I thought I’d post here as well, because why not at this point.
I am a pre doc working in Belgium. I have a history of mental health illness and due to this I only have very few and short work experiences at 30+ years old. Nothing unprofessional or particularly bad ever happened, just a mix of bad luck + crippling anxiety preventing me from ever seriously embarking in a career. I have been working here since September and even though I had no prior experience in research they still decided to take me in and for the most part have been nothing but supportive.
With that said. My direct supervisor is demanding, works all the time, and is emotionally flat. I do my best and he is an extremely good supervisor from an academic standpoint but on a personal level we simply don’t mesh. I hate to admit I am kinda scared being around him. I have been making lots of mistakes which I shouldn’t have made and everytime they feel more and more substantial and severe. The mistakes aren’t caused by him of course and they are fully on me but I feel I have no space to truly communicate when something is wrong which only makes things worse.
I am leading this review together with him and another colleague. This wasn’t part of my own project and was something he assigned me to, which is OK but just for context. The subject is tricky. We have worked for weeks and months to get the search terms to a point where they felt meaningful. I had a 1st round where I screened 8k papers on Covidence only to realise they weren’t the ones I was expecting to show up. So together with him and my colleague we refined the terms. My supervisor told me sternly that I should have known better and that he had to email covidence to ask for a reset. Anyways the new search produced 17k papers. I told my supervisor this new search strategy was better and I felt I was getting the right results. I started screening them and about 5k papers in I realized the search might not be quite right again. I sent him a lengthy message yesterday explaining how and why. I know he will be very angry at me for messing it up again. Even though in the moment I genuinely thought I was doing the best I could, acknowledging my mistake and bringing it up well in time to correct before we had anything to submit or a lot of worthless material.
This comes after another f*ckup where he assigned me a crucial task for another project. In this project, I had to transcribe a series of data in a very detailed way and the work of the rest of the team depended on that as the data were the basis for their own analysis and conclusions. At some point my supervisor realized I had transcribed some of the numbers wrong. Luckily, I only had transcribed them wrong in the paper manuscript, while I had sent the right ones to my colleagues.
I am also working on my own paper whose first draft/concept note however got very bad reviews. Essentially it’s sloppy and very poorly written and feels more like a high school essay.
Essentially I feel like I am wasting everyone’s time and I am well below even the most basic expectations. Here in Belgium positions like mine are an actual job and not a “time to learn” like they are in the US. There is a lot less leeway to be a disaster.
Yesterday, the realization I screwed up the review again, coupled with all the other f*ckups and the general lack of progress and the poor opinion my supervisor surely has of me at this point, sent me over the edge. After sending him the message, I started violently shaking. Then I started having strong s_cidal thoughts. I had a plan but didn’t go through with it. I ended up in the ER of the psych ward and next week I’ll see a specialist and start therapy. I also have been suffering from excruciating headaches which I hope are just migraines or somatization.
Given my CV and my history, if I lose this job it’s over for me. I won’t get to have yet another fresh start or a chance to make things right. But at the same time, I cannot go on like this. I’m already medicated but meds can only do so much. Either way, I most likely won’t be able to keep working full time with my supervisor. There will be some form of change or arrangement. And the team needs to know.
At the same time, they are not and should not be responsible for my feelings and my mental health. They are my colleagues and not my parents.
Is there a professional way of letting them know? Should I let them know at all?
Comments
As someone who has dealt with (not crippling) anxiety for a lot of their lives, I suggest that probably you should look for a job that’s better for your mental health.
Research, by definition, is exploration and you can fall short. This happens to the best of researchers. It has nothing to do with you actually, just the nature of the work. Can you handle it?
Why do you say it’s over if this doesn’t work out? I’m sure there are many low tension work out there that would steal appeal to things you like?
Dear [Name],
An urgent matter of a personal nature has cropped up. I won’t be able to respond to much in the next week or two.
Best,
[Your name]
Nobody needs to know the details. You could briefly bring up stuff that’s due within the next 2 weeks and how you’re adjusting those deadlines, but that’s not relevant. Lay out what’s happening because of your undisclosed issue, that’s all the details they need. We’ll deal with everything after you’re back. As far as they’re concerned, they can treat it like your parents just died.
You’re having a medical emergency and you can and should communicate that to your employers. Right now while things are still very fresh and uncertain I’d suggest telling them nothing more than the bare minimum required: you’re having a medical emergency, you have taken the appropriate next steps to address the issue and there is no cause for concern, but you will not be able to meet your work obligations right now. They do not need any details— it’s none of their business. Saying more than is necessary can cause additional issues, especially around mental health due to negative stereotypes (unfortunate but true).
Step back from the “this is my last chance” thought process and rhetoric. You are not in a mental space to realistically assess that right now, and that should be what you say to yourself when you start to think that way. By default reality is distorted for you, and you can’t see whether light is there or not. Say it out loud: “I am not in a mental space to realistically assess that right now.” Say it again.
I agree with another poster who suggested aiming for other types of work. Find something you are confident you can succeed at. When you succeed you will see that it’s possible which will help you build confidence and professional momentum.
If you have not done so before, I strongly recommend you get assessed for ADHD. Your anxiety could be a result of undiagnosed ADHD, which could be a root cause of your struggles. I speak from experience.
I’m not sure what it’s is like in Belgium, but it might be possible to get disability accommodations. In my country at least, these can help protect you if you have to take time off of work.
These types of mistakes are common in academia, especially for people who don’t have a lot of experience. If your supervisor hired you knowing that you don’t have a lot of previous experience, then gave you a difficult task that isn’t even part of your project, he shoulders some of the responsibility.
I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much. We all start somewhere, and it sounds like you’re putting a lot of work and thought into what you’re doing. It might not feel like it now but it WILL pay off.
The most important thing in the short term (besides therapy) is to adjust your environment so it is less stressful for you— whether that means finding a new supervisor or a new work arrangements. No job is worth your life, health, or safety.
Finally I just want to challenge the idea that if this job doesn’t work out it’s over for you and you’ll live in poverty— as someone with extreme anxiety, this sounds like the anxiety talking. You got this job with the same CV you’re worried about, right? So this is not a doomsday scenario— if needed, you can find a job again.
For now, take some deep breathes. I recommend seeing if your university has a disability advocate you can talk to who can advise you about how to speak with your supervisor.
Yes let them know you’re taking time off, but no need to say it’s for mental health. I’d tell them you’re unwell and attach a doctor’s note for the dates you need. Belgium should be very good about sick leave and any general practitioner should write you a note for a couple of weeks off given you were in ED with acute suicidality.
First of all, this sounds like a really shitty time. I’m sorry to hear this has been your experience. Well done for getting where you are, even landing a position like this is a huge achievement, and an indication that you can get through this.
I can relate to your experiences to some extent. I also had a history of mental health issues that put an end to careers before they started in my 20s, mostly throughout self-doubt. I started a PhD in my 30s. I had similar worries about my supervisory relationship and my long-term prospects more generally.
There were also several periods of crisis where I experienced similar issues to what you are describing. For various reasons, I can now look back on that period with some perspective:
Anxiety and depression can be thought of as psychoses. Truly, they bend reality around you. What people think of you, how skilled you are, how good your future prospects are, etc, are all fundamentally shaped by the emotional context you think about them in. If you are feeling chronic negative emotions, your grasp on reality is likely to be off the mark to an extent
Performance =/= ability, at least not directly. In fact, common-sense notions like intelligence, talent and skill start to shrink when you look at them too closely (look up fundamental attribution error). Sure, some people are real smart. But a much larger component of variation in performance can be attributed to things like: self-belief, inclination, persistence, mental resilience, social support etc. Someone who sees their work as a learning process would interpret a mistake as an opportunity to improve. Someone with a different mindset may see the mistake as conformation that they shouldn’t have tried in the first place, and this may impact future attempts.
A nice example of this:
https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00781/full
Some examples:
Early in my doctorate, questions at the end of talks would crush me. Recently, I presented to a hostile audience and had no problems rebutting criticism.
High school maths was not counted towards my university admissions score, I failed a first year stat’s course. I always had a chip on my shoulder regarding stats, I never thought I would succeed in my field because I found statitics so difficult. I taught myself R with 5 job-search tabs open in my browser because I thought I was going to quit my doctorate. I just recieved reviewer comments on a manuscript praising the analysis. I say this only to show the difference a change in perspective can make. I’m still the same person, intelligent, but certainly nothing exceptional, especially compared to much of this subreddit.
How we think about ourselves can have a huge impact on how well we do, and that isn’t spoken about enough in our profession imo. Feel free to message if you’d like to chat more.