Fuck you! You don’t know a good goddamn thing about what I"m doing in this program. You know what? I have to do oral exams for half of the exam now, because my performance on them was “marginal” according to my advisor. Now, I have to stand in front of the three statistics faculty members who wrote my questions and give an oral defense in order to move on to candidacy.
“You don’t have anything to worry about,” you said. “You’re perfectly prepared,” you said. Shut the fuck up! Clearly I wasn’t prepared or I wouldn’t have to do an oral exam. And what would you know about anything anyway? You barely have college diplomas. You have no idea about the requirements of a doctoral program.
So from now own, keep your encouragement to yourself. Fuck!
:hug: There there, it sucks at first… But the key is not to give up. I’m sure if you try your best you’ll be able to succeed next time, and if not, keep on trying and never give up!
Everyone’s been there at some point in life, and it’s never fun. Good luck.
No. I calmly, rationally typed that “fuck you” earlier. I was merely being consistent with the OP. Why he (she, it?) took it as a come-on, I don’t know. I’m pretty certain there is nothing anyone can say to make me feel worse than I already do.
There’s a difference between being supportive and talking out one’s ass. I would never tell, say, my cancer-stricken father that I just know everything will be alright. I have no fucking idea whether he’ll be alright. I can hope, but I can’t offer guarantees.
It’s the same to me as when someone offers platitudes at a funeral to the effect of, “Well, he’s in a better place now. You can be thankful for that.” It’s trite and presumptuous.
Of course, these are my thoughts at the moment. I’m a bit biased due to the situation.
We know you’re doing fine because . . . well . . . you’ve always seemed so smart to us, and we know you work hard . . . don’t you? There’s . . . not anything wrong, is there?
Yes. Because when your cancer-stricken father has a look in his eyes of fear, I’m sure you will just blankly stare back, unable to offer a compassionate word.
I bet you’re the kind of person who bitches about getting Christmas presents because then you feel obligated to say thank you and maybe even get a gift for the other person, and all of that shit, and you never even asked for a present anyway. GOD.
“Statsman, you’re a wanker, you’ll never pass, give up now.”
I am not seeing why you are so angry with the lay people who encouraged you. If as you say, they’re clueless about what you’re going thru, why did you put any stock into what they were saying in the first place? If in your heart you felt you weren’t up to snuff to take the exam why did you even listen to their uninformed opinions? Why didn’t you put it off and study longer? On another note, it is usually your adviser who determines your readiness to take the exams. If anyone is to blame it’s him, unless of course he suggested you wait longer and you chose to proceed without his blessing (seen that happen before, not pretty).
FWIW, many people do not pass their qualifiers the first time. Don’t give up, stay the course
Rumor Watkins, you really have no idea how far off the mark you are on the sociopath diagnosis. I’m sure you’re an excellent psychologist IRL (you are,right?), but you missed this one. If you had read some of my other posts, I think you would have come to a different conclusion.
To everyone else, I regret very much starting this thread an hour ago. I really do value my friends, and I recognize how lucky I am to have them. My problem is depression mixed with anxiety. I’ve been taking Paxil and BuSpar for a while now, and recently started Welbutrin. Lately, I’ve been feeling depressed and panicky more often than usual, probably because I’ve been under a great deal of pressure with my program. Getting the news about having to do orals sent me into a kind of meltdown about an hour ago. It was then that I hastily started this thread. In the future, I’ll just go have a beer.
If it’s all the same to you, I’m going to request that this thread be killed. It’s really not pit-worthy and it seems to be wasting everyone’s time.
ETA: I have been seeing a student-therapist at the Psychology department on campus here for about a year and a half now. I don’t know what else I can do.
