Looking for the Silver Lining

Photo by Jeremy Thomas on Unsplash

My friend Elle was recently awarded her PhD in physics after many years of education and hard work. A PhD stands for doctor of philosophy and is a research degree awarded by the university. Elle worked on getting her PhD during graduate school for seven years. From talking to various people, it seems to take five to six years to get a PhD in physics. In order to get a PhD in physics, a student in a graduate program should produce original research while working with an advisor, write a PhD thesis, and defend it in front of a committee of physicists. Because Elle switched research projects during this process, it took her a little bit longer to graduate. Discovering something new isn’t easy and being in graduate school can be extremely stressful. I think the pressure of graduate school may be exacerbated by the feeling that getting lucky is important, in addition to working hard. Even though graduate school is not for everyone, there might be some questions and thought processes which Elle touches upon that pertain to other areas in life as well.

Since Elle has been through this experience, I thought it would be great to hear about her views on mental health. Elle thinks that being mentally healthy means being able to handle pressure and knowing how to effectively deal with stress. It also means knowing how to find things that make you happy.

In the following text, which includes the highlights of my interview with Elle, my questions and comments during the interview are italicized and her responses are in quotations.

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Are there any particular experiences that you had where your mental health has been positively affected or negatively affected – are there any that stick out in your mind when I ask you that question?

“There was one time I was so stressed about my work. So basically, I was not able to make the right decisions and focus on my work and do all of the things I was supposed to do. This went on for a couple months and there was a sudden change in my work. My previous advisor had decided to go somewhere else, so I suddenly felt that I had nobody to instruct me for my PhD, like my PhD career is going to end. It was really stressful so I felt pretty much like ‘Why did my professor leave me? Is it because I’m not good at what I’m doing?’. So I started to feel bad about myself. Between those couple of months it was really really bad for me. After a few months, I started to work with another professor who is really really supportive.”

Elle explained how she actively tried to improve her mental health:

“I tried to do more work out and read a lot of books. I read Eat Pray Love. I also read The Picture of Dorian Gray. It’s by Oscar Wilde. I read a lot of Oscar Wilde books, and his fairytales. If I read an interesting book, I would look for books by the same author. I went to the gym with friends and worked on my body. I talked to some of my friends. I told you before I thought talking won’t help because nobody’s going to fix my problem, but after I started to talk to my friends, I realized they will support me and try to cheer me up. It really helps a lot. And they will help me think ‘What should I do? What can I do to make this better?’. I guess friends and family are always going to be there for you.”

From my interactions with you, I think you’re really positive. Even if your environment is not great, you always seem really positive and you always work so hard every day. Are there any habits that you maintain for a healthy mindset? How are you able to be so positive all the time?

“Always think the worst.”

She laughed and I asked her, “You always think the worst?”

“When something happens, I will ask ‘What is the worst situation? Are we in the worst situation or are we in better than the worst situation – then we’re fine.’”

That’s interesting … So you’re a pessimist in disguise?

“When something happens, what is the worst situation. If we’re not in the worst situation, then we’re fine, we’re good.”

And that’s the most effective thing for you?

“I think most of the time it’s not going to lead to the end of the day or the end of the world. Even if it doesn’t work, we need to try to find other ways to make it work. So if we feel so depressed or not energized, we cannot clear our mind and think. Kind of like, we need to stay focused when we’re at work. If this doesn’t work, we try the best we can. And if it still doesn’t work, then give it up, move on.”

Are there any other habits you have, sleep-wise or food-wise? I know you were you gave me tips in our previous conversations.

“I try to sleep about 8 hours a day. I try to be as periodic as I can. Normally I go to bed around 10:30 and wake up around 6:30, have breakfast, and then go to work. I’m more of a habit person. I need as much sleep, go to bed early, and wake up early and then I will feel energetic. I don’t need coffee or I don’t need tea to have energy. And I try to work out periodically, which I haven’t done.”

Because you’ve been working so hard.

“I’m trying to work out at least over the weekend. And for my eating habits, I try to eat as healthy – well it’s not like as healthy as I can. It’s a coincidence that what I like to eat happens to be very healthy. For example, I like vegetables and I don’t like salty food. And I don’t like over-processed food like ham or sausage. And for vegetables, I try to cook it very simply. Although probably some of the spicy food is not very healthy.”

I don’t know, some people say that spicy food is healthy for you.

“It’s supposed to be good for your metabolism … I’m going to convince everybody to eat spicy food.”

After we got sidetracked talking about making spicy food, we got back on track with the conversation about mental health, particularly when going through school.

From what I hear from other people, graduate school can be very stressful. And you’ve already talked about some of the stress you’ve experienced with your advisor. Was there any other large source of stress that particularly present when you were at grad school, rather than at any other time of your life?

“I’ve always had this question ‘Am I smart enough to go down this path of academia?’ It’s very hard to find a faculty job or a position after a post doc. First of all, you have to work really hard. Second of all, you have to be smart to choose your advisor. So for graduate school, most of my projects were chosen by my advisor. Sometimes it’s stressful, whether the project will work. The biggest challenge in graduate school is how your advisor chooses the project that will work.”

I guess it’s kind of hard, because it can feel like you have to get lucky to get a good advisor and get a good project. You can’t succeed just by being smart or just by working hard.

“You always need direction. If you follow the path of that direction, if that direction is good, if you’re lucky, then everything will work. Sometimes your advisor won’t know how the project will turn out.”

Was it ever debilitating, did the stress ever affect your daily life?

“Not my daily life, no.”

That’s good. Did you see other grad students affected more than you were?

“Yes, I have some friends who were really affected by their project. One of my friends, they had to switch advisors in the middle of their PhD career. Because their project wasn’t working out, they didn’t want to work with their particular advisor. So they wanted to switch to a different project. It doesn’t happen all the time, but even some of my friends in other schools experienced the same thing. It happens quite often.”

I guess the project plays a big role.

“It’s kind of the whole thing, the combination of the project, the advisor, the student himself and also how lucky you are sometimes. It depends on how lucky you are and how hard you work. It’s like the combination of the whole thing.”

How did they deal with that? Before they switched advisors, how did they make a decision to switch advisors? I don’t know how much you know about their situation, but before they decided to switch, how were they coping with it?

“For a PhD we also have some other mentors, or some of the students have good relationships with professors who they can talk to and seek some advice. And also they talk to friends. That’s how I know about their problems. They try to sort out their situation by thinking ‘If I do this, will it work?’. Some of them feel really really frustrated. After they cannot cope with it anymore, they decide they need some change – change advisor, change project.”

Is there anything you’d like to see in the future regarding mental health? I mean, in terms of stigmas or resources that are available, maybe resources that are available at schools for students, is there anything you think needs to change or be improved? Or how society views mental health?

“Yeah university-wise, I know in my school there were counseling sessions. But I never went to them because I’m fine. Some of my friends went to the consulting center. I’m not sure how helpful it was. Some of my friends who were depressed visited doctors and I think that helped. But the consulting sessions (at the university) were short sessions and I’m not sure how that would help. Probably for people who regularly go to these sessions, they help, but I’m not sure.

So I was on the diversity committee in my former institution. We were doing things hoping to help all the students and people in the lab with discrimination against minorities. We organized workshops, bringing in people from other institutions or schools (national health center?). So invited speakers from other institutions talked about how should we actually help reduce discrimination, for minorities, women, different races. Some of the talks were really helpful. I guess these things differ from person to person. Some things somebody will find useful while another person might think it’s not that useful.”

Is there anything else you’d like to add before we finish?

“I guess a lot of things we look back on, the time you think you were unhappy or in a very low position. A lot of times when you look back you realize there was nothing that important to worry about. Sometimes when you look at things and you look at them in a different attitude, you will find it easier to deal with even if the situation doesn’t change.”

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I really enjoyed talking with Elle. We revisited some things we’ve talked about before. It can be nice to talk about subjects more than once, as it helps to develop my own viewpoint and understand better what other people are thinking. Elle has given me a lot of motivating advice, even outside this interview. A project I’m working on in the lab is not panning out as I thought it would. Sometimes I felt so unmotivated and frustrated because I didn’t know how to fix the various problems I was encountering, and all the experience I thought I had gained from working in the lab seemed to be nothing but a grain of rice (compared to vast experience on the scale of seafood pasta or bubble tea if I’m trying to go with a starch analogy [?]). But so what? I should still work hard and try to make something out of it. If I give it my best, I may not do all the measurements I want or get all the results that I want, but I will still make more progress than if I resign myself to thinking that I’m failing at my project. So I started to try to identify the small steps I need to take in order to break down the imposing ‘Wall of Improbability’ into smaller and smaller hurdles. And I think it’s paying off. Not only do I think I’ve made more progress in the past few days than in the past few weeks, but it’s given me a little boost of “maybe I can actually do this” attitude.

Before I interviewed Elle, I was a bit worried about what people reading this could get out of it because she’s never been diagnosed with a mental illness. However I think her insight is also extremely valuable. The times I’ve read about mental health and what the signs of someone who is mentally healthy are, one of the important factors is resilience and the ability to recover from stressful situations. She certainly meets that, so I think it’s good to hear about her viewpoints. This doesn’t mean that people who aren’t like her should beat themselves up about it. I really admire her positive attitude and work ethic and I would like to be as resilient as she is, but if I’m assessing myself without too much delusion, I think I too often have trouble focusing, studying, or working for extended periods of time and I feel hurt quite easily without a good mindset to get out of the rut. However, Elle sets an example for qualities that I would like to develop and so I hope this may be helpful for other people as well.

One of the things in this interview that I’d like to highlight to take away from this blog is that in order to have positive mental health, it may be extremely helpful to talk to people you’re close with. Being able to not only sharing fun experiences with friends and family, but also sharing your struggles can be so important for your wellbeing. Also, in order to be mentally healthy, it is important to take care of your physical health. Taking care of yourself and your body includes eating well, sleeping well, exercising, and taking time to rest and relax.

- Ingrid