So I had the dreaded arbitration meeting with my adviser and another committee member yesterday. I was at about twice my max anxiety level, even though that's not technically possible. And my other committee member was 10 minutes late, so being the jackass that he is my adviser just sat and did things on his computer without speaking to me while we waited.
At the most basic level, I got what I wanted. He agreed to the plan for my dissertation chapters that my committee member had helped me develop. He tried the same unreasonable pushback on a few of the same things he was obstinate about when I was having those awful meetings with him a few weeks ago, but this time my committee member had my back and stood up for me that the ideas were interesting, conceptual, and valid. It shouldn't have taken someone else having to say those things to get him to listen, but oh well.
Example of how he handles things: one of my chapters will be based on database data, not field data. The committee member had referred to it as a meta-analysis in an email, although actually I'm synthesizing data de novo from a bunch of different places and doing stats on it to test several hypotheses, not doing a meta-analysis of other studies. Anyway, his comment was "I don't want a book report." He just assumes things have as little validity as possible without stopping to hear the facts. This happens with everything.
He didn't argue when I suggested staying here for the spring semester and doing a shorter field season in TRC next summer. He changes his mind all the time so this doesn't mean he won't give me grief about that later. Honestly I might not have a choice anyway given finances. I'm determined not to spend any more of his money on my project; I want to be as independent as possible. And he already indicated he's done paying for things anyway. When I go to the field during the spring semester, I forfeit a TA stipend for that entire semester (but still have to pay tuition to keep my benefits) and decrease my chances of summer funding as well. So if I stay here until May, I can have a guaranteed income for those months (which I haven't had in a while; I've been going from December to August or September with no formal paychecks the last two years) for all but three months and more time to focus on lining up summer money to both live on and spend on a summer field season.
So essentially I got my way. But my stress hasn't decreased that much. He was bright red and VERY obviously unhappy and uncomfortable during the meeting. My committee member (who is known as a big student advocate and has been SO supportive of me) has seniority over him in the department and is known for being a bit bulldoggish, so he probably felt backed into a corner. You know what? I tried very hard to resolve this with him before and he was obstinate and extremely unhelpful time after time. This is the fourth year of my PhD, I have to have a plan for my dissertation. I don't know what other choice I had besides just quitting.
I felt a bit relieved yesterday afternoon: I am working on database mining for Chapter 1 and hope to have a lot of that done by the end of this semester. I have all the data for Chapter 2 and just need to run a few more stats and write up the chapter. I hope that the last data for Chapters 3 and 4 will come together fast in with one more short field season. There is an end in sight.
But I still laid awake half the night stressing over the fact that he's unhappy with me and will probably not be supportive from here on out. As frustrated as I got with my MS adviser at times, he was at least always a good mentor for me. He still is. I'm frustrated that I had so many different options/offers for my PhD and ended up with this jackass. I do love everything else about this program, department, community, etc, though, so at least there's that.
I think the main thing I need to work on is to focus on me and not on him, and not let it get under my skin when he's a jerk. He has rocky relationships with most people in our lab and is known for being a jerk amongst other faculty in the department, from what I've heard. It's not my problem, it's his. But he does have power over me. Anyway, advice I've gotten from multiple trusted sources has just been to accept that he's a grumpy misogynist asshole, and to just keep my head down and do my work, and let that speak for itself. I'm not used to people being unhappy with me, but I need to get better at that.
So that's that update.
I also started Prozac this week. I'm on a minimal dosage to start (bumping up on Monday) and it's just been five days, so I doubt anything I've experienced this past week was due to it. But I have read that sometimes symptoms get worse before they get better with SSRIs and that has me worried. Monday my anxiety was totally overwhelming all day, it was absolutely eating me alive. That exhausted me and Tuesday was the lowest my mood has been in months; I just wanted to cry all day. Wednesday started out like that too; I started crying on my walk to work and had to call Match and talk for a while to calm down enough to go into the office. That afternoon I got to teach, though, which is always a big booster for me. It had been a nice distraction Monday but my anxiety roared back right afterward. Wednesday's session lifted my mood for a longer time; it didn't make everything all better but helped. Thursday was a lot better because I kept myself busy making progress on a project and having meetings with supportive people. Then I loaded my morning before the adviser meeting yesterday with recovery team stuff: Saw R. at 8:15 and H. at 9:15 before the meeting at 10:30.
My usual mode when I'm feeling low is to isolate, but this weekend I'm really, really feeling the need to be around other people for distractions. I'm going out with friends for dinner tonight and maybe on a hike tomorrow.
Food has been fine-ish. I restricted Sunday and Monday because of guilt over Friday night/Saturday party eating. H. pointed out that it might have been why my anxiety maxed out Monday evening. Anyway, I've been back on track since then. I CAN'T STAND my body right now; it's the highest weight I've maintained in about 6 years. But I also am really, really determined to perform well while wrapping up my PhD and don't want to go back down the ED rabbit hole . . . it used to be that I pretty much got used to a weight after a plateau of 6 weeks or so, but I've been at this weight for a solid 2 months and it still bugs me. And H. and R. want me to gain more. Ugh.
Okay that's this week's update. Thanks so much to the amazing readers that have been texting me support through these last few weeks; you're awesome people and I'm lucky to have you.
love y'all.
4 comments:
Hey Cammy!
I read all your entries, and I can't leave all my thoughts on all of them here, but I can share a few things that stick out: 1) I'm so sorry your brain is making you crazy, losing perspective and fixating on things you truly don't care about like weight and calories. It's so tiring. I think one way to describe an eating disorder is that it is a profound loss of perspective. Of course, maddeningly for the person with the eating disorder, often they can see that what their fixated on doesn't truly matter, but the fixation and the consequences of that fixation continue on without intervention and a ton of willingness to be uncomfortable (the discomfort is temporary but still). I'm blabbing on.... 2) SO GLAD you are in regular contact with a team. R and H seem great! 3) I know you're so uncomfortable in your skin right now, but I'm so proud of you for keeping on. I know it's so hard, and it's so impressive that you're remembering why keeping your food/weight up is worth it. 4) There's a quote - I forget who said it - that I found helpful in recovery. It goes: "I have the wisdom to know how I want to spend my time and energy." I always took that to mean I can choose what I want to think about and how I want to live - I can choose to align my thoughts and actions with the life I want rather than with the ED. and 5) SSRIs: I used to be resistant to SSRIs. My argument was I didn't want anything changing my brain. But my friend told me, "Yeah, but mental illness changes your brain." I thought she had an excellent point and suddenly I was willing to try it. I tried zoloft but never quite understood why I was trying it except for that after years of therapy, I was still struggling, so people just though they'd try me on a med. It always felt like there wasn't a smart enough rationale, nothing beyond "well, nothing else is working so let's try this." I guess because I never had buy-in, I never went beyond some small dosage, and I never felt any effect. I stopped taking it cold turkey and felt like I had the most deadly worst flu of my life. So don't stop taking it cold turkey! A couple of years later, I went on Lexapro (another SSRI). I was very willing to be on lexapro because the psychiatrist fully and perfectly explained my brain to me, I felt like he "got" me, and he explained exactly what he was hoping the lexapro would do. So I tried the lexapro. When I reached the right dosage, it was such a help for me. The funny thing is, I didn't actually feel like a different person at all! I felt the same. But others around me noticed a huge change and said I was much easier to be around - much less anxious and rigid. I stayed on Lexapro for 2 years and then went off of it. Recently, due to an uptick in obsessive, ruminative thinking that was really messing with me (not about anything ED related), I went back on lexapro, and, again, have experienced great relief. Interestingly, I now need a dose that is 1/3 the dose I was originally on. I guess I built up other mental strengths/coping skills that allow me to require a lower dosage. Anyway, all this to say, SSRIs can be a huge help. Anorexia, anxiety, depression all are changing your brain already. And SSRI won't change who you are, but it might allow you to have a brake pedal on your thoughts when you want to use it.
Hugs!!!
Oh and I forgot to say - ugh, I so feel you on the difficult phD advisor situation. I'm in a very similar boat and it is such a pain!
I'm really sorry you're in such a difficult and frustrating position with your adviser. I know it's been incredibly stressful. I'm glad your committee member had your back, though, and was able to keep things civil and help get the outcome you wanted.
I'm glad you're working with your great team on all of this! Congrats on pushing through the weight discomfort and continuing on! I'm with H on the uptick in anxiety potentially being caused by restriction. I remember one awesome therapist when I was at treatment kept reminding us that we stopped eating because we were anxious, but physiologically, not eating makes a person more anxious, and that we might as well just eat then! Obviously it's not that simple, but I have found it helpful that when my anxiety spikes, to look at how I've been eating. Generally there's a correlation between restricting and anxiety for me, so I really try to push myself to eat the necessary amount I'm supposed to be eating, and the anxiety decreases somewhat. Just my two cents on that topic.
Hang in there, dear!
Yikes, your advisor is a piece of work. Hang in there - he'll be eating his words someday when you are a bigwig for sure. I too can attest to the "restriction causes anxiety" thing. It's totally true for me; it also turns me into an insomniac which wreaks havoc on mental health.
Take care. Keep us posted on how the Prozac works out.
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