After participating and now co-leading an anxiety support group, I’m starting to realize just how common our thoughts really are. 
If all else fails, there’s always law school. ;)
Heh. Dad has always discouraged me from going into law, and he’s been an attorney since 1973! His true love, I think, was photography.
I guess my attitude runs in the family:p
Og, that sounds wonderful! I have given serious thought to taking a leave of absence from the program. According to what I’ve read in the doctoral program manual, we are allowed to do that under certain circumstances.
I went into graduate school with damn few illusions… I was not expecting a supportive environment oriented around the love of ideas and thinking and quality of research, nor was I expecting supportive faculty for whom teaching was their primary calling. And I had been warned (well and often) that my own perspective was not going to be well-received in that discipline.
And yet, nevertheless, when I took a full-time job (after all opportunities to be a paid teaching assistant or research assistant were exhausted, insufficient number of faculty were willing be on my dissertation committee and NONE would chair it, and I kind of needed to pay the rent and eat and stuff) and had something to do outside of that grey campusworld, I felt like I’d been reprieved from one of the nastier holding tanks outside of the 8th circle of inner hell.
It’s pernicious, the myriad ways and forms in which the “must jump through hoops” aspects of being a PhD student can trash all of your various senses of self, self-esteem, pride in one’s abilities, confidence in one’s mental skillset, and general sense of being and doing what one ought be & do. From the time you are admitted as a potential candidate for the doctorate (becoming a true candidate comes later, of course) until they are shaking your hand after your successful oral defense, you’re in one of those Erving Goffman “total institutions”. They control a massive part of where you can get relevant approval-strokes from. The workload cuts you off from other associations and from feedback of others with different perceptions. You knew that going in, of course, but it’s almost impossible not to underestimate what that does to one psychologically.
Exactly, AHunter3. Not to mention grad school pushes all your “am I smart enough” buttons, and most of us who are smart enough to go to grad school have placed a lot of our self-worth in being smart.
And you’re becoming overly concerned about it? 
Another ABD struggles-with-depression person checking in.
Just because grad school makes you wish you didn’t exist anymore doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be in academia. At least, I don’t think it should. I don’t know anyone in grad school who isn’t beset with self-doubt, the research/teaching dilemma, and worthlessness. Really. I like to think that I’ll be able to power through it and come out the other side.
I could ramble on, but I’ll spare you. If you ever want to talk to someone who is right where you are/(hopefully?) a year past where you are, PM me.
It’s making me feel a lot better to know I’m not the only one who ever felt that way.
Thanks! When I get something coherent in my head, I’ll definitely take you up on it
To those who have suggested exercise: I was thinking a way to channel my desire to play video games and my need to get healthy into one activity would be to try Wii Fit. I have a Wii already, so I’d just need to get the kit. I usually get money for Christmas nowadays, so the cost isn’t an issue. Has anyone tried Wii Fit?
Nope.
ETA: Dammit, why doesn’t my brain work as fast as my fingers? I also wanted to say that you can also combine video games with something like recumbent biking or treadmill walking - you don’t have to just sit there. Walking outside is my best suggestion, though - fresh air, sunshine, and exercise are three very good natural depression fighters.
Yep, grad school is hard. One of the first questions out of my psychiatrist’s mouth on the first day I consulted her: “Are you a grad student?” Yeah. Mind you, she was on staff at the university, but still… it seems that depression and all the other emotional crap are part and parcel of the grad school experience. Particularly, I would add, the Ph.D. experience. (Having done both the Master’s and Ph.D. I would say that the latter is much tougher on the psyche, but that’s JMO.) It goes with the territory. Honestly, they ought to just include a list of good therapists/psychiatrists in the grad school handbook when you show up that first semester!
In my opinion, getting through the degree, dissertation, and TA classes is mostly about showing up (metaphorically, as well as literally getting your ass to class, or your butt in front of the computer). You don’t always feel it and you don’t always care – you just muddle through. The same for doing original research. Very few people make big breakthroughs. In my experience and from talking to colleagues, you never really feel like you totally get all the literature out there. Everyone seems smarter than you! But the reality is, you mostly just pick away at a tiny corner of your field, which you spend years working to understand, in order to have a tiny bit more insight into something. My tiny little insight – which ended up being the central argument of my dissertation – just came from working with the material, reading the literature, and picking away at it little by little every day for over a year before I had an “ah ha!” moment. That’s true of a lot of people.
Just before my dissertation defense, one of the faculty (who was trying to cheer me up) noted that pretty much only me and maybe five other people on the planet know my very teeny, specialized area as well as I do. That helped keep it in perspective. Yeah, I feel like an idiot when I try to understand other academics in other specialties, but in my own… I’m an expert. Go figure! That pretty much floored me when I first realized it!
For what it’s worth, I felt utterly unprepared for grad school in my field. My undergrad degree was in something completely different! And there were a number of times when I realized that classmates were discussing something for which I had no background. I just sucked it up and asked the obvious questions. After getting answers, I moved on. And got the damn degree in spite of it all.
Having said all that, if you’re not finding it worthwhile, ditch. Find a job in industry. Teach community college. What others have said… The Ph.D. is way too much of a time investment to waste if you don’t really want to do something with it.