Dad said it could have happened to anyone. I was tired, it was late, I shouldn't work in the lab when I'm tired. But his point was that it could have been a good thing overall. It helped me realize I have this problem with the big picture. That's the big picture right there, ha ha.
My confidence is what allows me to do anything. It can be crushed easily and often. Mike suggested making note cards, writing successes down each night. I ran out of room quickly. I need to go get the tape and tape more cards up. It feels like one of those things that I know would help me but I don't have time for. Ugh I'm such a fucking hypocrite. Like the gym or meditation or yoga, they would make me feel better. But I haven't been able to draw myself away from work, or thinking that if I spend my time doing anything useful, it should be spent working. I still spend plenty of time being useless, reading webcomics, reading debates. But I need to put more cards up. I know it will help me. I need to be self-motivated. Why can't I motivate myself? I wallow in sadness, but I don't want to be sad. Why do I have to feel sorry for myself?
Edit: Understanding and memory of the fundamentals. Memory of fundamental concepts in school. Short-term memory during conversations, forgetting what the question was. Long-term memory of problems I've had before and how to solve them.
I become ashamed when I should ask for help.
Edit: I spend far, far too long doing TA work. I need to get it under control.
I can't concentrate during lecture. This has always been hard. Partially because the lecture is too fast to follow (which is discouraging), and I can't take notes and concentrate at the same time. And I feel shame, and anger, and that's distracting.
I have trouble internalizing what I learn. Hard to remember over the long term. I can cram for tests successfully, only really started doing that last year. It's possible I just have trouble concentrating while I'm reading or during lecture, which translates into me not really learning. But also the concept has to be genuinely interesting for me to latch onto it. Maybe that's normal. Anyway, working on concentration won't hurt.
It is definitely not normal that I spend so long each night reading before falling asleep. That only occurred to me last night. Maybe 'normal' isn't the right word. I guess it feels like an addiction. I know it is not healthy to stay up so late. I've done this before, playing video games until 5, when I was a teenager, before I met my wife. I thought it was just a phase, but maybe it's because of loneliness. That makes sense.
I get so distracted sometimes. My memory is terrible in general, remembering what sort of tasks I need to complete, remembering facts for class or research, remembering what the hell I did during that experiment.
Stuck stuck stuck. Do I really lack the motivation to move on?
I compare myself to an idealized image of the competent student. If I can attain that, my OCD tells me that I won't have to worry anymore about whether I am doing a good job. I'm never sure whether I'm doing a good job.
Making lists of tasks is difficult because I write notes as I listen, so the ideas and thus notes are not in order. I think if I had a tablet computer, I could write and then move text around easily so I would not lose track of my notes. Its possible I will develop some compulsions with that, but at least I will be less likely to forget tasks.
My advisor says I sometimes give very misleading information. Example: He wanted a list of links on the webpage to be displayed in two lines. I said I had tried that but there were some difficulties, but I did not explain that the difficulties were purely aesthetic, and that putting the links on two lines was very easy, but formatting them to look good was going to take some time. I should have been more explicit there, and I can't understand why I didn't think to explain more. I wonder whether there is more than OCD at work here. I had the idea that I rely on OCD to make me complete tasks and be explicit when communicating, but maybe the OCD developed to compensate for a lack of thoroughness.
I did almost no work this weekend. I'm still going to sleep late and getting to work after 1PM. This has to stop. This is the most I have ever procrastinated. I am avoiding facing my OCD.
I was able to concentrate in class today (4/24) much better than I usually am. I was calm, I wasn't thinking about all the work I had to do and all of my inadequacies. Being that calm feels selfish. My OCD says I should . My attention did drift a few times. Easier to stay focused if my legs are underneath me, rather than stretched out. After I noticed that I was concentrating, I started focusing on trying to calm myself down and stay concentrated, rather than focus on the lecture. Hard to focus instead of just think about focusing. I woke up at 8:30AM after falling asleep probably at 1:30 or 2AM. Hard not to go back to sleep after I woke up. I kept thinking I could sleep for one more hour, but that has never worked out in the past (much harder to wake up after the first time). I took a shower, but was slow getting ready. Arrived at school at 12PM. Thankfully I did not have office hours, usually 1-2 on Tuesday, and I did not have to prepare anything to present for group meeting, 2-7 Tuesdays. Preparing a presentation is time-consuming and stressful, as I have to tackle the fear that my advisor will ask a question I won't be able to answer, which crushes my self-esteem. My mood dropped as I sat in front of the computer, dozed off for maybe 15 minutes. Then I had tea, less than one cup, and that was enough to keep me alert until about 8PM, after group meeting ended and A went home. I think my concentration usually fades at that time. I should probably get home when that starts (takes about 30 mins). I've been going home after 9PM most nights, sometimes after midnight, sometimes later when I'm in the lab (which is not a good habit). The problem with going home too early is that I find it almost impossible to work from home recently.
Part of what is causing me to procrastinate is my inability to face the fact that I will not be able to turn in a complete assignment. I keep thinking about the email I will send to my professor, saying that I have only so much that I'm turning in, and I imagine the feelings of disappointment and frustration that he will get, the same feelings I get when I grade a sloppy or incomplete paper. I imagine the feelings he'll have about deciding how to grade my work, how everyone hates to give poor grades. Because I have turned in so many things late to him and acted like I understood his lectures while really I haven't been able to follow 80% of them and I've asked him for notes and help on assignments. And now the culmination of the semester will be that I didn't do all of my work because I procrastinated, with no excuse. Got I am so fucking weak. People do work, even if they don't always like it, that's the way the world should work. I know I get upset when others don't just grow up and do their job (could this be OCD?). I need to grow up and do my job.
I don't naturally take many things seriously. I have to make myself care. I forget far too easily about things that should trouble me, like when my friends are sad, or after being told I've done something wrong and knowing that I am going to have to put time in to fix it. It's like some kind of automatic escapism. It makes me think that I'm very immature at heart. Sometimes my OCD tells me I should worry about these things, so then I actively try to make myself feel bad. I actually do that, I guess that's pretty crazy.
I only ever do things I feel like doing, or things I feel I "should be" doing in order to be an ideal student or husband or friend or person. Motivation is so fickle and arbitrary. I'm a scientist, but I so rarely follow the logical path, and that's one of the reasons I think I should try to do something else with my life. As if I don't even consider working hard for it as an option. If I'm not good at it, it just doesn't feel worth it. I think that describes how I feel about most tasks: schoolwork, getting better at communicating, all the bullshit about trying to make myself seem desirable to an employer, games, fixing things, making love, doing anything creative. Perfectionism defining what I enjoy.
What I ultimately need to improve are my basic task-completion abilities. Otherwise I will not be able to hold a job.
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