channel or whatever you like marathon or go to the mall night. Make another night “lets go to the movie, whatever it is night”.

If you do not have or cannot find a passion for something you can keep your nose on the grindstone for 24/7, at the very least you need to find something tolerable/mildly enjoyable to make money and some stuff that you thoroughly enjoy that you cant get paid for to take up some of your free time.

19

Oh gosh YES, that feeling is definitely there. One of my friends who teaches at a community college (because teaching is what she has always wanted to do, and she hated research, actually) kept getting told by her professors that she was wasting herself on teaching. It’s really disheartening.

(And your fellow student is wrong, too. How many awesome researchers do you know who are just incredibly terrible teachers? I could name you a bunch off the top of my head. Easily.)

If you are able to push through that, though, and you really enjoy teaching, that is what you should do. Either teaching or working in a stats-ish job in industry (if you make sure to get the right sort of job) will mean that you have to do a lot of learning about the subject as part of your work, which sounds like it’ll be fun for you. Or, you can do it as a vaguely-work-related hobby (which is what my husband does; he doesn’t get paid for reading math books, but he does it anyway, and boy does it make him sought after at work when someone happens to have a math question).

20

Wow, that sounds like a rough situation. I suffer from anxiety/depression as well, so I can commiserate at least partially.

A few quick questions: What type of therapy are you engaging in? Is it general talk stuff, or is it cognitive/behavioral? Also, are you exercising? If you are not, then start now. It makes a huge difference.

Lastly, I also recommend seeing a specialist for your meds. I know some people need cocktails, but three at once sounds extreme to me.

Other things that help me are lots of tea and singing. Singing helps me vent my emotions, I enjoy it, and it probably promotes good breathing practices as well.