Survivor Chronicle 1: To PhD ….or not to PhD…

Hi my name is Sue and I am a chemical engineer ... so I think... and It took me forever to write this and another forever to decide to post it and just be naked and transparent with you… and so here it is…

I never thought I would have a middle life crisis, let alone having it at 27 years old. Here I am, full speed into my 4th year of doctoral studies in chemical engineering, unable to pass my PhD proposal defense. The irony is that I was always known as the smart one throughout my entire life. When everything could be crumbling down in my life, I could rely on my brain, my focus, my intellectual creativity to keep me going. And so, after meeting with my PhD advisor a couple of days before my proposal defense, with tears in my eyes, because it felt like I would never get how to do this proposal properly, I went browsing on Instagram and saw a headline: “Vogue Model and aspiring doctor found dead in her dorm room”. I found myself thinking “why couldn’t this be me instead of this girl… I could escape the weight of expectations of my parents, I could escape this avalanche of bad decisions and that would spare me the humiliation of quitting your PhD.”

Here I was having suicide thoughts: the days I spent pursuing my PhD in Chemical Engineering were some of my darkest days. It was a brutal transition from being the smartest student in all my classes, since I can remember, to struggling to make a dissertation research based hypothesis. It’s common knowledge that getting a PhD is hard. In fact on the first week of my doctoral studies, I remember one of my professors saying that “you do not get to have vacation… only when you graduate that you get to enjoy vacation”. This means that if you are not staying up all night working, skipping meals, you are doing it wrong.

I did not enter graduate school expecting to get an easy ride. In fact I was mortified of the idea that it would be so hard that I wouldn’t be able to do it (law of attraction maybe, who knows) but I was sure that I would figure it out along the way and that I will be supported in laying the right bricks that will contribute to finishing my PhD. However what I was not expecting was my mental state to deteriorate.

I felt alone, unsupported, isolated with never-ending criticism. It was a combination of intellectual challenges and work-load. I was confused because I did not know where to get help. My advisor?... That’s why they are here you might think! At least that’s what I thought but upon asking her for clarification about something, she told me to use my brain…(The pain I felt when hearing that was later used to fuel me but at the time of said expression I felt unsupported and dumb).
On top of feeling like I didn’t have what it takes because everyone else seemed fine, I was going through a breakup…. (Double trouble)… I couldn’t talk to anyone (Even my best friend), because well… I was the smart girl who was supposed to have it all figured out. Also getting a therapist did not even cross my mind because in my country of origin there are no such things. And so, I was in an endless limbo of anxiety attacks. I turned toward Religion for support by God seemed so far away. I started to think that I wanted to die.

Little did I know that it was a common experience amongst the oh-so-intelligent community! Out of desperation I began to just google stuff and I found that a study at the University of California Berkeley reported that 47% of graduate students suffer from depression, following a previous 2005 study that showed 10% had contemplated suicide. Another study found that the rate of mental illness in academic staff was three to four times higher than in the general population, according to a New Scientist article. The same article notes that the percentage of academics with mental illness in the United Kingdom has been estimated to be at 53%.

So I WAS NOT ALONE!!!

Among graduate students competing for a handful of professorial jobs, too many people assume that psychological problems are only for the weak. I was talking to my cousin who told me that her best-friend which is a PhD student in biology was diagnosed with anxiety and depression and all she did was taking antidepressants and working harder. She did not seek help. That reminded me of myself who just tripled her all-nighters instead of talking to someone and when things did not quickly improve, reverted to more isolation which just reinforced this idea that I was an imposter. My lab-mates seemed to be doing just fine. This was part of my problem. I felt as if I’d gotten this far in my academic career by fluke, and that the top grades I’d received during my undergraduate had been pure luck or that my IQ lowered. This fed into my anxiety as well as my depression.

Imposter syndrome is a frequent problem among high-achieving students who find themselves surrounded with others like them, according to a sociology professor from New Jersey. “It’s very common to feel an incompetent fraud, and usually to assume you’re the only one who feels that way,” she says. Prospective PhD students should go in thinking about how they will handle psychological challenges as well as intellectual ones. And like everyone says, choosing your advisor is like choosing your life-partner. The only different is that “life” is only 5-7 years. And even after knowing all this, being the last student of my promotion to graduate (even people who came in after me are graduating before me) still makes me feel like I was alone in this journey.

• Nevertheless I am thinking of starting an awareness/support group for PhD student to discuss this issue and provide support. Although this journey was like walking in hell, I learned a lot about myself and that’s my comfort. And if you are going through something similar, know that you are not the only therefore DO NOT BE AFRAID to seek help… We are not meant to struggle alone and the help you need is right at the end of a message or an email and this will guarantee more victories and positive lessons learned from the situations. So Don’t make the same mistakes I made…

I hope that someone who needs it reads this…

With that said….
Until my next post…