Depression and anger management

[Guest Chiper91]

Dear all,

I am an international first year PhD student and I recently started having anger management issues. I have had depression for quite a while right now. The reason for my anger and depression is lack of social and personal life as well inability to pursue my hobbies. Another big factor is that I am sick and tired of living on a small TA stipend. The thing is that most of my life I spent in school and from early childhood I have been indoctrinated that higher education is the most important thing and one will literally fail in life without it. With that mindset I worked hard since primary school. Through my hard work I managed to get several scholarships to fund my undergad and grad education in the U.S. I also have no friends and no social  and private life which is the cost I pay to be where I am right now.

The thing is that I never wanted to go to grad school in the first place. As I was approaching my college graduation I realized how tired of studying I was and how poor I was. I have never had a job. That is why I wanted to skip a couple of years to work before deciding whether to go to grad school or not. My parents made sure that I went to grad school though. My mother literally said: "You MUST apply to grad school. Without an advanced degree you will get nowhere and taking time off is a waste of time." I was also prohibited to do sports in college and have a girlfriend because "I will get distracted and I am not there to do sports but to study".

So now I am in grad school per my parents' wish. I absolutely hate it because of the intensity and the small funds. I am not able to enjoy my hobbies or have a social or private life. I am not fit or attractive to the opposite sex at all. The money we receive is only enough to make ends meet without much to spare for leisure or even clothes. I look like a homeless person. I told my parents I might drop out and they told me that I would not  have "complete higher education". Apparently an undergrad degree does not count as higher education anymore (just FYI )

What makes this worse is that kids in my program are spoiled brats for whom parents have bought everything (cars, clothes and even pay for their housing) while I struggle to make ends meet on my own (kind of proud of it though. I like to be a self made man). At some point I wanted to beat up a guy I saw downtown. Why? Because he had the money to buy good clothes and other stuff. He also had free time to enjoy life while I was studying my life away on campus most of the time. I am miserable.

What is my plan? To get a master's degree and get the hell out of grad school. I am also going to cut all ties with my parents. Hate them.

Any thoughts on this? Sorry for the long post. And no, I am not going to to the wellness center to talk to a professional. They are useless.

I know we all struggle in grad school and nobody wants to hear about others' problems but I have nobody to share this with.
Any comments will be appreciated.

 

[sjoh197]

So let me get this straight. 

You hate your parents and wish to sever all ties with them... yet you have an umbilical cord attached to their wishes? Why continue on a path that makes you miserable in order to please people that you want nothing to do with and supposedly hate? If you are funding your own life, you are under no obligation to live it in a way that pleases only them. This is where adulting becomes really hard for some people. 

I was told by a very wise man a long time ago that there are three "S's" that you have in college... sleep, success, and social life. You only get to pick 2. You have obviously chosen success, and probably a little sleep . 

The main thing here though... is that you are doing something that you really don't want to do for people that you don't want to do it for... and you have no real justification as to why. Either finish your program, and hope that you find some satisfaction... or put your big boy pants on and move to the career path that you actually want. Its a lot easier to cope with a lack of social life and money when you are working towards a personal goal and are filled with self-satisfaction. You will become a much happier person when you finally start doing things because YOU want to do them, not because someone else tells you to. If at the end of the day, you decide that YOU want to finish your grad school career, then do it. Otherwise, figure out what it is that YOU want to do, and do that instead. 

Also, wanting to beat up someone you don't know because they have things that you want is a serious sign of mental health problem that you really really need to get checked out. Pathological envy can be a sign of multiple disorders, many of which can bring you down in life for a very very long time. 

[fuzzylogician]

It sounds like what you need to do most is grow up. You are acting like a child, and it's not surprising that your parents still feel like they can treat you as one. 

This is your life, not theirs. You are financially independent of your parents, so you don't need to do everything they say. That said, I don't think there is any point in deliberately doing things just out of spite. It doesn't sound like you are in a place in your life where you should be making life-altering decisions that you can't take back, including both cutting off your parents and leaving your studies without a clear plan of what happens next. Life changes that really work are done slowly and incrementally, and with a plan. That is what I think you should aim for.

I think the first order of business is for you to start developing some kind of life beyond just what your parents want you to have. What are your hobbies and interests? I am sure that there are things that you can do and clubs on campus that won't require you to spend money; that could be a good way of starting to create a life for yourself. Your time and is yours to choose what to do with. It sounds like you've been devoting 100% of your time to your studies, but that's a choice. You can choose to spend some of that time on yourself, in a variety of ways, including making time for your hobbies, making new friends, joining meetup groups, sleeping, or whatever else works for you. This doesn't mean you need to fully stop your studies, but it does mean that you might want to slow down a bit. Being able to combine work and life, and prioritizing what matters for you, is another aspect of being an adult. A prerequisite to that that I think you might need to work on is finding out what you really want, and that is step one for you. 

At the same time as developing a personal life, making friends, starting to date, etc., you should also think about your professional life. Suppose you don't complete your PhD -- a fully valid decision -- what happens next? You might know what you don't want to do, but do you know what you would replace that with? What are your career goals? What do you want to do once you graduate, and are you right now studying for a degree that will get you there? Find out what resources exist on your campus and take advantage of them. Career centers can be very useful and they are often underutilized by graduate students. Are you taking the right courses and developing the right skills for what you want to do? Should you be taking something else, getting internships, etc? This is another thing that you should have a clear idea of before you make any decisions about dropping out or leaving with a Masters. You can stop at any time, but coming back will be difficult once you leave, so you want to make sure you're making a decision that's really right for you, and that you're making it for the right reasons and not out of anger or out of spite for your parents. 

I understand the sentiment that people at the wellness center are useless, but I really think you need to talk to someone. Wanting to hit a stranger for your perceived opinion of who they are and hating your parents and thinking about taking drastic measures in how you interact with them are both things that you'd benefit from talking to someone about. Not to mention actually starting to discover who you are and what you want to do with your life. Doing that can be a difficult process and requires a certain amount of compatibility between personalities, so even if you spoke to someone who wasn't a good fit (and certainly if you just have this opinion without ever having tried to talk to anyone!), it's worth trying again.   

[PizzaCat93]

From your past posts, it seems you're at an unranked program in PS? If so, to be frank, you really, really need to think about why you're doing this. Your chances of getting an academic job coming from an unranked program are exceedingly slim (unless you are planning to go back to your home country, that is). The boost of a PhD in the private/NGO/government sectors is small, and very likely not worth the time. Apparently your parents don't understand the realities of this. If you truly are only doing this because your parents told you to, as Fuzzy said, you need to grow up. This is your life, not theirs. Think of your career aspirations and think about whether your current path can reasonably get you there. If not, drop out. Since you've already got one year under your belt, maybe stay for the MA, but seriously consider dropping out after that. 

Edited June 28, 2016 by PizzaCat93