As you can see, I feel like I've hit rock bottom. On the outside I look all successful, in shape and doing a PhD in a prestigious research group. But most of the time in my life I've felt empty, doubting myself and struggling with a weak sense of self and unhealthy thought/behavioural patterns that are hard to shed off. I feel like I've lost any passion for anything, and don't know what I want or need.
I've read tons of psychology/philosophy/self-help over the past 10 years and it helped to some extent. I've also started therapy 2 months ago, but it's going slow and it hasn't been very useful yet. The advice so far has boiled down to "do things you like".
I would be grateful for any of your advice or shared life stories. At the moment I feel like standing in front of a massive pile of broken glass.
I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance.
Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless concern as you’re clearly nearly done with a huge life goal. A life goal that will change the context of your life ever after. Much more than any marriage could even. Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. (Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down.) But a degree is a hurdle you surpass once and get to wave the success of forever after. (Just don’t be a jerk about it, side point.)
Know that on the other side of your phd is a huge weight off your shoulders regardless of failure or successful defense. This time of strife will end when the phd. Freedom is soon.
You’re looking at a time where the job market remains strongly favorable. I graduated into the Great Recession and would have benefited greatly from this market, high interest rates and other things be damned. The future is still bright - just got to get past this last bit.
Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.
OP is perfectly fine to just focus on the degree and know the world will continue on while OP works.
Your framing this as something more than it is is abhorrent.
Marriage is societal cancer.
Marriage isn’t integral to all societies, so much as monogamous partnership is (excluding some rare poly societies).
You also don’t need marriage to procreate , and several societies are built around the concept of children raised by the community.
That said, marriage is certainly the most persistent form of long term bond in history, but it’s not always borne out of mutual desire. It’s often been as much a means of politics as it has been of love.
Warren Buffett says the factor which most contributes to your future wealth is who you pick to marry. Do you feel lucky?
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Happily-Ever-After-Enduring/d...
Meaning, the "validity" of marriage is built into the power hierarchy. The same power hierarchy that determines whether a couple should stay together. People are going to get together. Wouldn't it be better if they could just be together without the need for an authority?
With empathy to the OP, this sentence > Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down
Is also kind of fucked up. There's no particular reason to suggest their partner left because they were unwilling to support a partner through a tough time. Maybe it is the case. But that's a very aggressive assumption that implicitly strips the lost partner of any individual autonomy.
I think I agree with 1 year out, but I would be surprised if this hasn't been going on for longer.
Ungenerous translation: That thing that's been really important to you for four years -- just forget about it. If you stop feeling bad about it that you'll stop feeling bad about it. Also marriage is objectively a silly institution. Sounds like you'd like to get married. Maybe that makes you silly. Getting a PhD though -- that's going to change your life forever! You'll be proud! If you're not proud because you don't like your sub-field, well ... maybe that also makes you silly!
To the OP: Sounds like stuff's really hard right now. I'm sorry for that. Grad school is damn hard some times and relationships are too. If find the above advice reassuring or helpful, great! If not, try to brush it off and read other more supportive comments. I hope things get better for you soon.
Excellent observations.
"[I am a] broken pile of glass" != "[I need to hear about the] job market" kind of situation.
As I read their posting, it's more of a "help me develop my emotional intelligence."
Deep psychological work is going to take longer than a year, cost $$$$, could be fleeting, and clearly not going to finish the degree in a year.
Or quit the program and start a new life. But I’d strongly advise OP first honestly discuss that with their mentors.
Life absolutely will go on and the market will find a place for OPs work in either direction.
Depending on how you see the marriage. Did people or God[1] invent it? TBH, I'm wondering if you are / were married or just talking.
- Marriage is not about finding the right person, but rather BE the right person.
- Don't expect a not perfect person to fulfill your desires, but rather try to be there to support the other.
- Don't try to change the person. You fell in love in the end with that person. Why change her/him?
[1] I know that this might not be popular on HN. I can accept that.
As others have mentioned, you are arguably not as close to rock bottom as one can be. I hit rock bottom when I lost my home, my job, my ability to walk, was on assistance and bought my groceries with food stamps. How I got to rock bottom is a story for a meeting.
I found solace in recovery. Recovery is different for everyone as is rock bottom. Therefore if you feel you've lost more than you were willing to and you're at a precipice of a major life change that will bring you up out from the bottom, or you'll find rock bottom can even be lower than your realize. Again, what that means is going to be different for everyone, but if you have a need that you must change something in order to be better, then you already know what to do. Obviously if you're addicted to heroin, that change would be sobriety and recovery.
I'm not trying to give you answers as those are things you're going to have to figure out for yourself.
You've been around for three decades and been adulting for less than one. You've got at least 4 more decades to define yourself and your life. The best part is, you are the director, producer and actor in how that future pans out.
Rock bottom is a complete dismantling of your life. Failed relationships (romantic, friendly, professional, etc), lost job, bills piling up, apartment a disaster, inability to build a mental model that can cope with your current situation.
It looks more like you're in a relative minimum. From what I understand about psychology a healthy balanced life generally follows a pattern of building yourself up to a relative maximum, getting something completely wrong that challenges the framework you've built to orient yourself in the world, hitting a relative minimum, and learning to build yourself back up to a new relative maximum.
Consider the alternative, where there are no relative minimums. That would imply you either know everything, in which case your trajectory would be completely flat or ascending indefinitely. Well, that certainly can't be the case because not even the most brilliant people in history knew everything.
There is no advice or shortcut we can give that your therapist hasn't given you. These things take time. There is something about life that you've gotten wrong. This is your opportunity to learn what it is, fix it, build a new mental model, and prepare yourself to not make the same mistakes again.
You're in the fortunate position to have a lot of opportunity. More people are in the dysfunctional family history boat than you think. Sounds like you've done well, despite that.
Keep going.
“Rock bottom” is whatever negative experience is sufficient to get you to volubtarily rethink and commit to changing the life choices that produced that experience. It's where you personally decide to draw the line, not some objective maximum acheivable misery.
However, I disagree and would agree that rock bottom in essence is where where the maximum achievable misery has been met. If life is a ladder, your still on that ladder, you can still progress. All you've done is fallen and experienced life in reality; you can grow from and continue.
If your not attached to the bottom peg, your at the bottom of the ladder with nothing but yourself, you've reached rock bottom. Being homeless is rock bottom.
From wiki: “A period of extreme mental stress, often characterized by being homeless and being rejected by all friends and family.”
To me rock bottom is a storytelling term. So it’s relative to the story that is being told.
Like, "Really? Criticize them?" That is why I'd avoid it.
Everything else written about "takes time" @prhn is great and healthy IMO.
I've realized this is kind of what my mental model has lead to, the worst part is I don't really know how to fix it or change. Fortunately I have years of living expenses if needed, have insurance and a number of close friends. However, WFH has gotten me to a point where it's a struggle to even do a few leetcode problems a day, work on contracting or even make a youtube video. Insurance doesn't cover mental healthcare and it never really helped before.
My #1 piece of advice is, find a new therapist.
Therapy isn't one size fits all. You need to not only find the right type of "modality" for you (e.g. CBT and IFS* are worlds apart, generally you want somebody "integrative/eclectic" who will combine the right modalities for you), but you also simply need to find somebody to click with. It really does depend on trust and chemistry to a shockingly large degree.
I know multiple people who did years of therapy that was next to useless, then found a new therapist that just 2-4 sessions made a huge difference.
It's entirely normal and expected to "shop around" with therapists. Try an initial 1-2 sessions with 3-4 different therapists, and be upfront with them about what you're doing as well. They won't take it personally -- they're therapists -- and they're even more aware than you that therapeutic outcomes are super dependent on just finding the right personal match.
When you find the right therapist who is really in tune with you, you can go from having a "breakthrough" every couple of years, to every couple of sessions. It's crazy how different the outcomes can be, and how few people are even aware that the outcomes can be so different.
(Note that this is less applicable to CBT which is very recipe-oriented, paint-by-numbers, surface-level treatment. CBT can be great as a short-term fix for distorted thinking patterns, but it's not designed to address anything deeper, so a good match with a therapist matters less.)
* CBT = cognitive behavioral therapy, IFS = internal family systems
The poster talks about being Distant from Friends, and recently Separated. Also they talk about growing up in a Toxic Family - another "bell ring" for the "feeling unsupported" song. Advising them to swap out a ANOTHER emotionally supportive person in their life, their therapist, is going to cause them further abandonment - it's going to cause them to suffer.
So, come at that specific advice from a different direction. Advise them instead to open up to the therapist more. The problem doesn't yet seem to be an incompetent therapist. It's more that their relationship is still shallow.
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There is so much truth in it, that even the German medical insurance system understood this and made it so that the first five sessions with a therapist are only for getting the feel of each other. Only after that you settle for the therapist or for "real" therapy (paid by the insurance). The first sessions are also paid, but you can switch until you find the right fit (if one can find an appointment in Germany, but that is another story).
So please, OP, look for someone more fitting.
Apparently she is specialised for adult children of complicated parents. And apparently next time we will do some questionnaire or something. So far we have only talked and she suggested one book ("iRest - Healing PTSD") which I started reading. She is supportive, but so far she mostly said I should find things I like doing, join sports clubs, try mindfulness and basic stuff like that. I know that my issues run deeper.
I second the previous commenter’s opinion. Therapists all have their individual ways of seeing and working. What works wonders for one person will be a waste of time for another. If you’re not getting much out of it, keep looking for someone that can help YOU.
If you are challenged and you dont want to face the hard issues you quit and find another one.
Not about jumping therapists every three or six months.
Also, people who can't face the hard issues generally just quit therapy altogether. They don't usually jump therapists. Switching therapists really is usually because it's not working, and more of the same therapist isn't going to help.
The hardest thing for me was that I still loved her, but of course rationally didn't want to (mother of my 3 kids). One trick I used was to disconnect the real person with the person I loved. This allowed me to still love the person in my head, but not the real one (sounds stupid but it really worked). Basically "the person that I love is in my head and doesn't exist. The real person just looks like her".
Rock bottom means you have nothing left to lose, or at least you feel like it. For me it felt kind of liberating. Because if you have nothing left to lose, there are only things to gain. You can take stupid risks and it won't matter anyway.
Your breakup is still fresh, so try to talk to some friends who went through a similar thing.
Hang in there, it will get better.
It won't get better. That is appearing to be the concern of the OP.
IMO the OP needs to be supported and nurtured during this transition. So, finding self-care anywhere they can is the advice I'd say. And for the long-term, advice from a therapist can help train their child-mind to better handle this dynamic life.
It’s really in these moments that you can define yourself, that you reach out for philosophy and literature and ways to cope and face life.
As they say: life is made of failures, and it’s always about how you bounce back (not how you avoid failing)
The second thing is that life is made of multiple sub lives. Your life as a toddler was nothing like your teenage years, which was nothing like your adult life, which will look nothing like your life as an old person.
Transitioning is always hard, but growing as a person is also about accepting that we are not meant to live the same little cushy and stable life that we got accustomed to for too many years.
Breaking up is one thing, at some point close people to you will die, you will lose some of your physical abilities, etc.
The best thing you can do is find a strong philosophy of life, and not worry too much about what your life was or what your life will be. Just enjoy the moment.
Enjoy your experience as a human being. All of it.
This is one of the hardest aspects of depression, one which I'm struggling with right now again, actually.
Having been in this place many times in my life, my best advice is:
Do things first. If you do enough things, passion will flow from that. (wouldn't hurt if those things were plausibly interesting or valuable to someone).
The natural alternate philosophy is much less likely to work, which is: wait or or look for things you are passionate in, before investing effort. This is more likely to support a catch-22 cycle of depression.
But, the mind doesn't actually work this way. Nothing is objectively worthy of passion. Successful movie stars get bored of fame. I've listened to researchers passionately fulfilled by studying literal garbage.
Our brain learns to find meaning in things as we invest and explore them.
Our feelings and values change over time.
When depressed, you predict you will never feel better, or care more about things. That sort of prediction is empirically very unreliable for depressed people.
I would want to hit the road. I would pause the PhD and go on a long road trip. Alternatively, I would set about hiking one of the longer trails in the U.S.
Clichéd? Maybe. But I have found the most peace and serenity in my life when on the road, broken out of my constant circles.
A rather extreme measure? Yeah, bailing on the PhD seems rather extreme but, future me, looking back on this phase of my life would absolutely agree it was the right thing to do at the time. (And here I should emphasize, this is me talking to me — your mileage may vary.)
There was only one similar period in my life and, while I didn't know about the long trails in the U.S. and didn't otherwise really have the financial means, I did cut all the cords I could at that time: work, place I was living, toxic friends, etc. My long-distance girlfriend had not "dumped" me, instead she was, again, off in college rooming with someone else. I decided at that moment to write a letter telling her I am leaving her.
So very much a clean break in my life.
It was strange to be standing there at the bottom of that well in my life but in hindsight I see that it was the point where everything started just slowly getting better. I think emotionally, and self-esteem-wise I had finally begun to feel like I had "agency" (to use a popular term these days).
Oh, I started listening to very different music then, took up the guitar and started playing... Whole new set of friends as well. I may have started smoking then as well — don't ever do that.
I am planning to take out a few months after the PhD to do something crazy. Like hike New Zealand top to bottom, or US east to west road trip or living a couple months in a small Italian seaside town or Pacific island to decompress from society, or become truly conscious about our society (visit all the places that support our society like waste plants, sewers, drinking water plants, electricity plants, farmers, distribution centres, ports, mass food production centres, clothing factories, oil refineries, paper factories, etc.).