localised depression
Thanks for all your comments on my last post. I haven't heard any more from my advisor, although several people told me they saw my name in the program as a presenter, so maybe it will be too late to change things anyway and I won't have to do anything.
I've been slipping back into old, bad habits lately and starting to feel miserable again when it comes to lab. So far, it hasn't spread to the rest of my life, which is good in that I'm still enjoying non-lab things, but bad in that it's more incentive to avoid thinking about work entirely (aside from making work difficult). I am becoming alarmed at how much time I'm spending on mindless, repetitive games, though, and I'm worried that feeling useless at lab will lead to more widespread depression.
At the moment, I'm stuck in a negative feedback loop where I stay up too late online, can't drag myself out of bed in the morning until it's too late to go to the gym (although, really, I'd probably be better off exercising and getting to lab even later than not exercising at all), getting to lab so late that I feel lazy and pathetic, wasting time online to avoid those negative thoughts, not getting enough work done and staying so late at lab that I don't have time to cook dinner or take care of anything like laundry in the evening. I need to break the cycle, but I'm struggling.
Getting out of bed earlier in the morning would make a big difference. I did think I just needed to go to bed earlier, but, although that would help, I'm not sure it's the whole answer. I can get up after less sleep when I've got somewhere fun to go to, but on weekday mornings, I can snooze my alarm for hours on end. Once I've hit snooze a few times, I already feel bad enough about myself that the whole morning feels like a struggle and I often feel like crying. I already have my alarm far enough away that I have to get out of bed to hit snooze, but that's not enough of a disincentive. Clearly, my avoidance is beyond the usual tips for getting up earlier. I think what I really need is a reason I absolutely have to get up. I can do it when I have lab meeting starting at 9am, but since my advisor is only in my building one day a week, there isn't much accountability the rest of the time.
The other major issue is that I need a way to calm myself down when I start feeling awful in lab. At the moment, whenever I start worrying that I'm not getting enough work done or I've messed up an experiment or I don't know what to do next, I start refreshing google reader or facebook or twitter and next thing I know it's an hour (or more) later. I need something to take the place of the internet that will actually make me feel better, instead of just helping me avoid the feelings.
By any conscious reckoning, I am very eager to get my research done so I can graduate. Unfortunately, I still end up paralysed because my desire to be done isn't always strong enough to overcome my intense avoidance in the short term, which only makes me feel worse.
I know I've got around these problems using the stars before, but that hasn't been working lately. I think my self-discipline atrophied badly while I was home and I haven't been trying hard enough to build it back up. However, I also think I'm demoralised that all my effort with the stars over the past two years hasn't changed my underlying problems at all. I'm tired of fighting my feelings of inadequacy just to get a minimal amount of work done.
I'm still wondering if my lack of interest in my research is real, or just an excuse to give in to the desire to find something easier. The only way to tell would be to get rid of my imposter syndrome, but I don't have any idea how to do that. I tried explaining to the therapist last week, but she just told me I'm being too hard on myself. Even if that were true, just saying it isn't going to convince me. I don't know what will.
(Ugh. Maybe the depression isn't as localised as I would like. My internet connection keeps dropping out and that's making me feel like crying (and/or breaking something).)
Does anyone have any ideas for helping me feel less worthless and pathetic at lab? I want to recommit to the stars, but I'm not sure how much I can do at once.
posted by Lucy @ 9:37 PM
5
comments
5 Comments:
I'm sorry you're going through this, Lucy. Honestly, the only thing that helps me is work. I only feel better about myself when Im doing things that make me feel accomplished. I have to force myself to work no matter how I feel, and then when I've done that for a bit, I start to feel good at least for that.
It helps me to remember an issue of project runway in which one of the contestants is really upset and is crying, and her teammate says, "You can cry, but you have to cut [the pattern] and cry."
So I cry, but at least I'm working and crying.
I think your insight into exercise is important, lucy. The issues with sleep cycle are ones I know far, far too well, and struggle with intensely, and exercise is always the most fragile piece.
Re: calming yourself at the lab, I wish I could send along your littlest fan, who could give you a hug (and make you guess what color she is thinking of) whenever you got panicky about what you're not getting done.
Would there be a way to itemize what you need to get done at lab from week to week, and then rank those tasks in order of how much brainpower they require? I was thinking that maybe you could identify a couple of things that are total no-brainers that need to get done, and reserve those tasks for when you're feeling awful. Then you get to feel like you're accomplishing something even when you're not really feeling adequate.
I get a lot of laundry done that way, you know?
I used to have similar feelings of self-hatred every time I sat down to write. In the end I got through it one sentence at a time--and that usually meant I would write one sentence per day. I became happy to even do that much and it *slowly* developed from there. I'm not sure if you can find some kind of equivalent in your field. More recently, my own therapist has always emphasised that something, anything, the tiniest thing is better than nothing.
About getting to lab, I wonder if there's anyone who you could arrange to meet there, once, maybe twice a week. Even if it's for coffee or pineapple juice, that would give you an appointment to make, after which you could go to lab. Maybe if you could incorporate a walk around campus with them, that would sort out some of the exercise too?
It might also be an idea to get someone to call you in the morning, to get you out of bed. Or maybe you have to call them from the lab by a certain time, if not each day, then maybe a few days per week.
It is a difficult situation you're in and different things work for different people, but I really hope you finish your degree and I do wish you all the very best. Take care.
ps the word verification is 'woome'. Heh.
I'm coming very late to this one, but I recommend a couple of things: first, forgive yourself for being human. Grad school is monstrously hard, and we all fall down from time to time. Second, if your depression is interfering too much with your day to day, do go and see a counselor. There's no need to go on suffering from a fairly curable condition. Forgive yourself and maybe get some help--you are worthy of forgiveness and worthy of care!
Post a Comment
<< Home