Should I send a self-deprectating response to this email? Need answer soon.

[Crowbar_of_Irony_3]

statsman1982, my advice is to play it safe. If you send that mail as originally phrased, you be worrying about how you come across, and that worry will feed your anxiety and you will be in a downward spiral.

That you are asking if it is all right to send this indicates you may be worried about this. Don’t add one more thing to the ‘to-worry’ list.

[BigT]

@statsman1982

Thanks for the things to ponder, all. I can’t fully express how much hearing your thoughts on things has helped me reevaluate this situation.

BigT, my previous therapist used to have me work on thought challenging, which seems a lot like your method.

Guess where I picked it up from.

My biggest problem is believing and putting into practice what I know intellectually. It feels as if the two halves of my mind–emotional and rational–don’t like to communicate. I think sometimes that if I could just turn off my emotions, I’d be in better shape.

I know the feeling. I’ve felt it a lot. But I want to remind you that it’s deceptive. Yes, when you’re anxious, you can’t think as well, and you might forget what you’d know to do if you weren’t anxious. The thing is, you tend to focus on when and what you forget, not when or what you remember. That’s another mental skill, intentionally focusing on the positive, even if only after the fact.

Rather than make a self-deprecating email, you were smart enough to ask for advice. Heck, it was probably your anxiety that got you to question your decision. And now you’re better off for it. When people reminded you of your “cognitive distortion”, you fixed it. I bet that’s a lot better than you used to could do.

Oh, and you’ve got a kickass email template to follow. I’d say you’re doing really good.

[Martiju]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

My motto was to always act like the next stage in my career- when I was a new grad student I tried to act like a more accomplished student- not by pretending I knew everything but by emulating the composure and confidence that more senior grad students had when presenting themselves. As a senior grad student I took on responsibilities that post-docs often shouldered. There is a difference between recognizing your own weakness and whining about your own weaknesses.

There’s a lot of good stuff in this thread, especially the ‘what am I afraid of’ (essentially the ‘what if’) discussion. But this from **ITD ** is an approach worth following whatever you do I think. I think for those of us who are highly self-critical, self-reflective or even just self-aware, it’s easy to put yourself down to signal to others that you are conscious of your (very human) flaws and failings. The thing is, not everyone does that, and the more successful people - those with higher status - certainly don’t. Emulating the level above you is a great technique for foreshadowing the path you are travelling and sends incredibly strong messages to those who might help you get there.