Hi Sarah

Sorry your feeling so down. I wish there was some magic words that could suddenly help you to view life differently.

Life is a ever turning cycle. That reality is life’s wonder which can bring hope, but if were honest also despair as we so wish to be in control and force life to conform to our will.

Advice for what its worth. There is a time in every hero’s journey where they must preserver without leaning on hope. This is a time of deep uncertainty and doubt yet the hero continues. Its kind of interesting but it seems to me anyway, that it is often the loss of hope while continuing to push through, becoming comfortable with uncertainty and doubt that is the point in the story that opportunity presents itself. A opportunity that the hero may never have imagined possible yet where they discover their gold. (You may enjoy the book The Alchemist)

Its ok to be uncertain, to doubt and not being able to envision a future. This may be a time where your task is to focus on completing your PHD and letting go of expectations of where you imagine you “should” be.  What is required at this time it to continue the every day tasks, ‘moving’ while keeping your eyes open.

Pay attention when your thinking goes all or nothing. For example ‘things will always be this way’, ‘I will always be lonely’, ‘I know what others are thinking’… This cognitive distortion language is the language of depression and anther task that the hero must overcome. Most of that type of cognitive distortion come from fear, most of which is ‘false evidence appearing real’. The danger is that when we fixate on these distortions and thoughts that we can create what we fear

The first thought that came to mind when I read you post was that here is a person with nothing to lose and having nothing to lose the opportunity to take a chance and surprise herself. Be the hero of your story.

Hey Sarah.

Sorry to hear you are going through a tough patch right now, a good rant with a non-judgmental audience can be hugely helpful just to be able to ‘say’ the things in your head you don’t think those around you want to hear or listen to openly.

Few thoughts for you. Whose expectations of life do you think you are failing? Yours? Your families? Society?  It can be difficult to separate out what are our own goals and hopes from those put on to us by others at times.  So it can be hugely useful to spend some time working out what your own hopes/dreams are – and as importantly which ones you can influence and which are things that you can’t so much, such as your recent diagnosis. Do you have all the outcomes as yet – sounds like there is some uncertainty as to the extent it will impact you?

First/early jobs after further education are always tough. I’m assuming you don’t actually want to work in a coffee shop long-term and it was just an example of the kind of low-paid/skilled job you think you should be able to get – hence it’s even more of a failure to not have those basic skills to be able to do so. But the thing is, people hiring for those types of jobs know it’s only a temporary gig for you whilst you finish up your PhD and so the value in training you up and paying more than they pay the sub-18 yr olds they tend to hire isn’t worth it to them. I found this out the hard way too…and it’s distressing when you can’t get anything to help make some money whilst you finish your PhD.  What do you want to do once you have finished – whilst looking for paid work it can be worth spending some time getting other practical experience and building contacts in the industry you ant to go in to through volunteering etc.  It would also help with making new friends and increasing your social circle outside of old friends you no longer relate with.

Essentially, any small step that will help towards the goals you truly want for yourself will help you to feel you are moving forwards, instead of stuck or backwards, which is when the frustration and sense of failure kicks in.

Hope it helps – happy to work through determining what your own hopes/dreams are and how to break those down into achievable steps if that would be of use.