Comparing myself to others

Another week, still haven't started that project. I have been so distracted today. Things are moving so slowly. My god, I've done so little today. Had to make some adjustments to a website, including making a graphic, and it has taken hours. I wonder if that usually happens after therapy.

Therapy today. I said that while doing my experiment earlier this week, I felt more and more like I do not belong in this field. There are too many factors to consider before an experiment will even begin to work, and I am not interested enough in them. At least not enough to stay here for years and years while I study them. I brought up another student in my group, A, who is nearing the end of his time here, and who is very good at this and learns very quickly. My therapist asked: if I compare myself to A and his standards, am I really going to feel fulfilled when I accomplish anything? My time here should be about doing something I enjoy and can be fulfilled by.  I have a different set of abilities than A, and a different set of goals.

Hearing others talk about their dissertation makes me feel inadequate. I have for so long been comparing myself to the ideal student, or at least the average competent student. The average competent person. That's what my brain tells me I really want to be, because then I wouldn't have to worry about whether or not I was doing a good job. I want to stop worrying about whether I am and just know that I am, know that I am competent. Right now, I don't know if I'm competent about doing anything. That's got to be the OCD talking.

First meeting with psychologist tomorrow. I will try to bring my "Running List of Issues" post so that we cover everything.

Therapy notes

My therapist says my OCD is severe. He and my psychiatrist find it remarkable that I have made it so far. It really is a statement about how hard I am working and about how much I have accomplished.

So, do I want to shift to the Masters? Will I enjoy engineering?

Obsessing over teaching assistantship

This post, at Exposing OCD, was helpful. Even if I'm not sure which thoughts are obsessions and which are compulsions, I should start listing them so that I know what I have to fight. It feels good to realize that these thoughts are compulsions, as that means I can use exposure response prevention therapy to fight them.

I spend way too much time working as a teaching assistant. Grading 15 papers a week takes hours. Writing up solutions in Mathematica, carefully formatted, with detailed explanations, takes hours. I help students for  hours each week beyond the one office hour we as TAs are required to give. I have realized that I am taking too much time, but I can't force myself to stop. This is complicated by the fact that I feel strongly about quality education, and it's hard to separate the obsessions from my opinions. I am a harsh critic of ineffective teaching (although I rarely voice my opinion). I want to give my students clear explanations. But it's not practical. Naturally I'm just awkward and can't improvise, but I probably expect far too much of myself and other teachers in terms of how much preparation is necessary for a lecture, how fair and logical grading should be, how clear and explicit an explanation must be.

I'm here to get my own degree. I know too much handholding is not helpful for the students. But I remember struggling for hours on homework assignments simply because the problems were not worded clearly. I want to help people, so I spend my time clarifying. Back then, I should have gone straight to the professor with my questions when I got stuck on HW. Now, people should come to me (or the professor, really, as I should only have to contribute so much time) when they have trouble. And they do ask me for help. But I still obsess over the possibility that questions are going to be vague, and that those questions are going to make people struggle like I did. I need to face my problem, and so do they.

Bad mood

For the first time I am realizing that my mood is not inevitable. I was feeling bad earlier but it cleared up. Now, doing a late homework assignment this evening and realizing that I am tired and will be inefficient soon if I don't go to sleep, I begin to feel bad again, because I am worried that I won't have time to do experiments tomorrow if I can't finish this assignment tonight. But I also realize that this feeling is transient, and not inevitable. I do not feel like I am failing at my work (at least, that is not at the forefront of my mind as it usually is). I have noticed the onset of the feeling, and I can fight it. I think that's progress. If I can just keep myself focused, I can get through this. Lamenting will only put me further behind in my work. I have known that all this time and it usually just makes me feel worse; unable to control my emotions. But now I have stepped back, and I am motivated not to give in to the bad feelings.

Edit: I'm not finished w/ the assignment not because I am unable to understand the material, but because I have been avoiding working on it all day. I have been aware that I was avoiding it, but I only felt a little anxious about it. I think this was part of the tendency I have of avoiding stressful situations to keep myself calm. Usually when I think about that tendency, I see it as negative. I once left my friend while others jeered at him because I wanted to avoid a confrontation. He was not emotionally stable and ended up exploding. I wish I could have defended him better for his actions, or stopped the bullies in the first place.

Letter to psychologist

Here's the text that I send in an email:

"Hi Dr. ,

I was wondering if you had time to see a new patient. I have OCD issues involving self-confidence, perfectionism, motivation and communication which are slowing me down and decreasing my efficiency. I am seeing a psychiatrist for medication and a therapist for help with the emotional aspects of my issues, but I am looking for a specialist to help me overcome the habits and thought patterns that OCD pushes me into.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you."

Should I have used "Sincerely," instead? I don't usually. How obvious is it that I spend way too long writing emails?

Edit: my thoughts say I should have mentioned the bigger picture problem, maybe specifics like the fact that I look over the fundamentals. As if I wouldn't discuss that with them anyway.

Running list of issues

I damaged a crystal in the lab. I wasn't paying attention, the laser was at high power, unfiltered. I moved the crystal through the focus, I heard the snapping. Small damage spot on a $2000 crystal. I wasn't paying attention, and I could have blinded myself. It made me realize that I do not put enough energy into thinking about safety. I have a hard time seeing the bigger picture, because I get so focused on some details. Arbitrary details. I know they don't matter. But I haven't been able to pull myself away. I need to see someone about how to rewire my brain, to focus on the big picture.

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.