Didn’t you have a thread on this just a few weeks ago? Did any of the suggestions there work? Have you ever thought about embracing your love for videogames and pursuing something in that field? Videogame testing is not much fun from what I hear, but if videogames relax and invigorate you, then maybe it’s up your alley.
Barring that, have you started seeing a more professional therapist, or maybe tried a few different styles? I remember back a while ago you were seeing some student intern or something.
I got a little done today, a couple of paragraphs, but it’s not really the meat of the paper (I’m doing–or trying to do–the 3-paper option). It’s just some basic intro stuff that everybody knows. Problem is, I thought I had a cite and I didn’t (I’m using BibTeX), so I went to find it, and started looking through all the papers that cited the paper I was looking for. Completely derailed. The math is difficult to follow, but for someone at my level, it shouldn’t be. I should be able to breeze through these papers if I’m getting a fucking doctorate in the shit.
Problem is, I’m not getting a real statistics degree. It’s business statistics. I managed to get by in the math-stat courses just barely–Bs, which are bad in grad school. My math is extremely weak. I haven’t had a formal math class since high school. I’ve been teaching myself as best I can. Yesterday I was reading a paper that had as one of the steps in an equation, the derivative of an inverse function. Fuck! I didn’t know the little rule, and it took me some time to track it down and understand it. I don’t have time to relearn basic calculus when I’m writing my fucking dissertation!:mad: (at me, not at anyone else).
Besides that, what am I supposed to do if I do that little incremental stuff everyone is suggesting and it just ain’t good enough? My advisor is THE Professor _____ ______; I owe him better than that, since he fucking recruited me into the program (after having one class with him, guess I fooled him).
So should I tell him I’m about to lose it? Scratch that–Would YOU tell your advisor that you’re about to lose it? I promise I won’t blame anyone or start any shit if I take their advice and it doesn’t work.
I felt better for a while after that. My moods are unpredictable. One minute I’ll be okay, and then I’ll get new hot wave of panic. One Doper was even kind enough to send me a book to help, which I have tried to work on, really. As for the therapist, she was starting to do some good. All of our sessions are recorded, and she works directly under a clinical psychologist, so it’s not as if she’s saying or doing things way outside of the norm.
No anxiety, but depression. Dad has anxiety, his brother is bipolar, both of his kids have depression, and my Dad’s sister attempted suicide about thirty years ago.
That’s great! No minimizing, please. Just bask in the greatness of what you accomplished.
This may surprise you, but we are really a lot alike. I have always been a high achiever, graduated 2nd in my high school class, etc., and am constantly on edge that I will not live up to others’ expectations, that eventually they will figure out I am a sham (this is actually incredibly common.)
With time, I have learned that my opinion of myself is pretty distorted and that I should pretty much discount it. I can’t tell you how many times I have felt unworthy and certain I would be rejected. I graduated from undergrad with a 3.6 GPA… far below what I felt was my true capability, due to complications with severe depression. When I applied to graduate school, part of my application was basically an apology for not having better grades. I applied to four schools and was insecure about my prospects at all of them. I was certain they would look at my transcripts, particularly all of my medical withdrawals, and realize I was a nutcase unworthy of their time.
Penn accepted me on the spot. The interviewer told me that it was kind of ridiculous that I felt the need to apologize for a 3.6 GPA, and that the medical withdrawals were irrelevant. I was accepted at all four schools I applied to.
So that’s it, true validation, right? I’ll never doubt my abilities again, right? Oh, hell no. I feel like an absolute moron at my school, especially because I came into the program knowing next to nothing about social work. My new passion, social policy – I know jack shit about that too. All these students are just building empires of social change around me and all I can do is stand there like an idiot and hope nobody notices that I have no fucking idea what I’m doing here. What’s worse, social work has a human compassion element to it, it’s not just about academics, but about your level of caring. I feel like the worst person, ethically, in my program. Everyone else seems so much more compassionate and committed than I am. And they must know it, on some level. They must all realize that I don’t really belong here.
I was turned down from a summer internship earlier this year and it totally wiped my confidence. Then, at the last day of the term, I actually panicked during a presentation for the first time in a decade. It was a project I was very proud of and had worked my ass off for, and I had to deliver it in front of the most terrifying professor I’ve ever had. My voice was shaking, my ears were ringing, and I felt like I was going to pass out. My first thought, even as I was standing there, was ‘‘If I can’t even handle this three minute presentation how could I ever defend a dissertation?’’
My entire grade in that class was riding on the project I did, which included the presentation I ‘‘bombed.’’ I got an A in the class, from a tough as nails prof. So this means I’m worthy right? Hell to the naw. I totally rode on the coattails of my brilliant group members to get that A. It’s not like I did anything to actually deserve it. Eventually everyone will figure out I’m not good enough for this place…
The moral of this story is that I’m a total fruitcake when it comes to my perception of my own abilities, and I have totally weird and distorted notions about whether I am successful or a failure. I am afraid of failure all the time. But I have learned to just deal with it. I have learned to just pursue what I want to do and let them decide whether or not I’m good enough. Deciding whether I’m good enough is obviously not my job, because if I were in charge of hiring/firing I would not hire me for a damn thing.
If I had never applied to go to Mexico, if I’d never applied at a non-profit agency to work with Spanish-speaking clients, if I’d never bothered applying to grad school… what a shitty life that would have been, right? As Wayne Gretzky says, ‘‘You miss 100% of the shots you never take.’’ I am so glad, so beyond grateful, for every one of these shots I was brave enough to take even though I was certain I wasn’t going to make it. Because I was wrong.
Your job is not to decide whether you’re good enough for this program; that is your advisor’s job, and is obviously a decision he already made. Your job is to do the work to the best of your ability. That’s it. No more, no less. Just do it. ''Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out.’’
You don’t have to say, ‘‘I’m about to lose it.’’ But you can tell him you are feeling very overwhelmed and discouraged about the whole thing and you are questioning your academic ability. You don’t even have to mention your mental health–in fact, I wouldn’t, because there is most definitely a stigma. I wrote a bunch of ‘‘help, I’m crazy!’’ e-mails to profs in undergrad that I now regret, because I don’t think they were appropriate. But any reasonable person can understand that Ph.D. programs are stressful and sometimes you just need some support.
When you are having full-blown anxiety/panic, your brain is like swiss cheese - things just fall out of it. The year or so I spent dealing with the worst of my anxiety is like a fog to me now - I feel like I was hardly there for that year. Don’t be so hard on yourself; it feels harder now because it IS harder right now.
Several people have said some really helpful things so far. I am going through a PhD program as well. I love what I do, but it has seriously distorted my overall attitudes towards work and has done a marvelous job eroding my ego and self-confidence. As it should. This is all part of the training.
You don’t know what demons your advisor has to kill every day to keep a straight face and to stay productive. Perhaps he has an inner life more like your own than you might suppose.
For the exercise problem, statsman1982 maybe you would like to try swimming or running. Truth to be told, I didn’t dare to do both before precisely because I am scared of what others would think of me. Even till now if I go swimming, and someone is looking at me, I get spooked out.
Fact is people are more preoccupied with themselves. Even if I look silly while running, it’s only a snapshot in their mind for say, what, 10 seconds? Both swimming and running has helped me a lot since I started them for the past 6 months.
I believe you are ruminating and over-thinking too much.You got stop sending yourself into a frenzy thinking whether you are cut out for this, is your standard is good enough, what’s going to happen, what will happen and etc… I know it’s not easy; I was shot to hell after being rejected for an internship I’m sure I could get it too. I had panic attack on the week of my final examinations. I had to request a separate room to have my papers in because somehow facing 100+ other students in the hall make me lose my nerve. It took some time for the panic to pass and things to be ‘normal’, before the “I’m doomed, I’m doomed!” emotions all fled.
Right now you have some looming datelines, and the best thing is, IMHO, cut down on the distractions, which is the ruminating. Are you a failure? Are you doing well? Are you going to let anyone down? How much time have you spent on this compared to real work? So take a deep breath, stop dwelling on those thoughts, distract yourself for a while and do what you need to do. Small steps helped.
Hopefully, because he’s human and likes you as a person.
He might not be good at picking up on subtle cues, but that’s not the same thing at all as not caring about your mental health. I am terrible at picking up on anything that I’m not told straight out in words. That does NOT mean I don’t care. Just like because a deaf person can’t hear what you’re saying doesn’t mean he or she doesn’t care what you have to say. You just have to say these things in a way that we can understand.
Advisors of graduate students are human. They don’t always like everything about their jobs. They’ve been overwhelmed with all the stuff they’ve had to do. Some of them have even dealt with mental health issues, either their own or a friend’s or family member’s. I know all of this because Mr. Neville now has graduate students that he advises. He didn’t become an inhuman person who only cares about work and thinks everything about astronomy is fun when he got graduate students. He knows about depression and anxiety, because he has seen what I can be like when depressed or anxious.
Of course, being human, some advisors of grad students are dicks. Every group of humans includes some people who aren’t very nice. It’s entirely possible that he might say something dickish like “if you don’t like doing this, maybe you ought to quit”, or that he might have ignorant ideas about mental illness. But just because he’s your advisor doesn’t mean he’s always right. Mr. Neville isn’t always right about everything he says.
I was about to come in and post the same thing about Wellbutrin. I’m on it too, but only 150 mg (XL) and 75 mg (regular). I like the drug, but at higher doses it caused me to break out in hives. Also, it gives me energy, but I think too much energy makes me prone to anxiety. But I take clonazepem (for tics) in addition to Wellbutrin, and I think that mitigates the anxiety I would otherwise experience.
Now about your advisor. Do you know him to be a dick? If you’re at the level where you’re writing your dissertation, that means you should know him well enough to know if he’s a dick or not. Have you ever heard him “go off” on a student before? I guess what I’m asking is, how well-founded are your fears about him?
Because I had a grad advisor who could be a major bitch-ass and a guy with dickish tendencies as my post-doc mentor, and I don’t either would have a major problem with one of their students coming to them and telling them, “Hey, my dissertation writing is going to take a little longer than I thought because I’m dealing with some personal medical issues right now.” If they press for details and you feel obligated to open up, just say, “It’s nothing life or death, but it is a chronic illness and I’m in the process of getting my meds straightened out. But rest assured, I will still be working. We just have to set realistic deadlines. Is that okay?” Most intelligent people will be able to figure out what you’re telling them; there’s no need to go into more detail than that.
A couple of years ago when my own mental health started spiraling out of control, I worried what everyone would think if they found out what I was going through. I kept appointments secret, avoided certain conversational topics, and even flat-out lied to people. I still do, to a certain extent, but now I’m finding I don’t care as much. I used to think I would kill myself if my boss found out that I see a therapist every week. Now I think I’d only feel slight embarrassment (he’d probably feel more embarrassed than I would, I think).
Last thing: stop comparing yourself to your grad advisor. Most Ph.Ds that get churned out do not end up writing books or tons of papers. The reason he’s your advisor is because he’s done those great things, so unless you want to follow in his footsteps, why care? Both my grad advisor and post-doc mentor are well-known (in their nerdy niches) and extremely prolific scientists. I am not. I have produced a sum total of TWO scholarly articles and despite having spent a tremendous amount of time in working on a third, I’ve given up on it and don’t care. Because 1) I have a career that pays the bills and that I like and 2) people still have respect for me and think I’m smart just because I finished a Ph.D program. Certainly my self-esteem was torn to shreds after I finished, but now that I’m six years removed from it, I’ve gained a lot of it back. Honestly, I read some of the stuff I wrote back then and think, “I wrote this? Damn, I was actually SMART!”
Yes, you’re sick. All that anxiety is not healthy, and you have good reason to be under a doctor’s care. But you’re also a grad student, which by definition means you’re neurotic and a dissertation-writing procastinator. You will make it through this, though. Perhaps you can help your esteem by squeezing in some extra-curricular learning. I retaught myself the piano and learned how to identify trees while I was writing my dissertation. In between reading papers for my thesis, I read history books and other non-fiction. It made the stress about procrastination more bearable.
Thanks, everyone, for stopping by. You may not believe me, but just the simple act of writing the OP helped, and hearing other people’s ideas helps immensely. I feel a little bad for using this forum this way, but if it matters to anyone here, just the fact that you’re willing to talk to me, when you don’t even know me, helps.
I went to the psychiatrist today. I almost didn’t get to see anyone, because the resident I was going to see (the clinic is in teaching hospital) wasn’t there. Supposedly, they sent out a letter to all his patients informing them of this, but I never received any letter. I suppose my demeanor was such that they thought I couldn’t go any longer without seeing someone, so I did. Thank goodness.
She suggested two options: a tricyclic (1st generation) antidepressant or Remeron. We decided to try the latter, 30 mg at bedtime, and discontinue the Wellbutrin. I’ve been on SSRIs before (Lexapro and Paxil), and they didn’t really work, so this is another option.
I also met with my advisor today, and, while he wasn’t ecstatic about my one page of progress, I don’t think he was mad. He’s not a dick, monstro, but he’s pretty intimidating (I played poker with a tenured professor in another department in the business school one time, and he told me that he was terrified of my advisor. A tenured professor!). I think the reason is that he’s so far and away brighter than 90% of the faculty in the business school, or at least appears to be because his work is very theoretical, lots of pubs in JASA and Annals of Statistics, and Biometrika. He also doesn’t have a lot of social intelligence. Sometimes when I talk with him, I’ll try to explain something and he’ll go “Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s move on” in a kind of dismissive way. He’ll also sometimes grab a paper out of my hand that I’m reading from, just reach and grab it–yoink! As a statistician, he’s a very logical, cut-the-bullshit guy, which has served him well to have as many pubs as he has. He’s also stingy with praise; I’ve gotten a “good job” from him now and then, but not often.
Now take that image and think of the opposite, and you’ve got me. I can be verbose at times, which is a no-no in statistical writing. I like a bit of small talk now and then. I’m very in tune with other people, I think. I try to make them comfortable in my presence (my students especially). I’m also pretty liberal with praise; I will tell a student of mine “Good job,” for incremental progress on a problem. For me, that’s more encouraging than the rare “good job.”
Sometimes, when I contrast my personality and the personalities of the statisticians I know, I think I got in the wrong field. I am not introverted or socially awkward, and am rarely uncomfortable in social situations. I know not 100% of statisticians are rigid like this, but every one I know that is successful is. But, I love the theory of statistics. Love it. I see the beauty in the proof of the central limit theorem, and in the various other asymptotic results that are so famous (weak and strong law of large numbers, etc.) My only regret is that I do not have the mathematical sophistication to truly “get under the hood” and really understand the probability theory that gives rise to statistics. If I had my life to do over again, I would absolutely get a math degree first.
At least you’re paralyzed with anxiety. Imagine if you were paralyzed with physical paralysis, or with laughter, or with jellyfish stings! Glad this thread has led you to some insight.
Read this article on how video games are engineered to trigger your brain’s reward systems for a better idea of why video games feel so satisfying. Understanding the processes involved might give you a better idea of how to control them. While video games themselves are not a problem, doing anything compulsively for that long of time is probably a problem.
Keep trying different exercise until you find something that works. For me, it was yoga. Running made me tired and worn, but yoga gives me a lasting high that has really changed my life. For you it might be biking or whatever. Exercise may not make things much better, but I promise you that sitting around is making things worse. Getting out and about and doing something somewhat active will help.
