Don't Panic

For those of you who missed it, PhD Student Henrik Siljebråt (see how easy it is to make yourself sound more important? PhD Student, oooooo. Try switching it to “PhD Candidate” and see how that feels) held a talk a few months back that included something he called “PhD despair”. This is, he found, something that most PhD students and academics respond to with “oh, yeah, welcome to your second year of PhD studies”. Apparently it’s a well known phenomenon but nobody tells you about it. PhD despair symptoms may include extreme procrastination, thoughts about quitting the PhD, thoughts about changing your topic, anxiety, depression, existential crisis, thoughts about suicide or, even more extreme, moving to some warm country and open a bar on the beach.

BUT DON’T PANIC.

This is going to sound cliche, but; talk to your friends, colleagues, supervisors and parents about it. Especially colleagues and supervisors should be aware that this is a thing that happens and have likely gone through the same thing. I know from personal experience that it doesn’t help to be told that others feel the same, and when you’re deep in that state you likely don’t want or even can talk about it. Which also means that you should, at least sometimes, ask your fellow IGGI student how they’re doing. Because it can change their day. 

For another viewpoint, you may find this useful. Potentially, maybe doing a PhD is not what you want to do at all.

The point here is that you should be aware that the likelihood of you - a PhD student - having mental problems is significantly higher than for the rest of the population. You know what the number 2 most talked about paper was in 2017? Work organization and mental health problems in PhD students

You should be aware of these things, so that you can prepare. Even if you don’t feel down, find a therapist anyway. Because when the slippery slope arrives, you may not be able to get out of bed to get that help.

And again; DON’T PANIC. After all, you’re doing this PhD because you want to. Not for anyone else. Right? 

Remember that. You’re doing a PhD FOR YOURSELF. Not your supervisor, even though they will make you feel that your entire personhood relies on you doing work that furthers their careers.

Nobody cares if you get a PhD or not. Except your mom. But unless she did a PhD she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Impostor syndrome

Oh you are still here? Excellent! Then you should also know about impostor syndrome, that feeling of being a fraud and soon, any day now, you’ll be exposed and get ridiculed by everyone around you. This is of course very prevalent among PhD students, part and parcel of the mental issues we just talked about. So here are a bunch of pictures, taken from Buzzfeed, that will make total sense if you’ve ever experienced the feeling of impostor syndrome. Hopefully they’ll make you chuckle, or at the very least make you feel less alone. I only present a selection, all 13 of the charts can be found by following that link.

Now that you're aware of common insecurities, let's move onto talking about what a PhD is about.

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