I tried to coherently express my thoughts about what I was going through over the course of the past year, but it was never quite possible to summarize them. Also, my thoughts were wildly erratic. As part of a therapeutic measure, every time I felt at my worst, I wrote down a snapshot of my current mental state. Here is a compilation. The reason for putting this together is because, I never want to forget what I went through over the course of this year.
Knowing that it takes me several times of studying something to understand it sufficiently well to be able to even attempt that material in an exam – it’s difficult to make a decision – should I be trying to understand this, or should I focus on keeping up with class?Emphasis: the trade-offs I am facing aren’t focus on bigger picture and maybe I’ll do a little bit worse; being on academic probation means that a little bit worse puts me in a very bad spot.
What I spend time I’m not studying on:(1) news (2) writing stuff (3) 2 TV shows / relaxing my brainDon’t have time for things like cooking and laundry and taking out the trash and going to the gym. What can I cut off from my life? Sleep? The stuff I do to unwind and relax?
My worries about writing (it’s therapeutic) and small part of me feels guilty for spending time on it, larger part of me is unapologetic – I feel like maybe I’m not a deserving student because I feel unapologetic about this. Part of me feels like I am not dedicated to my work because I have other interests. Whether I write in a blog or have long discussions about my Opinions – because none of that is directly productive in my career, I feel like I should be feeling I am wasting my time. Another part of me feels that why should every second of my day be dedicated to my career/education and why can’t I spend energy on stuff I enjoy? Because I’m not doing well, a part of me says that I don’t deserve to spend time on stuff I enjoy and I should just be working all the time. But I don’t care enough to actually follow that and I take breaks when I need to, and then I feel the impostor syndrome – I don’t care enough to be more motivated, maybe I don’t deserve to be here.
Reality check: how much actual time do I spend on non-studying:Daily: 0.5-1.5 hours before going to bed – I either watch something or write something – how long depends on what time it is, how tired I am, how badly I need to unwind, and how much of a break I need from school.Sometimes like right after exams when I feel completely brain dead – then I spend 3-4 hours relaxing, I sometimes try to do housework in this time, but usually am too tired. I try to fit housework in 5-10 minute time slots in between stuff – right before leaving my apt I quickly clean the floor, etc. I try not to do too much of it at the same time because that’s a time sink.
I’m not good enough(1) I am afraid to tell people how stressed I am and how I’m not being able to cope, because they will just tell me about how stressed they are and how much more stuff they have to deal with that I do. This makes me feel incompetent and inadequate. I do honestly feel that I am less capacity to deal with life than most of my friends and family.
People like to encourage me by saying don’t be afraid to fail, just keep working hard, if you fail, just get back up and start again, etc. None of that helps. I am not afraid of failing or working hard. What I am struggling with is this(1) The worst part of the day is waking up each morning and having to face the day not knowing how or when I will do everything that I am supposed to get done (I have experienced this before in undergrad, I just forgot how awful the feeling is).(2) What do I do when I am so tired all the time? Too tired to pay attention in class, why do I even go to class? What do I do when I am struggling to stay up in lectures?(3) What do W do when W’m always so nervous that W am not being productive enough and not making the most efficient use of my time (like right now, writing this down is helping me calm down, but I am also feeling pissed at myself for needing to be calmed down – I should be calm already and just go back to work!)
I feel like I’m letting my study group down because I just can’t do the homework and I need to them to do most of it. At the very least I need one of them to sit down with me while I do it. I feel like I don’t contribute enough. I feel afraid they will think I’m them, even though they haven’t given me any such indication.
Jump in cognition 2D to 3D(1) I can’t deal with the material in my econ classes, I just can’t cognitively handle this material. I can almost feel my brain trying desperately to form the neural connections and synapses in order to be able to process all this information but can’t keep up. The best analogy I can draw is the first time you learn multi-variable calculus. It’s so overwhelming to suddenly jump from 2D to 3D.Eeven back then I felt like my class wasn’t giving me enough time to let my brain capacity to grow to be able to deal with something that’s several times more complex. And now it’s 10 times worse than simply jumping from 2D to 3D. I can’t handle thinking in so many dimensions simultaneously.
I should be feeling more motivated(1) When I run into road blocks I should feel more motivated to keep pushing instead of giving up; I give up because I know I will get nowhere on my own; I feel like that’s not the attitude I should be having.
I feel mentally handicapped sometimes when I compare myself to my peers. In situations where they are able to reason through, for example what happens when we apply a convex monotone transformation to our function. I can’t break down the abstraction to its bare essentials and reason through it.
It’s like these smart people have like a “gifted privilege” (you know, like “white privilege” and “male privilege”). They can’t understand why I don’t understand something that they talked about for five minutes. Or why I need to have it carefully broken down for me. Or why I can’t apply the thing they just taught me to a particular problem without showing me exactly how to apply it.
The issue is, I feel guilty for performing poorly. I feel like the reason I do poorly is because I didn’t try hard enough. I could always have tried harder. I could have, idk, sacrificed more sleep time and relaxation time and tried to learn more of the background concepts I am missing. I know I couldn’t have handled it – and that’s what makes me feel weak and inadequate.
I feel afraid to share this because I don’t have the confidence that I will receive any sympathy for it. I have the impression that I will be told I made my own choices and if I cannot deal with them, that’s my fault and that I need to be a grown-up and it is irresponsible of me to have such a weak mental capacity that I cannot handle this stress. Everyone else around is going through so much more and has so much other real problems and real pressures from life. My problems are trivial and it is childish of me to think I deserve any sympathy for them.
Yes, reading this now, I can recognize I am being harder on myself than I need to be. Yes, I recognize that not all of these thoughts are rational. But there’s no switch for me to turn off these thoughts, you know? Right now, I’d like to find out what it is about me that makes me have this impression that unless I dedicate every breath to schoolwork, I’m not motivated enough. Why do I have this guilt every time I am relaxing?
Tushmit's Stream of Consciousness 