PhD Student Diary I

I have heavy work-related anxiety. I cannot function like a normal human (I will not eat/sleep) until I complete a task my brain has assigned, no matter how impossible it is. With time, this is gradually getting better, but it occasionally pops up very few months, especially when I am burnt out due to aforementioned high stress work routine. These timeouts can get nasty. I won’t stop trying to work just because my body/brain don’t cooperate. The stress of not working occupies me more than the real work. Coupled with PCOS, the stress leads to late periods, causing a downward spiral of anxiety. Soon, I reach rock bottom and stay there for a few days, wallowing in self-pity. Then people around me show me what a mess I have made of myself. So I try to piece together my very unstable life. After a couple days of enforced discipline and actual self care (proper meals, 8 hours of sleep, adequate exercise etc), the wheels are sufficiently oiled, and begin to turn again. This detrimental cycle has been my life ever since I have left my parents house.

If you know me, you probably see me with a different light. My selling points have always been the girl that works hard, and has come quite far. These things are true, but it is during this last phase of depression that I realized the cause of it : I am terrified of mediocrity. What you are born with is not up to you, the only thing you can do to make sure you are not mediocre is to give all that you have to your cause, so at least nobody can ever accuse you of not having worked hard enough. I have begun associating my self-worth with my productivity and non-mediocrity. I am very scared that someday people are going to find out that I am actually quite useless, and have never done anything creative or fruitful. Imposter syndrome is quite common in PhD students, I suffer from it, I know that. However, I think that is just the symptom. Fear of mediocrity is the cause.

I spoke about this to a friend. I remember being sore from some comments made previously by my father on how, with hard work, I have always achieved everything I have wanted to since I was a child, and how I should apply that now to lose all the extra weight I have gained. Later, my friend and I were cooking together. One of the dishes I was making was not going well. He made a joke about it being mediocre. Immediately realizing what he had said, he apologized. My brain could process that it was an innocent mistake, yet it took me a while to calm down. I was a mixture of fury and tears. There was simply no reason for me to have felt bad, but I did. It is not his censure that hurt, I just very badly needed to not be mediocre at something. Since then, I have been giving a lot of thought to this aspect of my mentality. Why do I need to be better than the rest? I will spare you the details of my genetic buildup and life events that have led to this. Let me rather tell you my conclusion.

Being mediocre has never been, and will never be something I can control. No matter what I do, I can always be mediocre in somebody’s eyes. What I can control is what I think and expect of myself. In a race to be non-mediocre, I have forgotten all the reasons I loved and enjoyed math (my work). My desire to “achieve the goal” has grown so strong that it has ebbed my creative juices and curiosity. I am going to focus on getting that back, for, it is no fun if the interest is lost. If I still do not feel inspired, I am not going to shy away from looking for inspiration elsewhere, and fearlessly going wherever my heart takes me.

As Helena Bonham Carter once said, “I do think imperfection is underrated”. I am slowly learning that I am indeed imperfect, maybe at everything I do, and that is completely fine. What defines me is not how long I take to complete a project, or how perfectly I do it, but how I do the project, what I learn from it, and how I respond to challenges along the way.

For 2022 and ahead, I resolve to embrace my imperfection and mediocrity, and give myself the required space and time to learn and grow; to become a more mentally healthy and well-balanced version, maybe a little less hard working, maybe a little less “successful”, but the best version of myself.

Happy New Year! I hope you take some time out this year to appreciate and enjoy yourself.