maybe I could work at mcdonald's again

My mum called last night, wanting to know if I knew when I could come home next, since I'd told her it might be possible to go home after the conference in Japan. She was all sympathetic about me not getting to go. She tried to reassure me by saying things like some of you did, about how things don't always work, even if you're working hard. The problem is that I'm not working hard. I know the difference between experiments not working and me not working. I have been tracking my time all year so I have hard data to back me up on this.

I haven't ever told my mum before about how unmotivated I've been, because I don't want to feel worse about moving so far away, supposedly to do this PhD, when I'm not working on it. Last night, though, I couldn't bear having her feel sorry for me as if it was all out of my control. I'm not sure it was a good idea. She spent most of the rest of the conversation trying to convince me to go to a doctor in case I'm anaemic or have a thyroid problem or something. When I kept insisting I was perfectly healthy, she came up with several more ways it could be not my fault. I guess I appreciate the sentiment, but it doesn't help. She did the same thing when I tried to tell her about my social anxiety, insisting that I had friends and she'd seen me talking to them, therefore I couldn't actually be all that shy.

If I knew why I'm so unmotivated, it would be easier to explain. I can't tell, though, if I really don't want to do research or if I'm just crippled by anxiety about doing it all wrong. If it's the former, I feel like I should be able to just force myself to do the work to get finished while I figure out what I actually want to do. The problem is that I can't think of anything else I would enjoy more, or be more motivated to do.

When I try to imagine doing any of the jobs I've read about in the many books I've read recently about non-academic careers, I feel the same fear and avoidance I do about research. I certainly can't imagine going to an interview for any real job and being able to sincerely claim I'd be a great candidate - I have no people skills, I'm clearly not self-motivated or good at time management or organisation. The only thing I can actually imagine doing for 8 hours a day is something repetitive with no responsibility. Which makes me think anxiety is really the problem. Or maybe I should just get some crappy job I can forget about at 5pm and concentrate on doing fun things the rest of the time...

If anxiety really is the problem, then I obviously need to work on that, regardless of whether I want to keep doing research. I don't know how, though. I wish I could talk to the therapist or someone, but I literally can't speak out loud with her enough to explain. I can't even talk enough to explain the not being able to talk issue. I feel stuck.