FirstYearHistory17

Thank you - seriously, these responses have really helped me get out of my own head today. I took the day off to just kind of relax and assess my situation. I think I’m definitely going to have the conversation with my advisor. I think he will be open to it and avoiding him or telling him I’m behind at the last minute will be worse in the end.

The main project is a 50 page piece of original research. I have a pretty clear focus and have done a lot of work on it thus far, but in the state I am in at the moment the idea of distilling it into anything cohesive is insurmountable. It won’t be in several weeks when my antidepressants are up to therapeutic levels, but I need to be serious about my limitations at the moment. I have not been up to now and it has resulted I near panic attacks every time I go into my office and look at the stack of books I have piled up. I think that is how I realized that this wasn’t just regular graduate school stress, it was a relapse and I needed meds now. The good news is the deadline is not entirely fixed. The bad news is that I played the role of superstar prettybwell last semester and I think my lack of productivity will be shocking to my advisor. He’s a great guy... I like him a lot. He’s very supportive in general. I’m just afraid of being labeled as someone with a condition. Especially in my first year. Which is stupid because among my friends I’m a huge advocate for speaking out about mental illness. I just can’t follow my own advice. university health center was a disaster. I went there as a last resort and was told they couldn’t even think of prescribing me more meds unless I had three months of talk therapy. I told them I had been diagnosed already and I knew what I needed. They said it’s just regulation. Fun thing was that it’s also apparently part of the regulation to give a 37 year old married woman a sexual risk assessment and I spent 10 minutes of my 20 minute appointment refusing to answer invasive questions about the status of my relationship and my sexual history. I left feeling demoralized, even more overwhelmed than before, and with no prescription. Luckily I have a new psychiatrist now. But it’s going to take a little time to unravel this mess.

Omg you have no idea how helpful your response was. I think for graduate students, there is a tendency to want to both be a superhero and look like a superhero, and when you’re struggling mentally it’s hard to see where the stress of school stops and the clinical issue begins. You’re right about not wanting to ruin faculty relationships. My husband told said to me that if I had any other medical Issue I would talk to my advisor, so why not this. Yeah, I definitely fell into the I don’t need meds anymore because I’m fine trap. I’m usually a lot better about that... but I kept dismissing my symptoms as just the stress of grad school and beating myself up for not being able to just handle it. But I’ve been really really bad the last few weeks and realized that my feelings felt a little too familiar, and a little too similar to previous episodes I’ve had. I do have a new psychiatrist now and he’s very supportive, but because of my own particular issues he can’t prescribe me anything that’s faster acting than a regular SSRI (Xanax is out because it’s counterindicaged fir an unrelated medication I’m on). So it’s a waiting game until feel back to my old self. Its very helpful to know I’m not the only person who has dealt with this.

Not sure if this is the best place to ask this question but I really need some advice. I’m a first year history PhD student. I’m an older student, 37, and have a long and complicated history with anxiety and depression. I did a very stupid thing a few months ago. After moving to a new state and being unable to find a new psychiatrist, when I ran out of refills of an antidepressant I simply stopped taking them. Having been on medication for several years and having been through major depression episodes, I should have known better. Over the last couple of months my depression and anxiety have come back full force and though I’m keeping up with schoolwork, my personal research project has fallen behind somewhat. I am back in medication and am realizing that I have to take better care of myself (I’ve been running full speed, head first into a brick wall the way I’ve been managing work, and it’s nothjng short of destructive). My problem is I know it will take several weeks to feel like myself again, to get my motivation back, to be at my top level of performance. I want to keep h personal life out of my professional life, but do you think it makes sense to have a candid discussion with my advisor about my situation so I can have a bit more time to get my research project together? A note: please, do not comment if you are going to be negative. I have posted on this forum before under a fairly recognizable screen name and have been hit with some pretty negative comments. Please do not post if you think I’m just trying to make excuses for being lazy, or that I can’t cut it in grad school, or that I shouldn’t whine to my advisor about my problems. Depression and anxiety are real and all too often not openly addressed among graduate students. I’m trying to get advise from my peers about managing my condition, so if you don’t have something constructive to say please move along.