Monday, March 11, 2013

Reaching Out to Others

After that brutal meeting with two of my professors, I contemplated several ways of dealing with all the fear, shame, and sadness that I felt as a result. One way involved about two gallons of caffeine (preferably in the form of Coca-Cola) and a barrel of chocolate. (I decided against doing that, but I was REALLY tempted.) Another way involved crawling into bed and listening to sad music for several hours, but all of my playlists consist of stuff like Maroon 5's Fifty-Ways-to-Sing-about-Lust-songs and Britney Spears' I'm-going-to-sing-really-fast-while-dancing-around-in-tight-clothes songs.

I even contemplated dropping out of grad school. I can't stop beating myself up over the fact that it has taken me so long to work on this dissertation. After what my professors said, I became so discouraged that I wondered if everything I've done over the past ten years - all the teaching jobs, the retail work, the nights where I felt so exhausted after working all day that I wanted to scream, cry, and head butt anyone who did anything remotely annoying (like the people who sneeze on me and THEN say, "I think I'm coming down with a cold."), the low pay, the sacrifices, etc. - had been for nothing.

With the exception of a few close friends and the occasional foray into the dating scene (which never ends well for me, and is partly why my Taylor Swift playlists - yes, I have more than one playlist, I admit it - are good to listen to after yet another disappointing date), I am a loner. I prefer solitude most of the time, and if I'm going to spend time with other people, I want it to be with people I actually like. I don't want to spend time with people who cause me to paste my fake smile on my face while I'm secretly thinking, "If I pretend to throw up right now, will they take that as a hint that they really are that boring and self-centered? Or will it at least give me an excuse to leave early?"

But this time, I was so devastated that I uncharacteristically reached out to other people. I called an old friend. I joined an online community called Versatile PhD, which is a community made up of grad students and other academics; it was founded by a woman who has an English PhD and helps other academics find "nontraditional" (i.e., nonacademic) jobs. There are online forums on Versatile PhD where people can seek advice and feedback; I wrote a description of my situation, and received several detailed responses from other academics. They told me about dissertation coaches and writing groups; they commiserated by sharing their own difficult experiences in grad school; they told me about how they struggled to support themselves financially too.

I also talked to someone in my department at school; she already has her PhD, but she continues to teach at the school. She told me about how other grad students have struggled with their committees and dissertations, and she advised me to stand up to those professors, especially if I really believed in what I was writing. She also put me in touch with another grad student, who offered to meet with me this week and give me more advice.

Talking to them made me feel a lot better about my situation. It made me wish that I had reached out to more of them in the past. I had tried to socialize with other grad students before, but faced some difficulties because a) I don't drink alcohol; b) when they started talking about their accomplishments, I had little to add to the conversation; c) there are several cliques in grad school, and I belong to none of them. The last one in particular was tough because when they talked about dinner outings or parties, I was rarely invited. I would sit at my desk and pretend that I didn't care. So I focused on the other things that made me happy and stopped trying to "fit in" with the grad school cliques. But I ended up missing out on the chance to connect with other peers who weren't like them.

I contacted another professor on my dissertation committee, and what she said surprised me. She encouraged me to stay in grad school and finish my dissertation. She pointed me in the direction of another professor who might be able to provide guidance. She said that I was talented, and it made me feel good to know that there was someone who believed in me. 

What also helped was blogging about it, and reading all the thoughtful and nice comments that you wrote. The great people in the blogosphere are why I continue to blog (also, I figure that ranting about my obsessions online is a better way to deal with it than giving annoying people wedgies). I am grateful to you for your support.

I'm still plugging away on a new draft, and hopefully this one will be enough to satisfy my professors. I am still scared, ashamed, and sad over the fact that it will take me two more years to finish this dissertation, but knowing that I am not alone makes it easier to deal with it.

18 comments:

  1. Such a good reminder to reach out! I tend to try to work through things on my own a lot, but every once in a while it's good to get out there and hear from others who are in the same boat, or have already landed on a safe shore :-)

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    1. Hi Deniz,
      It does help to hear from other people who have already made it; it gives me hope that I will make it too.

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  2. I am soooo proud of you! I think you're really finding your way and it makes me amazingly happy you reached out and got different points of view!

    btw, I have a cool new playlist that's all angsty and British hip from a 20-something guy friend if you want me to send you some music suggestions to add to your playlists :)

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    1. Hi Johanna,
      Thanks! Talking to other people helped me see that there are other ways of looking at the situation; I had been so focused on what my professors thought of me and my work that I didn't think of alternative views.
      A new playlist would be awesome! You can e-mail it to me at neuroticworkaholicgmail.com.

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  3. I'm really proud of you for reaching out to others because it takes a strong person to do so. It's sooo much easier to curl back on yourself and shut the world out (I'm an introvert too, so I know) but it's nice to have people listen, even if it's hard to take that step to confide in them in the first place. I'm glad you had that professor encourage you. And like I said the other day to a friend whose PhD in cell biology took her almost twice as long to achieve as anyone else she'd began the program with: there's no set timeline that works for everyone. You're here and you're trying and that's all that matters. Hugs to you!!! Keep your chin up, girl.

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    1. Hi Julie,
      Thank you! It was hard at first to reach out to them, because I was embarrassed to admit that I'd been struggling. I always thought that everyone else was so sure of themselves, but I was wrong. And it does help to have people listen. I spend so much time rushing around from place to place, so it felt good to stop and just talk to other people about what I was going through.

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  4. I'm so glad you called your friend! I think we need to do that to keep ourselves centered sometimes. Leaning on others isn't a weakness, in fact, I think it takes tremendous strength. Whenever I used my friends or family as a crutch, I'm so grateful for them.

    Keep working on that dissertation and stay in grad school! You won't regret it!

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    1. Hi Emily,
      Thanks for your encouragement! And I'm glad that I called my friend too. I believe that friends are the first people you think of when you need someone to talk to. They're the ones who are there for you, just like you are there for them if they need you.

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  5. I'm glad that you didn't crawl into bed! I think the best way to get over heartache is to reach out. You totally did the right thing. Getting active and looking toward the future will help brighten your spirits every time...in my opinion :)

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    1. Hi Jessie,
      I definitely was suffering from heartache; because I'm so invested in my work, my heart broke when I was told that my work wasn't good enough. And I couldn't relax in bed for too long, anyway, because I just kept thinking of all the work that I still had to do. Talking to other people made it feel less overwhelming.

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  6. I haven't been here for a while, so I just scrolled down and read your previous post too. Bad news is hard to take, but running away never works. You've worked so hard - I never even got to university! When you're feeling really down, dancing around the room really helps - drag out all the Maroon 5 and Britney tracks you have and dance until you're exhausted. It does help - all that blood rushing around your body! Best wishes to you.

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    1. Hi Annalisa,
      Thank you for your encouragement! I like Maroon 5 and Britney, even though people made fun of me for liking Britney's music when she first got started. But she's been around for more than a decade, and she's still successful. And I like songs by musicians like her because they make me feel like dancing. I don't want to run away, but I hope they don't make me leave the graduate program either.

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  7. I'm so happy to hear that you are feeling better about the situation with your committee! Keep us posted on how things progress :) I hope you survived the snow storm last week, too.

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    1. Hi Anna,
      The snow storm was Chicago as usual, though I did come close to falling down in the street more than once. Every winter I always slip and fall on the ice or snow at least once.
      I most likely will be writing more about how things progress, because I'm so wrapped up in the dissertation right now. I think I've become even more of a workaholic as a result.

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  8. I'm so glad you've reached out to other people to help you. And I'm glad you approached your professor and received some encouragement. You've chosen a hard business, as you know. Your life rests in few hands. I hope you find your way to the other side soon. I'm rooting for you!

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    1. Hi Theresa,
      Academia is definitely a hard business. If I'd fully understood how difficult it is, I might have chosen a different career, even though I love teaching. I hope I do find my way to the other side; I just wish it didn't take such a long time to get there. I feel like I've been waiting for so long already.

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  9. Just read through your last post as well. Sorry you've had a hard time of it, but be proud of yourself for how you've handled it. You've set about straight away for solutions, and you've taken care of yourself emotionally as well by reaching out for support. Situations do not define us, how we recover from them does.

    There can often appear to be a gap between the academic view and the reality. Research only shows your value as a researcher. It's a skill not a talent and all skills are attainable. You have more than one aspect to your life and that's healthy, it's also generous of you. Your efforts will pay off.

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    1. Hi Charmaine,
      I especially like your statement about how situations do not define us and how we recover from them does define us. That meeting with my professors made me feel like I was being defined by my situation; I felt like everything I had done so far wasn't enough. But now that I've talked to several different people, I've realized that there is more than one perspective on this situation; at the time of the meeting, it felt like my professors' perspectives were the only ones.
      I actually used to enjoy doing research when I was an undergrad and when I was in the M.A. program. But once I entered the PhD program and learned that my research had to focus more on theory rather than literature, it because less enjoyable.

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