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Argh. I don't know what I see a psychiatrist for. Do you?

Guest SomethingOrOther

By Guest SomethingOrOther
in Psychotherapy and other Treatments

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LaLa Senior Member

LaLa

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I see, it's complicated... :) I can relate to what you write (even though I'm not in this situation, but... I know a lot of what you mention from my past, from different contexts, ...) and this makes it more difficult to reply somehow 'positively' :); I'm sorry... I believe that your PhD will have a happy end, but I think that's not what you need to hear now (:confused:)...

Maybe one idea: You could try to 'insist' on your brother to come and help in the situation before the exam - I mean "to help you to cope with your mother", to be 'a buffer'. Could you ask him to be the one to reply to most of her 'comments' etc., or even to hold your parents 'far from you' if possible?

By the way, this week, I teach the lab practice, so I will not even open the word documents related to my thesis. In september, my supervisor gave me this date (15/11) as deadline for the whole thesis. And me? Now I have 5 pages of resulst and 1 page of discussion. And what's the worst, I still can't imagine how could the few and confusing results I was able to obtain be defended as dissertation... I would need at least one more year to get some useful results, but... So my worst problem with concentration on my thesis is due to the fact that I'm still considering an alternative future, but - similarly as you (but you'll have the PhD - that's a significant difference!) - I don't know what to do, which job could I be able to do and how to get it... So, to briefly conclude, I'm premanently stuck. *sigh*...

My therapist says that it really doesn't matter if I will or will not obtain the PhD; that it would not change my value, the value of me as a human being. It's so nice to hear and I know he told me so because he wanted me to release me from the huge pressure I felt on me (and from my "ideas" that "I'm such a looser, I'd rather commit suicide" etc.). I also know he wants me to feel free in my decision and I'm sure he wishes me to decide to get the PhD (-he's never said it but I think I can feel it somehow). But me, I don't know "what to do with my freedom". ... I'd like to end this post positively, so I'm going to mention that now I'm reading a wondeful book that I've always wished to read but it wasn't accessible in our country (all the books were sold out already) and the last month, they published a new edition, so... It's the famous Victor E. Frankl's Man's search for meaning. I appreciate it, it's very deep and insightful. I hope it could influence my life in practice... We'll see...

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LaLa Senior Member

LaLa

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Congrats!!! Thank you for sharing your good news! :) I'm happy for you, I really am :).

And thank you for the 'story' of your friend. Yes, I also know some people whose theses were not very ... - you know. But if it's due to the fact that 'nothing worked', that seems OK to me. My problem is that I have "no" results mainly because most of the time I was ... how to call it? Anxious and "too concentrated on my mental problems" and thus I didn't work well. And now I even can't trust my own results. Why should somebody give me a PhD, by the way? Because I used to be an excellent undergraduate student?

But you're right. I have to bear in mind also the words from your post. Maybe they'll help :-).

Why do you have to do teaching, when you're no longer payed? That seems quite unecessary to me.

I don't have to, but I like it, so I told the man who's responsible for the lab courses that I'd like to teach, like the previous years. And there is also the fact that almost nobody knows that I'm not payed anymore. Everybody supposes that I'm (it's possible to work as an 'assistant professor' or how I should call it... in my situation and most of the PhD students do so, but there isn't any position for me (=each position is 'full/occupied'), so I'm not). And I don't have the reason to tell/explain them...

Moreover, I wanted to teach also because I'd like to see if I still like it. Because one of the jobs that I consider for my future is teaching on a highschool. I know it's very different from university, so I don't have a big self-confidence in this regard, but... A bigger problem is that I should make 2 years of study to 'become a teacher' and it costs around 600 euros, which is not a few for us and my husband says that we could pay it but only if I was absolutely sure that I'll be a teacher, what I'm not, so... It's a vicious circle (one of so many in my life)...

Oh, but that's really enought about me!!! :o

Have a nice evening (or Tuesday already?)!!

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finding my way Senior Member

finding my way

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I know for a fact no one outside of personal friends will ever read my thesis. I knew it the whole time, and I knew the presentation and fielding questions was only for the degree and nothing about it was momentous for anyone there. In the end I had to do it for me, to go through my rite of passage and get to the other side. Having a degree is important for getting a job. The hoops I jumped through were just the hoops I had to jump through. I hope you can be patient with yourself the next few weeks. It is difficult to jump hoops and keep your perspective....:)

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LaLa Senior Member

LaLa

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I see a possible clue in this:

I don't know what I want to do and I think once I start working on a new project I won't be able to think about what I want to do. [...] I don't see what people like about having options.

The logical conclusion is, that it would be the best for you to take it - to say you're interested and to start work on a new project, so then you will not have time for these very unpleasant doubts about what you'd like to do. And moreover, you'll have a post-doc, which is another step in your carrier. You can change the carrier later, you can also quit the post-doc position. So taking this job wouldn't be an absolute "removal of options", but it would at least be something you could concentrate on without many thoughts about "what else could I do if not this".

You say you don't like options. (I know how it feels very well, by the way...) But if you refuse this position, then you'll have too many options left. Now, there is only this one that doesn't require searching, evaluating, selecting many options (=positions).

I don't say you have to take it, of course. But it seems noticeable to me also that you haven't mention any objections against this post-doc position, against this lab. Does it mean you like it? Or at least you don't have serious objections?

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