I've been MIA... now what? crisis management

[MichelleNero]

HELP!!!

ANY advice (constructive, positive) would be TREMENDOUSLY appreciated.

Is there ANY WAY to handle this gracefully?

I've been MIA from my department-- and am worried they'll get rid of me once they realize i'm still around! I can't move forward without re-appearing-- but when i do, i'll have to

1) hand in delinquent work (Incompletes)-- that will be the first they hear from me; and

2) get advisor approval for my dissertation prospectus.

No way around these.

i know i've been stupid about all of this. ..

I'm in my 3rd year (really 4th, but I've been on leave) in a polisci phd program.

things started well.

-4.0.

-advisor liked me.

-did research for big shots on the side.

-original research was well received.

then lots of drama on my end in the background.

-people died around me.

-one still on the way out.

-lots of crap to deal with.

-owe people work (4 incompletes).

Here's this nearly-complete list of issues:

0. For almost all of the time that I've been in my phd program, I've ALWAYS TA'd outside the department-- so i was very out-of-sight, out-of-mind to begin with in the already large-ish department.

1. I went on leave for 3 of the last 4 quarters (2010-11) and did the same the year prior, too (2009-2010)-- so I've been on campus for two quarters out of the last 8. I'm worried someone will figure this out and get rid of me for not making progress. there are some rules about advancing to candidacy by the nth quarter-- which i've exceeded, possibly. I haven't gone anywhere fast.

****2. i have a bunch of incompletes that I still need to submit for grades. i can do that, but am worried about *suddenly** reminding people i exist with a bunch of paperwork demonstrating that i've been delinquent. i'm worried that if they remember that i exist **like this**, they'll get rid of me.

****3. i haven't had any contact with my advisor for... wow... about a year and a half.

4. my advisor was always friendly but also very hands-off (at the end of his career, generally, and a little checked-out). there haven't been any emails from him that I ignored. in general, there was never a peep from him unless i got in touch-- and i haven't been!

5. right now, i'm at the stage where i need to get a dissertation prospectus approved by my advisor before I can request that people be on my committee.

6. last year i made it through the 2nd of 2 hoops we have to jump through ("qualifying papers"-- original research) before the dissertation prospectus approval stage. that went okay. it was the last "official" progress that i've made in my program.

7. in a few weeks, my leave ends. the term is about to begin. I'm scared as hell.

8. I'm vaguely hoping that if i process *all* my dirty laundry-- i.e. delinquent stuff-- all at once (turn in all 4 incompletes at once, give advisor prospectus and remind him i'm alive), maybe it will be enough of a flurry of activity to scramble their administrative senses and i'll slip by.

On the other hand, it might suddenly look like i'm FAR more trouble than i'm worth to keep-- and my advisor has ZERO investment in me. He likes me fine, but hasn't heard a word from me for a year and a half-- and at that point it was because i was turning in something late.

ANY ADVICE???

I'm in something of a private personal hell and can't ask anyone.

i don't even know anyone in my department anymore!!

MANY THANKS.

[Sparky]

You need to meet with your DGS. A lot of the answers to your questions and worries will depend on the policies of your particular university and department, and she's the one who would know.

I can tell you that at my school, time spent on official leave would not count against you in terms of 'advancing towards candidacy' time limits. On the other hand, we have very strict limitations on how long you have to finish off an incomplete before the I turns to a permanent F.

As for handing in a whole bunch of work and reminding the department that you've been delinquent: in all honesty, this is throwing up huge red flags for me that shout EXCUSE rather than 'legitimate reason.' It's precisely the kind of self-defeating non-logic that makes perfect sense from the inside and makes everyone else facepalm mightily. Maybe your situation is different, but isn't this something that you would take care of with individual professors? I took one incomplete the first semester of my PhD, and I'm not sure even the DGS ever had any idea. Meet with each individual professor. Find out what you have to do to finish the work for the course. Have them give you a deadline. Get the work done. If you do this (meet w/the profs, I mean) *before* you meet with the DGS, it would probably make you look more serious about catching up.

Have you worked with a therapist or counselor on campus? There's probably someone who specializes in grad student issues and could give you further insight. It honestly seems like you're dealing with a lot of depression/anxiety issues that are perhaps more severe than many but very similar in type.

And, of course, e-mail your adviser. If you want to get started on your diss prospectus, you need to do this. On the other hand, if your relationship with your adviser isn't working out so well, is there someone else you might work with? Someone who could kick your ass a little more? It seems like you might need that if you ever want to finish.

You can't continue to "slip by." You've been trying that. It hasn't worked. You need to reach out to your department.

Edited August 23, 2011 by Sparky

[wtncffts]

I agree. I think your first step should be to meet with the DGS and have a conversation about your issues, where you stand, and how you could move forward. You should try to meet with the professors to whom you owe work as well. Really, though, the bottom line is you have to inform the department of where you are and your status.

You're not going to "slip by". It's not like they're going to show up at your door one day and say, "oh, hey, we have no idea who you are and what you've done but here's a nice and shiny PhD". You're not going to confuse them into giving you a PhD out of the blue. I don't think there's any way but to reconnect, or even connect, with the program and the people. Go to the departmental social events; I'm sure with the term starting there will be orientation events and whatnot.

[rainy_day]

I recognize the specific tone of panic in your voice, and you've got my empathy MichelleNero. Specifically, I recognize the voices saying "If I do all of this they might forgive me, but I can remind them I exist until I do all of it!" And at the same time you're crippled by anxiety when you look at the mountain of work in front of you. So nothing gets done, and you're afraid to talk to anyone until anything gets done, and it's one vicious cycle that is making you crazy.

You need to reach out and talk to someone in the department. Pick who you think might be the most sympathetic, perhaps, if that lessens the anxiety. Reach out to the profs to whom you owe work, and have them set a deadline. Meet with the DGS and/or your advisor, and work out a plan. You can't ignore this problem away, and you've also got to forgive yourself and stop beating yourself up so much, so that you can actually address the problem.

I really strongly second the advice of talking to someone about depression and anxiety. It's something I've struggled with, and I know how painful it is, and therapy has been invaluable. You don't deserve to feel trapped like this, you know?

Good luck.

Edited August 23, 2011 by rainy_day

[MichelleNero]

First off, THANK YOU (thank you, thank you, thank you) for your replies-- and for how detailed and well thought-out they were.

... WOW.

Sparky... wtncffts...rainy_day.... I wish you had some idea how nice it was to see your replies, and how much I appreciate it. This is something I haven't told anyone, and you offered good counsel in a kind way.

Thank you.

My post was something of a mix between a confession (my dirty secret that few people outside of grad school would possibly understand) and an effort to get my own thoughts together by laying out the problem. I'm so glad that I did.

You're right. You all are. I really needed to hear it.

The good news/ bad news (get ready for another face-palm opportunity): I'm only a few weeks away from being done with the incompletes. I've written everything (too much, actually) and need to scale it back, edit, and print. The anxiety that you sense (i didn't realize how much my post smelled of fear!) is fairly huge on my end when it comes to the face-to-face stage of handing it in. When I TA, I *hate* getting excuses from students. Much more than that, I *hate* giving them. I really don't know what to say without being *that* person.

You're absolutely right-- I've let this serve as an excuse for not finishing that and moving on.

That isn't an "Yeah... I know... i know....!!" statement.

It's far more of an ".... you're right... it's substantially clearer to me now when several people *explicitly* draw attention to it."

Right now I'm excited about my dissertation work (my prospectus is basically fleshed out) but am mostly just trying to talk myself through the unpleasantness of the delinquent-paper-submission face-to-face encounters with professors whose will surely (consciously or unconsciously-- but more likely the former) move me down a notch in the hierarchy of their regard. Well... I guess it's just 3 professors. The only outstanding work I owe is one paper each. The more I write/read/think about this, the more it seems like my anxiety may be a teensy-tiny bit out of proportion.

When I mentioned that I hoped to "slip by"-- I didn't mean that I think anyone will accidentally award me a doctorate if I just lurk in the shadows indefinitely. I had hoped that if I bit the bullet and handed it all in at once-- all the bad news would hit at once (and maybe that might be better ??). You're right. I should talk to my DGS (which I'm guessing is Director of Graduate Studies??), but I had hoped to walk in with the work done so I might seem less like a huge problem and more like a problem-nearly-solved.

I've been avoiding the department, the social events-- even the building (!) --for fear of bumping into the professors to whom I owe this work. I didn't feel like I could show my face until it was all done-- and (you're absolutely right) the vicious cycle just reinforced itself into a nasty beast. Yes! I feel like you understand exactly what I mean.

In terms of counseling-- well... my family did some grief counseling, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Anyone dealing with the poo-storm I saw over the last two years would be fairly down, so I'm feeling like that cloud is passing. Re: anxiety... I think talking to people would be a good idea. Posting to this forum has already been a very good experience.

Thank you so much for replying to my post-- and to anyone else who feels so inclined.

You can't imagine how helpful this is.

At this point, I've started to get my work together for those papers, and am just trying to figure out how to approach the 1) delinquent-submission conversations, and 2) the reconnect-after-being-MIA- interactions. I never know what to say to people.

[fuzzylogician]

Might I suggest starting with the conversation with the DGS (=Director of Graduate Studies)? Explain as much of your personal circumstances as you are comfortable doing, and come with ready with a prepared plan to finish those incompletes: you can tell the DGS that you have topics and drafts of papers already ready and that you have timeline for getting the work done. You could also discuss having a prospectus in mind so that it's clear that you've been working hard to make up for everything you've neglected. My guess is that this last part may not even be necessary. If you took time off then that time shouldn't count towards your time-to-completion so you may not be as far behind as you think. After you've cleared the air with the DGS, it'll be easier for you to go to individual professors to whom you owe work. You can be as vague or as clear about your situation as you like, but say you've met with the DGS and came up with a plan to get back up to speed, part of that plan is to make up for the incomplete in X. You're writing a paper on Y, expecting to finish by ZZ, and would that be acceptable?

Your advisor, that's another matter. Frankly I am surprised that no one in your program checked up on you for all this time. Your advisor, DGS, or someone else there should know about your progress and be concerned that you disappeared. I think, in your current situation, that it may be helpful for you to find some additional support within your program. Either change advisor or add someone to your committee who is more hands on and will monitor your progress more closely. Obviously you should also meet with your advisor. If you're not changing him, have him read your draft and reestablish a working relationship with him. But really try to get more support, which sounds like will come from elsewhere and not from him.

Good luck!

[Sparky]

Michelle, I'm going to PM you in a sec, but I wanted to suggest a couple of quick things:

1. Instead of looking at this as a huge "I must do everything before I can do anything," why not break it down into more manageable chunks? I totally understand not wanting to talk to the DGS until you've rolled over the incompletes. Is there any way you could get just *one* of those papers finished very soon? Get that done, turned in, and then meet with the DGS about getting back on track with the rest? That way you have visible progress, but it's not some massive looming obstacle.

2. I do better face-to-face than over e-mail--I don't like having to wait for the other person's reaction; I don't like not being able to judge off facial expressions and (especially) body language. With the semester starting, profs will be holding office hours, maybe you could drop in? (Or maybe you're more comfortable over e-mail, in which case, ignore this entire paragraph. )

3. I know you said you had a yucky experience in therapy; I hope you would consider trying again with either a different therapist or with group therapy. As you observed, just being able to be open and honest about the crap that you're going through with respect to school made you feel a lot better. This is basically the raison d'etre of the grad student support group that my school's counseling center runs; I strongly suspect most unis have a similar group. Please at least check into it? The group here, in all honesty, is probably the sole reason I made it through last spring.

4. You're not me so I'm not sure this will make you feel better, but FWIW, I doubt that your profs are going to think worse of you for handing in late papers. If anything, don't you think they'll be impressed that you were able to put all that sh*t behind you and get the work done? I'm actually taking a class this semester with the prof in whose class I had to take an incomplete last year, and he's basically just thrilled to see me back and in a happier place. (BIG sigh of relief on my part!) So, sample size equals 1 and all, but...yeah.

[MichelleNero]

A much-too-brief-considering-the-scale-of-how-much-i-appreciate-your-excellent-responses:

Whew!

I agree with all of what you've said.

I did break ground with the DGS and am going to be on campus next week to hand-in some of this stuff.

What a huge help it has been to discuss this openly and get sound advice.

THANK YOU!

Edited August 31, 2011 by MichelleNero

[MichelleNero]

Just a quick update:

Things are working out fairly well...so far.

I *have* followed the excellent advice from the generous folks who commented (thank you again!!!):

-spoke with the DGS

-joined a dissertation working group

-am slated to present my work in a few weeks

-have *actually* been working in earnest on it! (it's coming as a surprise to me that I'm *actually* getting stuff done sans procrastination!)

-bumped into my advisor who did seem to recognize me and be happy to see me!

-As soon as my dissertation outline is done and I've presented (two weeks from now) and gotten a little feedback from my group, I'll submit it to him as a first pass. I'm not dreading it, which is a great relief to me.

-The number of people I'm 'hiding from' is dropping as I'm getting my things submitted to them (they're folks I owe work). I'm down now to just 3!

No one batted an eyelid or has suggested jettisoning me from the program. In general, I've been surprised by the positive reception I've gotten here and there from the folks I did know.

If anyone has any doubts at all about those things we hear and disregard because they're such common common sense... These three VITAL pieces of advice have made a huge difference:

1) anything you're avoiding will get worse with neglect--and you along with it.

2) interact as much as possible with your peers in the program; don't get isolated.

3) the remedy for worry is work.

Thank you so much to those who were generous with their good advice, and also kind while being honest in rendering it.

Good luck to everyone!

Edited September 24, 2011 by MichelleNero

[bibliophile222]

On 8/23/2011 at 5:06 AM, Sparky said:

It's precisely the kind of self-defeating non-logic that makes perfect sense from the inside and makes everyone else facepalm mightily.

I just had to bump this seven-year-old thread because I have never in my life read sentence that more exquisitely summed up my chronic procrastination problem (or my life in general). Sparky, if you're still on Grad cafe, kudos.