Published on 12, July, 2020
I've come to this realisation today sat in the library of my old university that the trajectory of my life is that I will be forgotten and die alone. This is where inertia seems to be taking me. Around me I see students making friends, sharing drinks, laughing. I am forgotten. connectionless. My few friends are either distant, busy or suicidal. My family is restless and leaving me behind. I have no wife, girlfriend or children. No one shares my interests, no one gets me. No one who is available, connectable that is. All I have is my science. It's the only thing I've been able to hang on to and even that has been a huge struggle.
Even if I am successful by normal career metrics I will most likely die alone and friendless, a lonely old university 'don.' The people I thought I would grow old with when I was younger will forget me, many will not even hear of my passing when it comes. They have their wives, husbands, serious others, a few of them have 'besties' of 'bffs.' Platonic friends they seemed joined at the hip to. Evidently, they all decided that shouldn't be me. Many have just disappeared. Even their Facebook pages deleted, almost nothing to show they were ever a part of my life.
I am tired of trying to be strong. I’m tired of trying to be good and take the moral high ground. But I don’t know how to be bad and even if I did it’s too late to do me any good. Lives of selfish and destructive indulgence are a young mans game and every day my body seems to betray me a little more. For years I tried to just pretend I wasn’t getting old. That nothing had changed since I was 18 or so. I probably still will as well as I can.
No councillor can help me. No program of inner healing or self-reflection can fix this mess. I need my circumstances to change. And no body cares. How could they, they barely know I exists and when I remind them of my existence the usual reaction is to try to sideline or exclude me as quickly as possible.
I need to do something radical. To pick the nuclear option, other wise my life will spiral down the plug hole unless a deus ex machina intervenes. But I’ve no idea what the nuclear option is.
Ideas?
Hi, I can relate to a lot of what you say. I used to have 2 things that kept my life together 1) my hobby: hiking, running, outdoor activities. 2) Science. I haven't been able to hike or run or do much exercise at all for 4 years now due to injuries. Science has been my other passion for years which I love- I have had a few bad experiences in labs and I finally thought I had found a good PhD position with a supportive supervisor and environment, but it's not even 6 months in and I feel like every shred of self-worth I have has been taken away. I've been made to feel so inadequate and I am now getting the impression my supervisor is trying to get me to leave. I also feel alone and even if I have free time I don't know what to do with it as I cannot do my hobbies. I feel trapped in so many ways and like you say, I doubt many people would even notice if I was gone. I have a few friends mainly through my bachelor and Mphil but most live in different countries or cities now. We do keep in touch but I just feel so weird and inadequate and alone. Most of my connections are through science. I can also relate to trying to build up some confidence and always trying to pull yourself together again and keep going in the hope that things will improve.
I have a few times changed my circumstances in the hope this would help. In a way it was good as I got myself out of one bad environment but somehow I just managed to land into another.
I think what you say about having to change circumstances is true though. Dr. and therapists usually just focus mainly on intrinsic issues, they pathologise our feelings and challenges. It's something wrong with us. Rarely do professionals say that it is in fact that there is something wrong or incompatible with the environment we are in too. I'm also not sure what the nuclear option would mean for you. I've taken big changes (my main aim was to find a good PhD position where I could settle), had to leave one place as I wasn't paid for 6 months, plus not much supervision or support. Then I took a job, which ended up being very long hours for very low satisfaction. I really hated it (and other people working with me have since been off ill long-term with burnout and then quit). Through all the stress I managed to find a PhD position, moved abroad for that for the first few months (this was part of the deal), then moved again. Each time I made a change I thought it was for the better and it felt good. I have little regrets about some of these choices, but then it just turned out worth than ever. And I'm just getting more and more worn out.
So the question is not just 'what is the nuclear option?' but how do you maximise the chances of this nuclear option actually being better? In a way you could say you will just need to keep trying until you find something that works but that just feels too unpredictable and non-efficient- nuclear takes energy.
What do you think would make you happier? You would like to work in anti-aging research? What about the things you are most unhappy with? Change is exhausting and scary but maybe it does sometimes actually end in a better outcome. I don't know. It's difficult to know how much energy to put into trying to endure and salvage the existing situation vs going for something completely different. It sounds like you have tried to make things work within the current situation, so like you say, maybe some more drastic change would be beneficial. The added bonus is that when you change something in your environment, it makes you feel empowered and also at least for me it is then easier to also change things about myself. Because all of these issues are a combination of extrinsic and intrinsic factors. And I am a firm believer that you should try and change extrinsic factors if possible to maximise your chances of success and happiness.
Not sure if any of this is helpful at all. I hope I didn't talk too much about my own issues at the moment. your post really resonated with me and I want you to know that you are not alone in feeling this way.
Ann :) said:What do you think would make you happier? You would like to work in anti-aging research?
I already do but it’s looking harder and harder to stay in. But I don’t know that I have any option but to stay in or just become long-term unemployed. My last period of unemployment was fairly long. I applied to all kinds of things academic and not. But I’ve now got to a level where I look absurd as a job option for a lot of jobs because of my long academic track record. Even tech jobs like programming and web development, the employers would look at my CV and think ‘yeah he’s not going to stick around.’ Research in industry is basically non-existent in my field and skill set. So academia may be my only career option.
my research does make me somewhat happier. but frankly if anything it was a dissatisfaction in my social life that drove me to get my career on track. There is no social component to my career. Other people may find social connection through the workplace I never have. It was a complete collapse of my social life when I was forced out of the Anime society that shook me out of my complacency to finally do something about the career but I’ve got stuck in a rut after I finished my PhD. Because I was comfortable being moderately poor but with a good social life. As long as I had a roof over my head and some food to eat enough money to get out of the house once a week and buy some drinks with my friends I was happy.
misery forced me to make a change in my life as my social life collapsed and that change has yet to bear fruit in my social life.