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debbie_tabor · Nov 30, 2008, 10:42 AM

Thanks everyone for the replies and the hugs.

Cantstopcrying, I need constant poking. It will be a HUGE achievement to get this paper published, given the amount of effort I have put in to keep working, and keep writing. Plenty of anxiety&depression-provoking challenges have come my way in the past 4 years. (Things that those with stronger characters could probably have coped with). (That’s a fairly pointless thing to say!) I've been finishing this paper for 6 months now, and today's the day it WILL finish being written.

I guess the people who I’m most worried about seeing the paper are people I’ve worked for before – I don’t want to humiliate myself – and obviously I’m not overwhelmed with faith in or optimism about my work. The illness has something (a lot?) to do with that. I can imagine them inviting me to give talks.

The paper will have to get through peer review first so hopefully they’ll pick up on anything that’s not right. It felt like the end of the world when I had to show my boss the work that was going in the paper, and it wasn’t, and I ended up presenting myself quite well. The end of the world feeling isn't fun though!

I think I’m going to chicken out of talking to my pdoc – I need the meds too badly to be stuck not talking to him. I’d much rather see a lady pdoc (I didn’t get a choice about the current guy, but thought I’d give it a go). Him being male doesn’t help with me trying to talk to him.

I’m totally drained with the effort of the past 4 years (being bullied and depressed, and trying to keep working and feeling bad not working; more recently being exhausted and depressed and keeping working when I needed to be in bed). I’m not sure I can keep up the effort to be in science, but that basically means I have to go back to the UK. I moved into a group home because I wasn’t going to make it on my own, but that lead to 6 months of being stressed out of my brain, and more depression. And I keep wanting the meds to have an effect, but that’s partly my fault because I don’t trust this guy so I haven’t always done what I was told.

My bosses money to pay me runs out next August. He has said I can have workspace in the lab if I get my own grants, which is the best science option at the moment, because it means I don’t have to start again in a new environment. I feel like if I could get energy and motivation, a dose of positive thinking and a perfect anti-anxiety drug, I could do OK….. Otherwise I feel like I’m right on the borderline of being functional. Intellectually I can be good enough, and I think that’s how I got this far. The rest of my brain seriously gets in the way!!!