My biggest stressor in grad school has been a communication issue with a mentor figure, which has resulted in roadblocks in my research progress and general feelings of non-belonging in my program. On bad days, of which there were many, this translated to rumination spirals that lasted several hours and almost always ended in crying spells. Seeing a therapist in town every week has been enormously helpful, as well as going on anti-depressants. It took a couple years, but I finally feel empowered in my research, teaching, and leadership and social roles on campus again. I feel like I’m going into the new academic year stronger than ever.

A huge anxiety of mine is public speaking, which my program requires a lot of. At its worst, I would be completely wracked with anxiety before a presentation — I couldn’t sleep the night before, worked myself up to the point of extreme nausea the morning of, and in the hours/moments before a talk, my heart would pound so hard and fast that it was literally all I could hear. During the actual talk, I couldn’t control my voice, pacing, eye contact, or fidgeting. Worst of all, these extremely stressful experiences made me unable to enjoy the act of sharing research that I’m passionate about, or to be psychologically present while getting feedback and answering questions about it. Eventually I saw a psychiatrist and got prescribed medication (beta blockers), which help tremendously with the physiological symptoms of anxiety I would otherwise experience before a talk. No more pounding heart in my ears! I could actually slow down, engage with my audience, and have an enjoyable time presenting. This has been an absolute game-changer for me. After opening up about how much beta blockers have helped me, I’ve heard from others who also take them when they need to — including a very impressive professor who told me he takes beta blockers before high-stress presentations, even after being successful in the field for many, many years. Practice and exposure helps a lot and their importance can’t be under-stated, but I personally needed the extra help of medication, and I’m so relieved I was able to overcome my own internalized stigma to try something that has completely changed my relationship to public speaking.

I have PTSD as a result of an abusive childhood, and grad school has in many ways exacerbated the symptoms that I experience on a daily basis. Just a while ago, a professor behaved in an unnecessarily aggressive and dismissive manner towards me, and made me feel publicly humiliated. While other students would also find this experience upsetting, I found it triggering. Luckily, I have been going to therapy for years, and the skills I learned in dealing with “crisis situations” like these were very helpful in averting a full-blown panic attack. Grad school is tough, and individuals with pre-existing mental health conditions often have an even tougher time without others realizing it. That’s why I’ve always thought that the most important thing in academic and professional life is to be kind, even when you have to be critical.

Positive affirmation and validation from peers and advisors for several years now has been a source of heightened anxiety and depression. This has largely occurred since this positive reinforcement and encouragement has been reconfigured from a source of comfort and guidance to being seen by me as a new level of expectations that people have imposed on me, and that I in turn need to meet and continue to strive past in every aspect of my professional life. Breaking this “pattern of disbelief” in recasting positivity as negativity has been greatly aided by therapy. It has become easier to see phrases like “you can do this” and “you continue to break new ground and set new bars” as beneficial to my mental health rather than debilitating and crippling. While my imposter syndrome is still alive and well, I am now better able to take these encouragements in a positive way rather than as something always needing to be surpassed.

My roommate seems to have a very exploitative advisor, who won’t let his students take a break from working, even on weekends. She got depressed over her years at Princeton and has been seeing counselors for a few years. I’m trying to be a very supportive and caring roommate but I don’t think that is enough and I don’t know whom to turn to for help.

It’s hard to figure out what kind of relationship I am supposed to have with my classmates. We’re sort of like co-workers but it also feels like we’re expected to be friends. When I first got to my program, I felt like a black sheep. All of my classmates seemed to be from the same wealthy neighborhoods and were just out of college. I had a family, was used to working in an office and maintaining some separation between my private and professional life, and had different cultural norms that seemed to clash with what the rest of the students did. The first year, where we’re all trapped in classes together, was especially hard. I felt judged for not going out with them every week and for not being as open about my private life as they were. I hated feeling like we HAD to be friends — with that heavy pressure to overshare to create closeness — a tactic that I remembered others using during my freshman year of college. It got worse over the course of the year, where it was clear I was being excluded from things. The work in grad school was already very demanding and isolating me from my friends/family outside of school. To also have to deal with these weird social politics in my department was hard. I figured I had to accept it for what it was and powered through the work and the discomfort.

By my second year, I knew more of the older students and finally felt like I had some friends. I also had more control over my schedule and could study things more closely tied to my interests, which helped enormously. I had the “aha! This is why I am doing this degree!” moment for the first time. It got a lot better, even though some of the weird social stuff remains. I just try to stay focused and curious about what is to come. I make sure I get enough sleep and I exercise regularly to deal with the anxiety and doubt that comes with grad school. I try to be open with my family and friends about what I am going through so they can support me in the ways they can. I found this last part is especially important — I tried to protect them from it for a long time, but that damaged my relationships. They wanted to be there for me and it seemed like I was hiding something. Sometimes I just needed to say aloud, “I feel sad and scared,” and they would acknowledge my feelings and tell me it was normal to feel that way. Those moments made me feel less lonely.

When I first started the program, I felt excited – but soon became discouraged by the constant need to shape and reshape my project as it was only getting underway. There was a lot of guesswork, a lot of adjustments, and no path taken seemed correct. I felt like I didn’t know anything, didn’t belong, and couldn’t stand the fact that things were changing every day. I was feeling hopeless and anxious about my future, and decided to start seeing a therapist. My therapist helped me understand that I should be reaching out to people instead of isolating myself. Due to their advice, the annoying changes became adventures. The project didn’t seem so daunting once I had people to share my thoughts with and to reach out to for help. It sounds simple, I know – but it took me a long time to get here. And now, I feel excited again.

I was so stressed that I couldn’t do anything anymore except for lying on my bed. Seeing someone at CPS improved my condition very quickly.

In my department, I have my usual morning routine. I post the day’s meeting schedule; refill the coffee dispensers; distribute the mail; answer my emails; review my calendar and prepare for the day’s tasks as a faculty assistant. On a particular Monday afternoon, my usual weekly meeting with my department manager runs slightly overtime and we both have to rush to the same staff training. As I walk brusquely beside her, I feel the gulf between us. I hastily enter the classroom for the Princeton Distress Awareness and Response training for administrative staff, squeeze into a seat in between two desk armrests and rest my notebook on top of one of them ready for the notes I will not take. I notice the empty chair in between my manager and me. Once settled, I surreptitiously glance around the packed room and take in about fifty people some of whom I recognize. The ratio of 1 to 5 reverberates in my mind. I quickly calculate ten. Ten people in this room have a diagnosable mental health difference according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. I refocus and hear the Director of Counseling and Psychological Services at the front of the room state assuredly that we will be given the tools to provide support to students by recognizing the signs of distress and knowing the resources for action. He then takes a fresh piece of white chalk out of a box and writes methodically across the top of the chalkboard from the left side of the room to the right in tall letters three headings, Academic – Emotional – Physical. As I participate in answering each question that checks off a list of warning signs under each heading, I think of which ones I have experienced, withdrawn – check, crying spells – check, sleeplessness – check, and wonder if anyone else in the room self-evaluates in their seat. In my mind, I recall my own suicide attempt and previous hospitalizations. I listen as one by one other staff confidently volunteer answers for each list as if to reinforce that they are not the ones in distress including me as if with each answer I could increase my chances to be seen as one of the majority and deny that I am one of the ten.

What does that mean? Every weekday I wake up and go to work and execute my responsibilities to the best of my ability, but I also live with the fear that if I ask for accommodations or reveal my disability that I will be treated differently, discounted or viewed as a ticking time bomb. What is my disability? I was diagnosed at the age of 24 with bipolar disorder I, mixed episode, meaning that I can simultaneously experience depression, mania and delusions as the spectrum shifts. But I have been in remission for eight years and depend on daily medication, exercise, healthy diet, adequate sleep, therapy, psychiatric care, support from family and friends, and art.

I am part of a community of sixteen artists that have studios housed in a building called Art Station located in Hightstown. There in my studio I sculpt with prescription bottles and draw on a collection of medication guides to create work with mad pride that not only addresses my mental health experience, but also through interaction invites people to consider their own and how they support others. I have given artist talks at chapters of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and at national conferences like the College Art Association and exhibited my art across the country to break stigma, fight prejudice, and dispel stereotypes. People have confided to me their own experiences as a mental health survivor or the challenges they have faced in understanding a family member with a mental illness. I believed I was an advocate for neurodiversity, but I was confronted by my own silence at Princeton University until now.

I self-identify as someone with an invisible disability of bipolar disorder who is Thai American, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend, an artist and a survivor. My disability of mental health difference is a part of my cultural identity through which I view the world and has given me the ability to empathize with others who have disabilities. I hope that the other nine people can read this and know that it is okay to be in the minority and they are not alone. We are a part of the rich diversity of this campus community. I am not brave to come out if it is not out of the ordinary, but accepted and embraced. I am your colleague and I am bridging the gulf.

Yes. Parenting is SO hard. Princeton does not do enough to support parents, who are juggling being a graduate student and parent. We need AFFORDABLE on-campus daycare and a much bigger childcare allowance. The new graduate student college should have ON SITE daycare. I should not have to own a car to bring my child to daycare

In my second and third year of graduate school, my research was under a tight bottleneck. Together with other stress both in academic and in life, it made me lose 10 pounds in 3 months, face interpersonal issues, and led to suicidal thoughts. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough support at that time. Questions from people close to me such as “I don’t understand why [what you are working on] is it so hard” and “I can’t believe a Princeton graduate student has nothing in their mind” were hurtful and made me blame myself for procrastinating and not working hard enough. I was living in perpetual guilt. One day a professor saw me much thinner than before, and asked me to take care of myself. I immediately cried. Someone cared about me! Later on, I got better or worse from time to time. In the Spring of my fourth year, I once again had a lot of trouble concentrating and suicidal thoughts returned.  I decided to go home for 10 days to take care of myself. It turned out to be much needed. After I got back to Princeton, I decided that I didn’t want to buy an expensive plane ticket to go home every time I’m not feeling well, so I finally turned to CPS for help. Since then, I started learning more about myself and methods to help myself. I also became more open with friends and spent more time doing what interests me rather than being the person other people expect me to be. These changes  made me feel more powerful day by day. I’m still on the journey of recovery: I’m worried that the change of season and shortened day time will reignite my depression, and the discouraging voice from the past is still in my head to this day. The good thing is I can finally openly talk about what I’ve experienced.

Towards the end of my first year of graduate school, I tried to commit suicide due to isolation from friends, the loss of a support network, and the pressure of ‘not good enough’. Ultimately, what helped was finally being on the proper medication. Just like any physical illness, being on the correct medication is important. And being on medication doesn’t mean you’re ‘weak’. Being mindful of burnout, of needing space, of disconnecting your worth from grades and numbers, eating and sleeping well — those can help, but just like how drinking orange juice won’t cure cancer, pharmaceutical treatment can be a necessary component of mental health.

In undergrad, my lab had a fantastic post-doc who made everyone (including the undergrads!) feel like valued members of the group. He not only organized the group to get work done efficiently, but also created a warm and friendly social atmosphere with regular group lunches/dinners and just a general sense of belonging and family. The culture of my lab here at Princeton is vastly different. Grad students often feel a lot of pressure to get work done unreasonably quickly. We set unrealistic goals and then constantly feel like failures when we have to report at group meetings that we didn’t meet our deadlines. Expectations are often unclear and the majority of the burden of the lab’s work usually falls on only a few graduate students. It can be difficult to value one’s own time and to set healthy boundaries when that is not the culture of the group. Individually, the people in the lab are wonderful, lovely people, but together, we have created a somewhat toxic environment. It has taken me quite some time to recognize that I can’t be dependent on my advisor or post docs to guide my education and career trajectory. As grad students, we are not technicians in a boss/employee model. Our purpose is not to churn out work for our advisors (especially not at the expense of our sanity) but to learn and grow so that we can prepare ourselves for our longer-term careers. We are in grad school because we decided to be here to better ourselves. Realizing that has been incredibly empowering and liberating for me. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to tell our advisors that we don’t want a career in academia or that we dislike one aspect of lab work and would prefer to focus our time on a different set of tasks. Something that has helped me feel better is to try to be more like that post-doc I admired so much in my undergrad. I don’t get to work with him anymore, but perhaps I can be some approximation of that person for the younger students in my lab, and that gives me hope.

The night before Generals, I was surrounded by all my study materials, and I felt so unprepared.  I just lay on the floor and cried until I fell asleep. I went on to pass by the skin of my teeth. It took me a while to summon up the courage, but I went to Princeton Counseling, and ended up starting to see a psychiatrist. I’m still far from okay, but I’m now able to stay functional, and I think I’m getting a little better every day.

Although not particularly socially awkward, I often feel very embarrassed after an encounter with acquaintances/friends/professors. I can often identify what I did wrong during the encounter (e.g. talking too much, not being considerate enough, not making a smooth enough conversation transition, messing up details when hosting guests, messing up something on the board during a group meeting, feeling like I have become too comfortable with my prof and forgotten my manners, etc). I can spend hours agonizing over it.

For years my mind would fantasize over cutting myself as a punishment. Fortunately I care a lot about following social norms so I would head to the gym instead to experience pain in a socially acceptable manner (I find treadmill slightly faster than normal to be the most effective). I feel like going to the gym really does help improve my mood. It gets the stress out of my system and it is not dangerous. More importantly, my friends and my advisor have been very supportive to me, despite my many failings. I think the supportive environment has drastically reduced the level of stress and dread I experience when I do something incorrectly, knowing that even if people noticed they would probably forgive me. I have also learned to say “thank you for your advice” to my inner critical voice and take it as a helpful critique of areas I could improve on rather than an evaluation of my self worth. Overall, the situation has improved a lot since I came to Princeton, and I am very grateful for this.

I often feel like I don’t belong in Princeton. Everyone in my department seems to be very excited and passionate about their research. They live and breathe the subject and enjoy discussing their work and new papers in the field over dinner and at parties. I find this exhausting. I like to compartmentalize work into its own box. I give it my all when I’m in lab, but I want to spend my time and attention on other things when I’m at home or out with friends. I have many interests outside of my research and feel like there are many career trajectories I could have taken if I had not decided to pursue graduate school. I sometimes feel like I am simply not “nerdy” enough to be taken seriously in my department, and I often have to pretend that I understand (or even care about) what others are discussing in social settings. This often makes me feel like a fraud and an outsider. I don’t see myself pursuing a career in academia, and I think my peers (even more than my advisor) would find this unsettling. As a woman in STEM, I suspect some of my peers would even view me as a “bad example,” since I am contributing to the “leaky pipeline” in pursuing some of my other interests/talents. I am not free to be an individual with my own ambitions without repercussions, because I have the burden of representing an entire group of people. I recently got married, and the truth is that I really do care more about my family than my work, however “traditional” that may be. I want to have kids sooner rather than later, but I have been told again and again that it is difficult to be taken seriously and to be offered post-doc positions as a pregnant woman. Even my parents who used to badger me about grandkids when I wasn’t even in a relationship have now told me that I should put my life on hold until my career is more set. I understand their logic in this advice, but I don’t want something as important as the timing of my own children to be beholden to other peoples’ arbitrary prejudices. What has helped is a close-knit group of supportive friends in whom I can confide as well as my amazing husband. Having a support network makes a huge difference, especially when feeling socially alone in my department. I think it is also super helpful to have close friends outside of Princeton to help keep me grounded.

There are times that I feel such overwhelming stress and fear and obligation and hopelessness pushing down on me that I can’t leave my apartment. There are days that I feel such mounting anxiety with every step towards my office that I feel like I’m choking and have to turn around. There are the panic attacks (a wonderful new development just in time for writing my dissertation), the rumination spirals, the self-recrimination, the isolation, the hopelessness. So what helps? Sharing with others has been surprisingly liberating and supportive. I’ve kept these struggles largely invisible to others (partly from the shame of having these problems – which of course just reinforces the problem), but almost every time I’ve shared my experiences with someone, I find they are not unique. I am not alone, and you are not alone. The commonality of depression and anxiety in grad school speaks to structural problems of graduate education – not a personal or moral failure in me, or you, or any other grad student struggling with mental health. This reflects a failure of institutions (PIs, research groups, departments, universities, funding agencies) to prioritize our well-being in a meaningful way.

Barring the dismantling of toxic academic culture, what else helps? I’ve found medication and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy enormously helpful. Medication gave me the space to start working on myself, while CBT helped with identifying unhealthy thought patterns, developing positive habits, and putting structures in my life that help me stay balanced. I work every day to prioritize myself and my wellbeing and to define success in graduate school on my own terms. I lean on my friends and family. I spend time outdoors. And I remind myself that it gets better. It’s hard and it’s a struggle, but it can and will get better.

I have OCD. My help and healing are from my religion. I believe God has forgiven all my sins through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. He has given me new life and peace that surpasses understanding. He puts everything in perspective and further heals my mind every day. Without Him (and the loving, steadfast, forgiving community that comes with Him) I’d be utterly lost. Besides turning to God for everlasting peace and joy, here are two practical things that calm the mind: running and breathing meditation (which can be seen as a form of contemplative — as opposed to verbal — prayer). Also, avoiding caffeine has helped.

Depression crept up slowly during my time in graduate school. I used to think I was, paradoxically, both one of the angriest and one of the happiest people I knew, a sense of purposeful outrage and moral disgruntlement being (I thought) the flipside of the coin of joyful energy and vitality. Over time, and thanks in large part to escalating political events, I began to realize that rage was killing me slowly: poisoning my wellbeing, hindering my relationships, and making me increasingly avoidant of even simple tasks. For a long time this was a bigger problem for my personal wellbeing than for my scholarly work (which often was a joyful respite from terrible dealings), but eventually the latter couldn’t but be affected by my descent into lifelessness and despair. I re-entered therapy in 2017, a first crucial step, and have since invested a great deal of energy and earnestness into my personal recovery. One of the greatest challenges in this has been to tune out, or put in perspective, the Princetontian voices (which are often subliminal but sometimes quite explicit) that tell me that my academic work is the reason to get better, rather than something that will naturally and happily benefit from the work that I do to thrive as a human being. The ideology of this feverish moment in late capitalism makes it all too commonly assumed that the reason to thrive is so you can be productive (i.e. for an employer or institution). That idea itself is a cause of depression, and I’ve been hard-pressed to find this kind of instrumentalizing thinking sufficiently refuted or disrupted at Princeton. What has been of the greatest help to me is to speak honestly about my experiences with depression and alienation with others who understand or at least are willing to listen deeply. A thriving community–both personal communities and collaborative work communities–is what I seek, and the precarity of these (even once carefully and lovingly established) is a great source of loneliness and depression. I have found that many individuals at Princeton are hungry for a little authenticity and honesty and have responded extremely favorably when I have opened up about my experience; and yet the normalization of ongoing, unattended suffering as part of the academic game that’s supposed to be taken as a matter of course and born with a stiff upper lip is widespread at Princeton, including within my own department. In other words, the stigma around mental health continues unabated even as we hear endless talk about the need for a “conversation” about mental health on campuses. I am waiting for the day it becomes actually okay to talk about, not just okay to talk about talking about it. This will not get better until the culture and values of academia improve and we learn to prioritize full human beings, not just functionaries who produce impressive data or research. Bell Hooks says teachers have a responsibility to self-actualize so as to be able to support their students in doing so; it’s not something I’ve ever heard someone say at Princeton, but I believe it from the bottom of my heart and have taken the greatest comfort of all in being a teacher and preceptor so that I can put this belief into practice in my own classroom.

Many people seem to think that everyone at places like Princeton suffers from impostor syndrome and that feelings of intellectual inadequacy are always the problem. This is not true; some of us have no doubts about whether we belong because we are minorities, and there is no one else like us in eyesight on campus to do what we do and say what we know. The problem is that it can be extremely alienating to be a minority on campus, and even more so in supposedly liberal contexts that advertise inclusiveness but refuse to make any of the changes necessary to make the space truly accessible to different kinds of people. For my own part, it is a big problem that I have had to work so hard to create a space for gender-nonconforming and nonbinary students on campus. I’ve never in my life had a teacher or professor who is nonbinary like me, or any other such role-model. I used to think that was because I was the only one, but now I see that people like me have always existed and have just been driven underground by a widespread and deeply entrenched discomfort with challenges to the gender-binary. I constantly have to explain and re-explain my gender to my own professors, and face the humiliation of being misgendered (often in front of a class) on a regular basis. Perhaps even worse is the conversation I’ve had more times than I can count in which I’m told not to let this distract me from my school work, or that identity isn’t relevant to scholarship and needn’t come up in classes. Others seem to think scholars like me are all naturally gender scholars and that it’s therefore only necessary to talk about identity and politics in a class about gender or race. What would make it easier to thrive on campuses for many minorities is for it to be understood that no material is apolitical, and that every discipline and field must be actively made accessible to all kinds of scholars. I don’t just want to see people like me teaching gender studies, but all fields. It brings great joy and relief from loneliness and depression to do what small things I can to bring these visions into reality; but I can’t deny the pain I feel at every roadblock. It’s been a long haul, and there seems to be little understanding on campuses of just how much long-term, low-grade alienation can degrade a human being and scholar.

”I think society strongly overvalues academic intelligence. You can see this in the insane culture of parents trying to get their kids into the best pre-school and obsessing over their children’s IQs. It’s unhealthy and frankly absurd. At least in my experience, I have significant doubts that my ability to succeed academically has really improved my life in any measurable way. I’m stressed out most of the time, depressed, and filled with continuous existential dread. My feelings of anxiety and depression have only increased in response to the pandemic. Graduate school is stressful on good days, toxic on bad days. Despite all the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into gaining a Ph.D., I am faced with grim academic job prospects, and I’m not sure anymore if an academic career is even the path I want. I’m living in my tiny apartment working all hours of the night in my lab and spending half of my paycheck on rent. I’ve honestly lost interest in my research. I fear my fancy academic career is not really impacting the world in a positive way, whereas other careers that might have required less training and sacrifice would have allowed me to have a more substantial positive impact in the world and perhaps would be more fulfilling.”

”Wow, what a dumpster fire of a year. As if finishing a Ph.D. weren’t hard enough?! Even before the pandemic, I struggled a lot with depression and anxiety. My experience with both feel intensely physical: I feel immense pressure in my chest, like a giant claw is squeezing my heart, or my hands go numb, like they aren’t part of my body, or I feel a deep, gasping emptiness in my gut. Sometimes, I feel all three at the same time.

The anxiety part really made getting help a struggle for me. Even though I KNEW that mental illness isn’t a personal failing, even though I KNEW my friends and colleagues would be immensely supportive, even though I KNEW therapy and medication works because it’s worked FOR ME in the past, I really struggled with shame and embarrassment that I was dealing with this again. And that shame transmuted into paralyzing social anxiety. At one point, I was afraid to even write down my own thoughts in my personal journal because what if in some distant future, my journal is subpoenaed and people discover all my embarrassing feelings, and then it goes viral as some Buzzfeed article about the ‘13 most embarrassing revelations in former Princeton graduate student’s journal’ and then it gets published on the front page of the New York Times, and then I get fired in public disgrace, and then all my friends and family leave me, and then I get sued for misrepresentation and lose my house, and then I’m a failure for the rest of my life? I mean, putting it down like that sounds crazy absurd, but my thinking was sufficiently disordered that I was seriously worried about this actually happening.

So what happened? Well eventually I summed up the courage to call a therapist and schedule an appointment. I got a referral for a psychiatrist and went back on antidepressants. I’ve been seeing both my therapist and psychiatrist for about a year, and it’s made a profound difference in my life. I’ve also started running recently to burn off anxiety energy. It’s not perfect, and things have definitely been exacerbated by the pandemic/forest fires/protests/murder hornets/etc, but I’m doing so much better. This time a year ago, I was ready to leave grad school to hide in a cave somewhere. This time a year ago, I was afraid to say anything. This time a year ago, I was desperate. It gets better. It’s not easy, but it gets better.”

”I’ve developed insomnia since the start of the pandemic. I used to be able to fall asleep almost immediately, but now I lay awake in bed for hours. It’s so frustrating. There’s not even anything in particular I am stressing about late at night. I just can’t seem to quiet my mind enough to sleep. I usually get up after a while to get some additional work done so that I can at least use the time productively. But then I am groggy the next morning and find it difficult to get going. This only compounds the problem, because then I start to rely on late-night hours to get work done, and the cycle continues. When I do eventually get to sleep, I keep having vivid, stressful dreams and waking up in a panic. For example, I had a dream recently that my parents’ cat was sick, but everyone in my family kept telling me she was fine and there was nothing to worry about. I tried calling the vet myself since no one else was doing so, but no one answered the phone. The dream devolved into an infinite loop of calling the vet over and over again without reaching anyone who could help. I think this dream and others I’m having speak to a sense of powerlessness in the face of so much global chaos. I haven’t found a good solution yet.  I’ve been trying to reduce my caffeine intake and to drink a glass of warm milk at night before going to bed. But even then, my insomnia persists.”

“My spouse and I have been discussing our plans to have children. While I am excited and even overjoyed at the idea of growing our family in the near future, I am also terrified. I know that parents are experiencing additional difficulties during the pandemic without access to child care. I am already overwhelmed by grad school and can’t imagine how I could make progress on my dissertation with a child at home. Even if I did reliably have access to child care, it is extremely expensive.  Without knowing how long the pandemic will last and where I might be headed after graduate school, it’s impossible to plan for the future. I’m also anxious thinking about what the world might look like for my future children. But I’m also worried that there will always be reasons to put off having kids, and I don’t want to wait too long.”

 ”I suffered from OCD for a while before getting psychiatric help. Amazing results from cognitive behavioral therapy. Two books that helped greatly: (1) Can Christianity Cure Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder? A Psychiatrist Explores the Role of Faith in Treatment, by Dr. Ian Osborn. (I was encouraged to learn that Martin Luther, among other major Christian figures, had OCD and found faith therapeutic). And (2) Brain Lock by Dr. Jeffrey Schwartz. I thank God for my healing. I am grateful to psychiatry and modern medicine, but above all I am grateful to Jesus my ultimate healer. ‘He bore our sicknesses and carried our pains’ (Isaiah 53:4). If you are being suffocated by obsessive thoughts, get help!”

”I’m having difficulties communicating effectively with my advisor. As grad students, our advisors have a tremendous amount of power over our futures. My advisor has made some *ambiguous* comments about my work recently that make me concerned they won’t write strong letters of recommendation for me in the future. I’m not sure if it’s just my advisor being socially awkward or if this is something I should worry about. I find it difficult to ‘read’ what my advisor is thinking. Not knowing whether I have their approval is a constant source of stress. Expectations are unclear to say the least. I’m trying to avoid ‘outsourcing’ my sense of self-worth and to instead derive personal validation from my own internal sense of accomplishment. But the power dynamic makes this difficult.”

”I recently learned about how autism manifests in girls differently than in boys, which leads to a lot of women with autism never getting diagnosed. This is because women are often more able to appear ‘high functioning’ due to increased ability to ‘mask’ symptoms. Reading about this felt like looking into a mirror. I don’t have a diagnosis, but it would certainly explain a lot about my experiences throughout my life. I strongly suspect that I am on the spectrum. I am so happy that Princeton has a new neurodiversity identity group, PUNC. I think there is still a lot of work to be done in higher ed to break down stigma against folks who identify as neurodiverse! ‘High functioning’ doesn’t mean we’re not suffering or that our condition doesn’t have a huge impact on our day-to-day life, even if it is not outwardly apparent.”

”I feel gaslit by everyone talking about how ‘passionate’ they are about their research, as if there is something wrong with me, and I am supposed to enjoy working 14 hours a day every day. For me, grad school has been a truly miserable experience. I’m tired of constantly having to put on a happy face for Zoom meetings and pretend that I enjoy the day-to-day drudgery and monotony of my lab work. I’m chronically sleep deprived, have no control over my own schedule, and am constantly pushing myself to my limits every day to meet expectations. But still it is never enough for my advisor. Dealing with daily unpleasant interactions with my group and navigating toxic lab culture and politics makes the experience even worse. But what’s truly infuriating is that others all seem to have ‘drank the Kool-Aid,’ waxing poetic about how dedicated they are to their research. I might be studying the most interesting topic ever, but it makes no difference when the day-to-day is such a mind numbing, miserable slog.

As children, we are taught that if we work hard, we will be ‘successful’ and our lives will be happier and easier since we’ll have better career prospects. Yet the rate of depression in graduate school suggests otherwise. In the midst of the global pandemic, economic downturn, and budget cuts, job prospects look grim both within and outside of academia. I’m afraid that I’ve wasted so much time being miserable in the present to invest in some imagined rosy future that may never materialize. If I’m not happy now, how can I expect to be happy in 5 years?

I think it’s unrealistic to expect to truly feel fulfilled and energized just from work alone. Fulfillment comes from multiple sources of which work is just one. For me, family is a much greater source of joy in my life. It irks me so much when people spout frustrating platitudes like ‘if you enjoy your job, you’ll never work a day in your life!’ All jobs have fulfilling aspects and unpleasant aspects, but at the end of the day I’d rather be on vacation enjoying the company of my loved ones. I hate that this makes me a ‘heretic’ within academia. Surely, others must feel like I do, so why are we all buying into the mass hysteria that is academic culture?”

“The pandemic has taken a significant toll on my mental health. I don’t think I am an alcoholic, but I am worried that I’m approaching dangerous territory with my pandemic-induced drinking habits. It seemed normal at first to have a glass of wine in the evening to decompress, but this has become a habit. I’ve been experiencing a lot of insomnia and am growing to depend on alcohol just to calm down my racing thoughts enough to fall asleep at night. I used to enjoy social drinking with my friends a lot, and I have always been a drinker. But now I use it more than ever before as a way to escape from the reality of my life. I’m routinely waking up with a hangover, feeling groggy and in a mental fog, which only compounds my anxiety surrounding my stunted research and my fears regarding bleak job prospects. It’s a difficult pattern to break out of, but I’m trying to replace alcohol with other self-care routines in the evenings including skin-care regimens, meditation, and calming herbal tea.”

I’m going to start off plain and clear, because this is the source of my mental health challenges. I have a terrible mood disorder. Anything less than 6 hours of sleep throws me off such that my mind literally cannot stop thinking even though I am exhausted, and I have depressive thoughts that could compel me to jump off a cliff (literally). At the same time, when I have slept, I have an inordinate amount of energy. I can coordinate plans with 20 people/groups at the same time, sit in front of my computer for 7 hours finishing a project, which my advisors sometimes find incredulous. I am tutoring and reading and cooking and running and keeping a meticulous home and spending quality time with my husband, and… not stopping.

By default, my brain decides it wants to live in extremes. This is not amenable to life. Needless to say, the mysterious, intangible qualities of quarantining just 10x all of my struggles. It sucked, and still sucks sometimes, but I don’t give up.

And neither does a village of support behind me, which truly, I am extremely blessed to have. They are the reason I am stable and whole as a person. I have an amazing therapist and psychiatrist, and I do additional talk therapy. For those who count the number of hours per week, my self care is a total of 2.5 hours/week, and 4.5-5.5 hours/week if I’m not too lazy to work out, with 6/7 hours of sleep every night. I used to say “I don’t have time for all this”, but when I objectively looked at the numbers, I realized that those 2-5.5 hours were the same as me mindlessly wasting my time. And those hours have, and continue to add immense value to my life.

Finally, I have friends, family, and in-laws who give me unwavering love and support. They, and my disciplined efforts, are the reason I find hope in myself and the situations I find myself in. I cannot tell you how much I wish every struggling person could have what I do. Please, look for and take advantage of the resources Princeton offers, because Princeton makes it more possible to create this network of support for you than most other places. I acknowledge that the resources I have are a privilege. And I am just too lucky to be as loved as I am. I hope you have that too. It’s actually not a mushy concept that love goes a long way.

I am stressed and so are you. But I’m not alone and neither are you. With the right kinds of support, and empathy, we can overcome our struggles one by one in the time it’ll take. Let’s remember that as individuals and a community, because…we got this!”

“The pandemic has resulted in significant changes to my body. As an unabashed femme, I find a lot of joy in things like fashion, makeup, and looking my best. While this may sound shallow, I would argue that traditionally feminine interests are often dismissed as trivial by society, but they are valid forms of expression and can be a positive aspect of identity. However, my ability to enjoy these interests has taken a hit during the pandemic. I gained 20 pounds in the past several months, and now a lot of my clothes don’t fit anymore. Unfortunately, this has negatively impacted my self image. I am trying to incorporate body positivity into my thinking. After all, my body is healthy and has kept me alive through a global pandemic! But I feel cut off from an aspect of my identity that has previously served as a source of joy in the midst of an often stressful graduate school experience. I don’t feel my best and I want to regain my previous level of physical fitness. I am working on starting a new healthy routine involving daily moderate exercise and regular balanced meals. I am also making a point to wear makeup and dress well for Zoom meetings, just to feel a bit more ‘put together’ and provide some sense of normalcy so that I can feel more like myself in these strange times.”

”I have OCD, and my long standing symptoms have been strongly exacerbated by the pandemic. It’s more difficult now than ever to break out of patterns of obsessive, anxious thoughts. I’ve never really liked leaving my apartment even before the pandemic, but now it’s even harder to get myself to leave the safety of my home. I have regular nightmares about being outside when a crowd magically materializes and it is impossible to stay 6 feet apart from others. I’m worried that once the pandemic is over, it will be difficult for me to ‘re-emerge’ into society, as I’ve fallen back into my hermit-like comfort zone. I’m challenging myself to undertake exposures every day. Teletherapy has helped–my therapist will stay on the phone with me while I go outside to do an exposure like take out the trash. I know I’ll get through this, but it takes a lot of time, effort and self-compassion.”

As one of earliest classes of women at Princeton, I learned resilience, mostly on my own. However, I must say, I was mostly happy while there. At the time I was there (1972-1976), I am sure there were mental health support resources available but I do not really remember if they were well advertised. Not sure that it was intentional, but like STDs–if you needed help, you would need to ask. I am sure if you went to McCosh, you could get help then. I am sure resources are better advertised and more readily available now and that students (and I hope faculty and staff) in  the Princeton community have greater comfort in asking for help. Lots of good things have happened in time such as better communication (to include social media) and information more readily available (web, etc). My advice:  don’t hesitate to ask for help!

This pandemic has combined two of my greatest fears: (1) a (possible) global breakdown of civilization in which I am totally useless, become a burden on others, and then perish in a moldy cave, and (2) losing my parents prematurely. My entire family is made of healthcare providers, and my parents are located in one of the U.S. epicenters. The first few weeks of this pandemic were filled with profound, overwhelming anxiety and fear. I already deal with generalized anxiety and depression in the best of situations, much less during an unprecedented pandemic during which we are led by an absolute moron. I was gripped by the news and couldn’t look away. The fear and anxiety eventually morphed into sheer, abject rage at everything – the government, the president, spring breakers, anti-vaxxers, travelers, this situation, the helplessness, the racism, the mask/ventilator shortage, the danger my family and others are in. It felt good for a while, felt righteous and real and true and valid in a way that my feelings don’t normally feel. But it was also exhausting, and I alternated between rage, fear, and guilt.

Now that we’re over a month into this, I’ve started to come to grips with the situation. I remind myself that my family, friends and loved ones are taking all the precautions they can, and that I am doing everything I can. I’ve substantially cut down on my news intake, limiting myself to reading NY Times in the morning and an update in the afternoon. I don’t read any news in the evening or before bed. I write in my journal almost every day, and try to meditate before bed every night. I go to video therapy once a week. I vent to friends. When things get really bad and I start spiraling, I take an anti-anxiety medication in addition to my daily antidepressant. I spend a lot of time planning what I’m going to cook. I have scheduled weekly zoom calls with friends and family. I practice cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness. I spend a lot of time texting with friends and family. I try to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

I’ve built routine into my days, but I don’t feel obliged to be particularly “productive.” In a typical weekday, I’ll get up a little later than I used to, enjoy coffee and breakfast while reading the news, spend a couple hours working (sometimes a whole day if I feel up to it or interested and into it), and then spend the rest of my time cooking, baking, reading for pleasure, and playing Animal Crossing. And this is good. Taking care of myself (physically, mentally) and my partner is enough. Being is enough.

I was surprised that the first thing I did was pull up the Decameron, which I haven’t really opened since I graduated college 5 years ago. The Decameron is a Thousand-Arabian nights book written during the Black Death in Florence. In that same vein, poetry and literature have helped me. Thinking about them while I see all the trees and flowers bloom during Spring has brought some sense of peace and perspective day to day. Reaching out to friends has also really helped. This pandemic is global, so I think everyone everywhere is feeling nervous, anxious, and stressed. Contacting an old friend on facebook or instagram to tell them that my family and I are still doing OK and that I hope they’re OK as well has brought a lot of comfort. I try to limit myself to one social call a day, preferably during a walk so I can get some exercise and sunshine. That being said, having a therapist through the university health plan has been really useful. I encourage folks to reach out to the health center and talk with a counselor to see if you can get some short term help or long term help. Therapy isn’t the only way or outlet for folks, but I have found it comforting and I encourage people to try or even consider it.

Poem by Michael Lentz

I have started a long list of friends and family members to whom I’m writing letters on a rolling basis. I bought a small selection of notecards, but am also just using regular paper to do so. While some of my mail has been in a perpetual limbo, reaching out to friends and family, especially those overseas, has made me feel connected and surrounded by loved ones, especially as they have begun to respond with letters and notecards of their own.

Working out has been great – I really needed to see some progress, and working out can help me be free of anxiety even for just a fleeting moment. Workouts can be so exhausting that I don’t have the energy to be drowning in my anxiety.

• 

I have OCD, and the pandemic has certainly taken a significant toll on my treatment and recovery. I’ve had OCD since early childhood, but within the past two years, I put a LOT of work into my cognitive behavioral therapy, and I am happy to say that I vastly improved! I used to routinely wash my hands until they bled, but stopped this behavior along with many other compulsions. Part of my exposure therapy involved no longer carrying around hand sanitizer everywhere I went, occasionally eating without washing my hands first, etc. Of course, under the current circumstances these kinds of exposures are no longer possible. It’s demoralizing to feel like I am backtracking in my progress even in cases where my response is consistent with the new “baseline” and technically not an OCD response. My various OCD-type symptoms are cognitively linked, though, so washing my hands more frequently, however “normal” that may be under the circumstances, has sadly re-kindled other obsessions/compulsions I had previously eradicated. For the most part, my OCD is actually not particularly cleanliness-based, but rather is more guilt-driven. I often get wrapped up in “magical thinking” where I feel like I am personally responsible for bad things happening in the world even when there is absolutely no logical connection between myself and the external events. For instance, I am terrified of not properly sanitizing things and as a result infecting other people. It has gotten to the point where just leaving my apartment to get my mail or take out the garbage is excruciatingly terrifying. A trip to the mailroom requires 30 minutes to an hour of sanitization and makes it impossible for me to do anything productive for several hours due to what I like to call a “radius of anxiety” around the stressful event. And then there is the secondary layer of guilt in feeling bad that I feel bad since I know I am extremely lucky—I’m healthy, my family is healthy, I have the privilege to work from home with pay, I have secure housing, etc. I’m trying to be patient with myself. I’m very thankful for the free tele-therapy currently available through the Student Health Plan and for my wonderful network of supportive family and friends. I was able to overcome my OCD before so I can certainly do it again!

3 Faucets by Dennis Ryan

I love this artwork because, for me, it captures the intensity, rapid movement, and frantic fervor of OCD hand washing. Especially during this pandemic, my hands are often cracked and bleeding. In a sense, hand washing can be an act of violence against myself. I’m trying to wash my hands with more gentleness and love, incorporating a loving kindness mantra into the ritual. 

I’ve been getting increasingly frustrated with myself for my lack of progress in my research. I’m feeling a great deal of (self-imposed) pressure to get lots of work done in this time since I’m never going to have this much “free time” ever again. Under normal circumstances, my research is all in-lab work, so in theory, I have tons of time now to work on some of my side projects that I never had time for pre-quarantine. However, what I’ve found is that despite not going into the lab every day, I somehow don’t actually have more free time. My days are almost entirely eaten up by endless Zoom meetings and a constant onslaught of emails. Despite never leaving my apartment, I am more exhausted than ever. I’m finding it difficult to focus and get work done in the scattered hours between Zoom meetings. I have this panicked feeling that all this time is passing me by, and I’ll emerge from this period of isolation with no substantial progress in my work.

There is also a perception now that it is not acceptable to take time off. There is no longer a boundary between work and home, and there is a (mis)conception that everyone is available all the time for last-minute Zoom meetings, etc, since we’re “just at home not doing anything.” When all of my work can be done from my couch, it doesn’t feel reasonable to take a mental health day to rest and recover. I also no longer have the option of forcing myself to take a break by planning a weekend trip to visit friends or family. I constantly feel guilty for not working harder because I always feel at any given time that I *should* be working.

I know that this mindset is almost entirely self-imposed. I’m working on self-compassion and patience. I’m trying to applaud myself for whatever amount of work I am able to accomplish in a day instead of punishing myself for the work I wasn’t able to accomplish. I am terrible at making myself adhere to a consistent schedule, but it is something I’m trying to move towards. I know that sticking to a regular sleep schedule, eating at regular times, and structuring my time with “work hours” and “play hours” are key for mental health. It just takes a lot of willpower!

Back in December (in the pre-COVID era), I experienced the loss of my grandmother. I was very close with her and this was a truly devastating, although not unexpected, loss. I grieved with my family and spoke at the funeral. I went home to my parents’ house for Christmas and shared memories of my grandma, ate her favorite foods in her honor, sorted through her belongings, etc. Now that this pandemic is underway, many of my feelings of grief have resurfaced. I wish I could call her and talk to her about what is going on. I know she would have something delightfully sarcastic and witty to say that would make me laugh. Although I miss my grandma tremendously, I also realize that I am fortunate I had the opportunity to grieve with my family when I did. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost family members and loved ones in this time when social gatherings are not possible. It makes it so difficult to process the grief in a healthy way when you cannot mourn with your loved ones, hug your family, attend a funeral, and so on. Wishing everyone strength in this time and sending everyone who reads this a virtual hug! <3

Maintaining my mental health during the pandemic has been difficult. I am a single parent of a three-year old boy and I now have no childcare for him as the daycares are all closed. My days are spent trying to entertain him, teach him, and keep him engaged and active. The pandemic has taken a toll on him as well. He has developed anxiety and some concerning behaviors as a result of the turmoil of this situation, so he now requires even more attention than he did previously. It has been extremely difficult for me to get work done in this environment. I am supposed to defend my prospectus this Spring but there is no way I see that happening. Trying to keep up with coursework, program requirements, and paper writing while also ensuring my son’s physical, emotional, and cognitive needs are met, on top of dealing with the steady flood of distressing news that this pandemic produces is an impossible task. Balancing work and child care as a single parent was hard before this situation, and now I wonder if I will be able to do the dissertation work I planned to do before I run out of funding or if I will have to settle for rushed, mediocre work that will harm my job market prospects, risking the livelihood of my family. On top of these caregiving needs, I have not been able to get feedback from my advisor on the work I am trying to do as they have coronavirus and of course cannot work right now. I have talked to many other graduate students who have similar concerns. Despite fears for the health and safety of ourselves and our loved ones, graduate students have continued to work tirelessly to keep the university running—as preceptors, as research assistants, and as students. But we need help. We are all very scared right now. We came into academia because we are passionate about our work and we want our research to make contributions that will ultimately benefit society. But right now it feels as though our futures are uncertain and Princeton is not giving us the support we need to do what we were admitted to this university to do. I hope the university will recognize our needs and give us the aid that they fully have the means to give. The endowment is like a rainy day fund, and if this isn’t a rainy day I don’t know what is. Supporting graduate students right now may be expensive in the short term, but if the university trusts its admissions process, the benefits that supporting these dedicated scholars will have for the university and the broader world in the long term will be well worth it.

One thing that has helped me is reminding myself that this is not a normal situation in which to be working, and that I shouldn’t expect myself to be able to function “normally” or be as productive as I usually am. I’ve lived with anxiety and depression since high school, so going to school while feeling worried, distracted, unfocused, sad, numb, confused, panicked (and a whole host of other emotions) is nothing new to me. The difference now is that I feel less alone in it, knowing that so many of us are feeling the same things, all at the same time. Unfortunately, another difference is that I’m sort of cut off from a lot of my usual support systems, since I can’t physically be with my friends or really get out of the house, which makes it harder to deal with in a lot of ways. I’m still using many of the same coping strategies I’ve used before, like taking frequent breaks, paying close attention to my physical health with healthy meals and exercise, talking to my therapist, and talking to friends and family. I try to be gentle with myself, celebrating what I am able to get done rather than being angry with myself for the things I am unable to do. I remind myself frequently that family and my health come first, and whatever schoolwork and research I can get done after taking care of my family and myself is great, but is not the top priority. Thinking that way helps direct my anxiety away from my work, and ends up making it easier for me to get assignments done and continue to make progress, since I’m not so hung up on trying to work as if nothing is wrong. I think it’s important to honestly acknowledge how I’m feeling and accept it, and accept the momentary dip in my productivity, rather than trying to ignore it, which will only make things worse in the long run.

• 

I feel a lot of pressure to be superhuman. Just trying to keep up with coursework and research became a herculean task, and as a G1, I worry that my newly formed friend groups will fade away without the ease of proximity. I was almost constantly anxious or stressed, and what has helped is getting into meditation again. I practiced gratitude, and gradually, things looked up. It became less taxing to think about my food and money situation. I started exercising at home thirty minutes a day, actually finding myself to have more energy than before. My friend group began regular Zoom calls to check in and play games together. Classes are thankfully almost over. The sky is really blue today, and that’s nice too.

• 

In this time of total lack of structure, it was initially difficult to balance time between work, family, and self. Sticking to a structured routine has been a great antidote to this feeling. I wake up at the same time every day, include meditation in my morning routine, work for most of the day (with frequent breaks), and take a regular walk in the evenings with my partner and dog before cooking dinner. Somehow, this hasn’t felt tedious, but instead rewarding and grounding.

I’m fine

By Sarah Marie Bruno

 

Sometimes I feel like the story of my life 

Isn’t about me;

It’s a movie starring a girl without a face,

Watching herself in two dimensions,

From a safe distance

I draw on my clothes like I draw on a smile

But I’ve forgotten what a dress looks like

It doesn’t matter.

They’ll say I’ve got my head in the clouds,

But the clouds are made of smoke

Sanity is knowing I’m suffocating in it

I’d rather be free,

Because if your face is blurry,

I don’t have to care.

When I was in undergrad, I experienced a trauma that was further compounded by my University failing to support me (and in fact, my University essentially implemented a gag order forbidding me from speaking publicly about what had happened). In ways that I couldn’t have anticipated, this pandemic has brought up a lot of those old feelings of betrayal and helplessness — specifically, those feelings have been re-triggered through advocating for my own students during this crisis. 

Some of my students have found themselves back in abusive households in the wake of forced campus move-outs, and though they are desperate for University housing resources, they’ve been met with institutional barrier after barrier. I’ve been doing everything I can to e-mail and call administrators on their behalf — which of course I am more than happy to do — but being “on the other side” of this University advocacy process has brought to the surface how alone I felt in undergrad, when I had no one to support or advocate for me. 

Some days I feel like an empowered new woman, being for my students the advocate I wish I’d had. Other days I still feel like that young, scared, lost girl who was ready to give up on grad school and academia altogether because it didn’t feel like universities were designed for people like me, who had experienced what I had. I never expected this global crisis to bring up such personal past issues for me. I’m fighting for my students, but I’m also fighting for myself, or at least the past version of myself who still lives inside me.

My dad passed away a few months ago. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see him in the year and a half before he died, because I didn’t want to risk flying home and spreading COVID to him while he was already ill. The fact that I hadn’t seen him in so long, and during his decline, makes his death feel like it’s not real. I feel that if I had seen him regularly in the last year and a half of his life, my brain would have been better able to process the fact that he was dying, because I would have seen his disease unfold, and his sudden absence now would feel a lot different if I had been used to seeing him regularly over the last couple years.

I don’t know if I can call myself resilient — this is going to be a long process, and it remains to be seen whether I’ll “bounce back” at the end of this. However, a lot of people in my life have definitely helped me more than I can say. Close friends of mine, including one I met at Princeton, attended the funeral with me. My colleagues took all my meetings on my behalf while I was taking care of funeral and other arrangements. Having people show up for me when I’ve needed them — often without even having to ask them — has made me feel supported and held up while dealing with all this.

Living through this pandemic has taught me a lot about grief. When I hear the words “loss” and “grieving,” I typically think of the anguish that follows the death of a loved one. While I have experienced this particular kind of pain in the past, I am extremely grateful that I have not encountered it recently; I am thankful that COVID did not take anyone from me.

So then, I ask myself, why am I so upset? How dare I slump around my apartment languishing, when I am so, so lucky?

We have now been sitting with this pandemic for well over a year. It feels ridiculous at this point to keep using COVID as an “excuse” to justify my difficulty focusing on my research, my undeniable short term memory loss, and my general underlying feeling of malaise. We can excuse these things as a normal grief response in the weeks following the death of a loved one, but what do we do when the grief isn’t the result of an isolated event? When it’s just a moderate daily onslaught buzzing in the background?

The grief I have experienced from the pandemic is a “death by a thousand cuts” kind of grief. Each loss on its own doesn’t seem so bad, just a minor inconvenience. But all together, it is substantial. I am grieving all of the dinner parties and game nights I would have hosted at my apartment. I am grieving the loss of a year and a half worth of birthday celebrations with friends.

I am grieving missed champagne toasts at the end of dissertation defenses. I am grieving the loss of two family vacations that were cancelled. I am grieving for all the photos that would have been taken throughout this time in my life that I will never have to look back on in the years to come. I am grieving the way I used to feel when I would go for a walk or take a trip to the store. I hate knowing that every time I am in a public place, strangers around me see me as a potential threat, a possible vector, someone who must be avoided. It’s only natural, and I certainly don’t blame them—they don’t know I am vaccinated and regularly getting tested—but it hurts to know that even while wearing a mask and keeping my 6-foot distance, just my existence alone is a nuisance to those around me. We see strangers as faceless obstacles, not people. We judge each other and feel self righteous about our own responses to the pandemic. There’s a pervasive ugliness growing in society in how we interact with and view each other.

When the pandemic first started, I made a plan. I would stick to a regular schedule, go for a run in the mornings, cook elaborate meals, keep busy with research, Zoom with friends and family, and check in with loved ones. I would cherish the time I had for introspection and personal growth. The lockdown would be temporary and I would get through it. My plan and self motivation worked for a while. But it’s been so long, and I am so tired.

I am tired of the phrase “the new normal.” What we are experiencing is certainly not normal, and yet I am losing hope that “normal” is even a place we can return to at this point. What if things will never go back to they way they were? What if the “pre-COVID era” will just be another bygone historical period for nostalgic rumination, something to remember and keep on a shelf like photos from undergrad or songs we used to love when we were kids? How long can we keep this up? What will the long-term effects be for our mental health and our ability to empathize with others?

While my general feeling right now is admittedly bleak, I am also proud of myself for pushing through all this time. It helped to actually name the feeling as grief. Knowing that I am grieving and that it is normal to be grieving, I can accept that it is ok sometimes to just get through the day, one day at a time. I don’t have to function as if everything is normal, because it is not. What I (and everyone else) am experiencing right now is a genuine, substantial loss. I am holding onto hope that some day strangers will have faces again.

My friend’s brother passed away suddenly in a car accident. It really upset me and it made me anxious because I wasn’t sure how to best be there for my friend. Ultimately I realized that there’s no “right thing” to say or do—it’s enough to just be present and let them know you’re there when they need you.