Cutey Zone

i dont have any good advice.. but i'm also wishing you good luck + positive energy and am very happy to hear that things have been getting better

Thank you a ton for those responses, they really mean a lot to me. It really is the type of situation where I am really frustrated with myself because I literally just need to write the thing and then I'm just done. Like that's it. It hurts a lot because I had already been getting it through my head about failure and accepting giving up and cutting losses, because my advisor and I already had talked about lowering the bar with the content, but even then, I struggled. Not because of some "difficulty" of the material itself but because I was burnt out so much... It's pretty telling when it's nothing to do with the type or level of work but rather just its presence at all.

I kept convincing myself, "just a few weeks and I can be done with this, just a chapter per week, I can write quickly enough," and then getting stuck for week after week and then getting sick and then stewing in regret and pain and offering reason after reason, then excuse after excuse to my advisor, then shuttering myself entirely out of some combination of anxiety and fear, that somehow, somehow it will just go away if I ignore everything. I've been trying to convince myself that this is alright so far since I really do need to fix up my health first and foremost, since by the end of the last stretch I was waking up in dazes, unable to focus my physical eyes throughout the day as I stumbled about without energy, staying up until the light or not at all completing practically nothing of note or deleting everything I had written prior. That's reasonable, right, he even said to me that health comes first, because obviously what's the point of a thesis if I just die instead, right.

The last week has been a lot better. I'm really just trying to focus on fixing that, fixing my health first, forgetting the thesis or whatever. I think at this point, since I really did just miss the deadline for Summer graduation anyhow, that I'm going to just complete it on an as-needed basis and probably just... submit a waiver of registration and turn it in for the Fall. After all of that, I think I'll go for a local job to tide myself over for a while, while I sort the rest of everything out. That's probably reasonable.

Thank you for your support. It really means a ton to me.

i just completed my 5th year of my phd program (which is thesis), with probs at least 3 more years to go and yeha i can relate to a lot of those thoughts. i'll say the first three years were terrible and progressively more miserable.

it sounds like right now you feel overwhelmed and burned out - and even though you tried to mitigate it / deal with it - it didn't work - you still feel really tired, and you feel kind of foolish / weak for messing up "mis-estimating yourself", ghosting people, etc. like you've failed people, or failed yourself. but the first thing ill say is that just because you may have failed at something, does NOT make you a *failure*.

like tini said - there's nothing wrong with failing, and there's not even anything weird about failing. completing a thesis is HARD and failure at some level should be an expectation. at the same time - obviously it feels terrible to fail - and those are perfectly normal feelings to have as well. it sucks. thinking that you're "weak-willed" or "lack character" - i dont think you can use these experiences to gauge that, because i think that any normal person would have a hard time trying to do the same thing that you're doing.

for myself, the time i wanted to quit graduate school the most was the first time i failed my qualifying exam. it was embarassing how intensely i studied and how terribly i did. and i failed it a second time after that. and because of that and also some business with changing my topic of study like twice - im basically 2 years or so behind pace of where i should be as a graduate student. but that is just where i was back then as a student. it's inconvenient, and yeah still kind of embarassing when i talk to other grad students. but it doesn't reduce my worth as a human being. and likewise - wherever you're at in your program - it doesn't change your worth or value as a person.

i mention that first because i think understanding that concept is far more important and worthwhile than any thesis or accomplishment you could make in life. that you have inherent value beyond any of your achievements or failures in your life.

as for practical thesis advice - my situation might be kinda different from yours because it sounds like you're relatively close to finishing? but one thing i want to say straight up is that you should not equate quitting with "throwing away your future." just like i dont think there's anything inherently wrong with failing, i dont think there's anything inherently wrong with re-evaluating your life, thinking about what you really want, and deciding that you no longer want to pursue something. that doesn't make you a failure at life - it just means that you changed your mind about something.

that being said - it sounds like you're close enough where you may want to finish it anyway. in that case - one thing that helps me when i feel overwhelmed is to periodically evaluate, and just break down everything that i have to do in my life. just like "what are the things i have to do in a week, and how long realistically will it take me to do them." and when i say "things that i have to do" you do have to include things that you need to do to be sane. i aggressively schedule in time with friends, and even just free time. ive actually become a very religious person, and i schedule certain spiritual activities as mandatory because yeah i feel like i would crack if i didn't have those things in my life. it's not a rigid schedule, it's more just being conscious of what im supposed to do day-to-day, but scheduling in those things makes me feel a lot less guilty about doing them, and when unexpected things happen, it makes it easier to re-arrange stuff. like if i just have a week where im crushingly depressed, ill give myself a bit more alone time, and maybe work on research a bit less. if a deadline is coming up, maybe for that week i wont really hang out with anybody. and yeah sometimes you over-estimate yourself, and when that happens it's okay to make adjustments.

but yeah at the end of the day research is really hard. i definitely agree with aimana - i think different thesis programs can be pretty different - and yeah there's nothing wrong with re-assessing and setting a lower bar for your thesis if that's an option.

also @progressing further into academia - i think the kind of people who are successful in that realm are the kind who are willing to spend average like 60 hours a week working on research / teaching. And they enjoy doing that. Like I think it requires a different level of passion for intellectual pursuits, and I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. But that might be different for me because 1. I do CS where academia definitely isn't necessary for career success + 2. I go to a top-20 university for my concentration so people here might be more workaholic than at other places. But regardless if research is slowly killing you inside I would very much not recommend academia.

tl;dr - Sorry this is kind of a long response I just wanted to respond to your thoughts. It's okay if you just wanted to rant or vent too though. But you are not a failure, and however you end up finishing your thesis, heck even if you don't - you are not "throwing away your future" by any means!! Honestly even someone who took 5 years to finish a master's, I'm impressed with someone who can finish one at all - doing a thesis is not easy!!!! Here for you if you want to keep talking

game maker studio 2 isnt too bad if you purchase it (its still got some janky shit going on but i dont think i could go back to any earlier version) but the free trial business is terrible..... they announced it as a "full featured" free trial so i thought oh well you only have 30 days but i guess you can export stuff you make during that time period at least? nope no exports unless you buy it.....

theres a thing called firefox send for expiring uplods that is actually good, i recommend it!