I have been thinking about my struggles as an undergraduate student recently and this article marks a significant moment, as it is the first time I am opening up to share my deeply personal journey of mental health challenges to wellness. I am an undergraduate of microbiology and just like many of you, I have faced my own battles with impostor syndrome and anxiety in my academic career. In this article, I will take you through my journey and explain how I have made impostor syndrome and anxiety work for me by turning them into my allies. When I say turning them into my allies I mean that rather than allowing them to hinder my progress, I have channelled their energy into becoming a self-aware and resilient student.
Read More »Tag: ANXIETY
Embracing the Unknown: Navigating Challenges as an International Student with Anxiety Disorder by Anonymous
Stepping into a new country to pursue an onshore PhD as an international student with an anxiety disorder is an adventure filled with lows and highs. As I moved from India, to Brisbane, Australia, the stark differences in culture, academic structure, and climate were only a few of the many challenges I encountered in the first two months of my arrival. Alongside my eagerness to explore numerous academic opportunities, the fear of missing out and the pressure to quickly adapt triggered waves of anxiety within me.
Read More »My Thesis Experience: From Crisis to Transformation by Nicci Attfield
I am a South African writer with a background in psychology and critical diversity studies. In 2014 I began to assist James Reed with his practice-based research project Agents of Change (which was created with Shelley Sacks from the SSRU at Oxford Brooke’s University). Agents of Change helps to connect people to their thoughts and feelings about climate change. Participants spoke about the fashion industry as well as the losses of plants and animals and even the losses of ancestors due to colonialism. How to live a sustainable life appeared to be elusive to many participants. All expressed a deep grief at the devastating impacts of environmental destruction. Many also expressed shame at living lives which impacted on other people.
Read More »Learning Courage: On the Unexpected Benefits of Examining My Anxiety by Alex Mendelsohn
Most of the stories I read about mental illness portray it as this hellish, horrendous thing that you must wait out. While in the darkest throes of mine, I have found it difficult to read these stories. If my experience was entirely a waste, how could I find the motivation to keep going?
I have found that the prevalent feeling during my illness has indeed been of time wasted. However, I think there are significant benefits if remission is found through medical treatment. I realised that the strategies I learned in order to stay alive, whilst should not be needed as medical intervention should be accessible and a first port of call, may be truly useful to others.
Read More »Coping With Anxiety and Grief: Accepting Help and Moving Forward by Gurnoor Mutreja
I am a law teacher and postgraduate in law who has lived her life according to a plan. I can say with pride that I have been academically very competent throughout my life. I passed all exams with flying colours and therefore I assumed that I would easily land a job. However, the Covid pandemic and changes in my personal life made it hard for me to secure a job.
In this blog, I will discuss my journey through depression and anxiety and how these affected my professional life. I will also discuss how accepting the problem and seeking helped me find a way forward.
Read More »Challenges of Navigating a PhD while Recovering from Mental Health Conditions by Daeun Jung
I was first diagnosed with depression and generalised anxiety disorder ten years ago. My first reaction to getting the diagnosis was relief. I was relieved that my problems were medically recognised. I was not just “weak” or “lazy” or “attention-seeking”; I felt validated. Then I felt angry. Why did I have to seek validation through a medical diagnosis? Since then, I have been on three different antidepressants, been hospitalised a few times, and gained some scars along the way. At the same time, I have finished my bachelor’s and master’s degrees and worked in four different jobs, which led to last year when I started my PhD programme and joined the world of academia. In this blog post, I will share my experiences of navigating the first year of PhD while managing mental health conditions.
Read More »The perfect researcher (and why I am not it) by Zoë Ayres
Just another typical PhD day for me. Highlighting another research paper, trying desperately to retain the salient bits. Mixing it up with different coloured highlighters. Grabbing a cup of coffee, hoping that the information might go in if I let the caffeine sink in. And yet it never quite does. I beat myself up, telling myself I am too stupid to do a PhD. Walking away from a meeting, I feel ashamed, as I know I read the paper that was being discussed, I just can’t quite recall the details. Rinse and repeat. This, combined with many other small things, which in isolation were hardly something to fret about, left my mental health in tatters.
It’s not just a bad day, or a bad week. It’s all the time. I am struggling to engage in reading papers. As soon as I pick them up, I glaze over or I get distracted. My reading list grows forever longer – the weight of it playing on the back of my mind. My inner voice constantly telling me I am not doing enough to succeed.
Read More »Living with Anxiety in Academia: The Importance of Acceptance and Support by Carla Aranda
When you feel death getting closer, you inevitably reminisce about your life: your best experiences; your worst moments; the things you said you were going to do but, in the end, didn’t; the things you did not expect to happen, but did. And if you contemplate on these things a bit, you will likely come to the same conclusion I reach: our life is ruled by the values we hold, which help to determine our priorities and the choices we make. For example, going to that concert instead of studying for a math test, attending that family gathering or staying home, and even bigger things like moving abroad alone or staying in your country of origin with your romantic partner. Priorities dictate our experiences, and if you don’t have much time left, you will most likely think of those hours you wasted on allegedly important (but truly irrelevant) matters.
In this blog, I will discuss my experience as an undergraduate student suffering from anxiety and how the current educational system’s flaws affect many students’ mental health and self-worth. Additionally, I will stress the importance and impact of having – and being part of – a supportive, non-stigmatizing environment, as well as share my ongoing recovery journey and what has been helpful during it.
Read More »Writing, Compulsivity and Valuing Time by Kirsty Alexander
Our details are important. Otherwise, if they are not, we can drop a bomb and it doesn’t matter.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones
One of the hallmarks of being a scholar is the ability to communicate through writing and usually to communicate research and teaching ideas through writing. Most people who go through doctoral training are aware that to be employable and to maintain employment contracts in academia, writing and publishing are desirable. Most are aware of the expectation that we should publish our doctoral research in some form during or after the PhD years. I completed my PhD in 2010 and I’ve yet to publish research from it. I write ‘yet’ because I’ve been invited to submit a chapter based on it for an edited collection this summer. I have a quiet confidence I’ll write, edit and submit. The details of this matter. In this blog I will share insights about how severe anxiety and compulsivity affected me and my writing throughout my PhD (and afterwards), and how I’ve managed to arrive at a place of gratitude and acceptance.
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A PhD, BPD & Me by Emma Corbin
When I originally set out to write this blog, I was going to tell a beautiful story of a PhD student who struggled at first and rose to greatness. That wouldn’t have been truthful, because mental health recovery isn’t linear. It is a wild rollercoaster ride. So, here is the brutally honest story of my PhD so far.
Everything was going pretty well for quite a while. It was the most at peace I had been with myself for a long time. That is, until I tested positive for COVID-19 in October 2020. Spoiler alert: I still haven’t recovered. After my 2-week isolation time, I returned to work. Despite colleagues telling me to take it easy, I jumped straight back in. Classic academia: presenteeism at its finest. The pressure I felt from losing all that lab time in 2020 was weighing on me, so I just pushed on through. Well, instead of recovering I got worse. It was miserable. Every experiment physically hurt. I was running myself into the ground. Publish or perish is not meant to be taken literally… right?
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Voices of Academia 