How am I doing?

This is as much of a question for you as it is for me¹.

How am I doing?

Really, I feel fine. Good, even. And that is the problem. It’s hard for me to conceive that I am having any difficulties in my life right now, or that I could be considered “mentally ill”. And for large swaths of time, depending on which part of the cycle I am in, I’m genuinely not aware that my external life is actually falling apart.

But in reality, it is. I’m effectively dysfunctional in work right now, except for when I’m not. Because my academic life is so stressful, I am dissociating away from my responsibilities, which is further exacerbated by the fact that my external circumstances are allowing this to happen. There are no checks in place to hold me accountable, so I feel like my life is floating away from me.

I’ve brought this up with my PhD advisor several times during the last few years. My PhD advisor, who is only trying to be supportive, responds by reassuring me that I am doing well and making progress as expected. Is he aware that I am not? Because I was not aware that I was not, and receiving repeated feedback that I am doing well, when in reality I am not, is making it more difficult for me to be aware of my dysfunction.

It’s only with extreme reality testing am I able to even understand the fact that my life is not going as planned right now. I am currently having a very hard time grasping onto the present and understanding the reality of my situation. I am spending excessive amounts of time “in my own world”, where parts who are time-blind and unaware of the problems of my external life are active. It’s very easy for me to ignore external problems as they arise—this response is automatic for me, and I’m usually not aware I’m doing it until something snaps me back into reality. When this happens, it takes me a few hours to days to reorient myself to my present life, which often results in me realizing that I’ve skipped days, weeks, or months. This pattern keeps happening, and I still haven’t figured out how to stop it. It is exhausting.

I now see that I am running out of time that it acceptable for me to operate in this way. I am currently a 6th year PhD student and I am nearly out of funding. I need to graduate by August, or else I will no longer receive funding for my degree and will likely have to drop out. If I keep up with my current behavior, I do not believe that I will be able to produce the work required of me to graduate by August.

Some parts of me have been aware of this dilemma for several months now, yet nothing has changed. How productive I am mostly depends on which part of the cycle I am in, as I gain and lose awareness seemingly cyclically. I feel like I am spinning around in space and have nothing to grasp onto to allow me to stay focused on my present situation.

But life feels good right now, it really does. It always has, even when times were objectively much worse. My current way of operating maximizes my internal comfort over all else. So in many measures, I’m doing well. But in many others, I am not. In order for me to change, I need to grasp onto the reality that I am not doing well right now, even if I feel like I am.