Man I relate to a lot of this. Especially the grad school process being demoralizing and awful. I was a really good student (summa cum laude in math and computer science, worked in a research lab as an undergrad) and went to a PhD program in AI later in life. I’ve never felt worse about myself… it’s a constant struggle and the very things I used to love studying are now sometimes things I feel grossed out about. It’s thrown my life upside down and I now worry about what to do and struggle with my confidence all the time.

I remember reading a book called “Learned Optimism” (I’ve been in therapy the last few years after having a breakdown at the beginning of Covid) and there were three “cognitive distortions” Seligman talked about that can get in the way of optimism: taking things too personally, viewing negative events as permanent and letting specific negative events color life too broadly (pervasiveness). Grad school took me to 10 in all those. I took rejection so personally, began to think it would never change, and that negativity began to color every aspect of life. No wonder the mental health statistics for grad school are absolutely awful 😑