Category: 2020 Anecdotes

”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.”

“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’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 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 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?”

”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’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 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!”

“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.”