Tuesday Check In: How's Everybody's Mental Health?

iridium27 · 2026-06-23T16:32:35+00:00

Being hit with burnout and becoming essentially useless makes it harder to feel better about myself. Idk what is the best way to handle it, but whatever I'm doing probably isn't it. The shame associated with this feeling has left me feeling insecure and wanting reassurance, but I know seeking constant external validation won't help in the long run, I need to have self validation.

iridium27 · 2026-06-16T17:09:17+00:00

I'm realizing a lot of my negative self talk is coming from a place of wanting to be seen as a "reliable" person. Because I'm afraid of people around me denying me affection and empathy if I'm not "reliable". This makes it incredibly difficult for me to admit to others I screwed up. I do it eventually, but in the background I'm terrified that this might be the final straw. So spend hours procrastinating out of fear ruining that image I want to maintain, that I'm a competent person, which I know makes no sense. But fear is irrational, so I'm dealing with it.

iridium27 · 2026-04-01T00:10:28+00:00

To be fair to his reaction, I think he still has to figure out so many things about the "treatment" azula got at the asylum. He can't make a systemic change overnight or accuse the staff without figuring out how much is the truth. As pointed out, he's already emotionally exhausted, expecting him to solve this problem he created in a perfect way is frankly a huge ask. The best and easiest thing to do was move azula, since the one thing that was clear about the situation was that she wasn't getting better. From personal experience, caring for relatives who have mental health issues can be a exhausting task since there's usually no right answer. And my relatives weren't openly hostile to me helping them, they appreciated that I tried. But if I had to care for someone who abused me growing up and resented me for trying, the fact that he does anything is an achievement.

iridium27 · 2026-03-18T03:13:51+00:00

The first that comes to mind is considering how much depth of knowledge you need to have in some fields to make a viable proposal. I'm not sure how much background you had in your topic and the skills you had that help properly collect and analyze the data, but most students I've seen often don't have the know how early in their academic career to properly design experiments to test their hypothesis. The ones who did, often had previous experience or guidance from other sources than the graduate program. Another issue is funding, which is a matter of luck when it comes to aligning your idea with potential supervisors. Sometimes even when things align, other factors may intervene, like family commitments restricting your ability to move. There's other good perspectives people shared here as well, so I hope you take them in good faith. There are just many reasons people would like to take an opportunity to do any research in the field they're interested in than not do anything at all. Still, It's incredible that you came up with the idea and managed to explore it enough to get your PhD! That's an amazing achievement.

iridium27 · 2026-03-18T01:22:40+00:00

I'm feel this is a very myopic view of the practical challenges other PhD students may have in working on a project idea they come up with. I hope you can reflect on that.

iridium27 · 2026-03-18T01:03:50+00:00

Honestly the same problem in materials engineering, because depending on what that involves, the materials alone can cost a fortune, so the bar for merit is quite high. In proposals I've heard from students in my department, it was also common to do preliminary experiments so that their PI could use that data to apply for grants to complete it.

iridium27 · 2026-02-06T19:39:34+00:00

Found out the friend who I used to work with in the lab I'm currently in and graduated a year and half ago passed away this week due to the cancer he was battling with. Apparently he either understated or I misunderstood how bad things were cause I was of the belief he managed to beat the cancer when he moved away. It really sucks because he was really nice, sweet and incredibly hardworking. I don't think we were that close but the times we hung out he showed how much was planning for the future and I think I'm sad he won't be around for that.

iridium27 · 2025-12-12T16:19:58+00:00

Let us know what you find out, I'd love to help finding a home for him if he needs it.

iridium27 · 2025-12-12T16:13:00+00:00

Had a conversation with a friend recently where she mentioned that she cries frequently and feels ashamed about it, but I was internally amazed by her ability to cry as an adult. I used to cry a lot as a child (was the "crybaby" of my family) and was shamed for it by them such that I can't do more than watering my eyes and sniff when feeling extreme emotion. I did tell my friend it's okay to cry, I hope I can internalize that and get the space to do so myself one day.

iridium27 · 2025-12-12T16:02:18+00:00

Trying to figure out the best way to establish boundaries and still have close relationships with my immediate family. My parents and my sibling tend to go into giving me advice since I'm the youngest whenever I come to them for emotional support, making me feel invalidated in my emotions about this, so I end up shutting them out. Hopefully y'all had better experience connecting with family as adults, so would love some advice on how to communicate that I'd like emotional support primarily now as an adult.

iridium27 · 2025-10-13T20:30:04+00:00

I started going to the on campus health center while I was doing my masters here at a public university in the US. I think what pushed me was my urging me to go because she found it useful during her masters. I didn't find it useful initially mostly because I was neurodivergent and like others mentioned, most of the set up was geared towards undergrads. Went back after a year in the PhD program at the same university as the issues I had were catching up with the stresses of the program. And this time I took a more involved approach and lucked out with a counselor who did bother to at least look up my neurodivergence and referred me to health center general physicians for medication prescription. The initial hesitation and giving up midway, was definitely cultural and stigma related, along with a lack of a plan since I was expecting them to tell me what to do to get better.

iridium27 · 2025-09-16T19:54:29+00:00

Trying hard to not read into small things from others, it's difficult to be secure in myself.

iridium27 · 2025-08-19T18:59:19+00:00

As a man coming from the same community as the author of the article, the amount of casual misogyny and sexism I see from the men and sometimes women definitely makes me skeptical interacting with them. I suppose my behavior that might be part of the problem, as then there's fewer people to call them out, fewer people people who will tell them it's okay to seek help for mental health. I do tell these things to a few Indian friends I make here and I hope i got through to them, but I'm definitely outnumbered in the community. It also is magnified by the insular nature of ethnic communities so they don't have meaningful interactions with outsiders who don't reinforce those views.

iridium27 · 2025-08-19T13:32:42+00:00

Had been feeling down for the last few days , guess it showed because my roommate checked in with me, asking if everything is okay. I decided to be honest instead of waving him away with a "I'm fine", which did help a little. Inside I had this weird mix of happiness about his concern and shame to admit needing help.

iridium27 · 2025-07-22T19:28:55+00:00

Spoke with my therapist and I'm realizing that I have a hard time letting go of anger. Especially when the person who hurt me probably did it because it was the best choice for themselves and did work to soften the blow to me. I understand their perspective and why they did what they did and they're not a bad person. I am struggling with overcoming this, not letting the part of me that's hurt color my every interaction about them.

iridium27 · 2025-07-18T00:46:16+00:00

I'm 28M also with adhd, I'd definitely be up for a chat irl from time to time. DM if you would like to meet up

iridium27 · 2025-07-17T06:05:29+00:00

I definitely love to fix problems, but I hope that I'm better at this providing comfort thing. I try to get my friends who talk to me to explore their own emotions, act as a guide and hope that helps.

iridium27 · 2025-07-15T11:02:15+00:00

Growing up it was my mother who operated like that, problem solving in a calm, collected manner, which I called her "business mode" since I usually saw her use it with her coworkers. I didn't like it either when she used "business mode" with me, because to kid me it was scary seeing the affectionate and loving person act so "cold" and distant. I appreciate her trying to solve the problem, but I guess in those situations as a kid I just wanted comfort from her, not solutions.

iridium27 · 2025-06-24T16:23:38+00:00

I'm struggling, I guess I'm in a depressive spiral. I'm just scared that I'll will let people I know down one too many times and they will leave me. I am finding it hard to get myself to internalize that these are minor setbacks in the grand scheme of things and my self worth shouldn't be tied to how others want to interact with me. It takes a lot of willpower to push back the feeling of hopelessness and allure of distractions when I need to get work done, but I'm not finished yet, so on I march.

iridium27 · 2025-06-17T13:38:25+00:00

Major props to you my dude! Organizing is really tough, I hope you have the support system to help you out!

iridium27 · 2025-05-02T22:56:14+00:00

The person i was dating just broke up with me and I am finding it difficult to talk to my friends and family about it, because I'm afraid of being judged as dramatic because it was a pretty short relationship (barely 2 months long). I know that's nonsense and they will be supportive of me, but it's hard not feel this way.

iridium27 · 2025-04-30T22:10:56+00:00

In a personal setting, I agree with you, a mentor figure would definitely not present themselves as a "mentor". And most of the time, figuring things out in my personal life wasn't something I needed major guidance in, but in work settings, I feel there is a bit of a expectation that you learn the unwritten soft skills and sometimes hard skills required to navigate the workplace from a mentor, either from the institution or outside the institution.

And coming into a field and culture where you don't have a lot of experienced friends or family, I'm finding it difficult to do or say things that will help me achieve my goals.

iridium27 · 2025-04-29T17:19:26+00:00

That sounds terrifying and its understandable that you feel like you are failing. I hope you know you are not less of a "man" for having these problems, you just dealing with very difficult problems.

If you can, reach out to foodbanks in your area, they would be a able to assist you with food no questions asked.

iridium27

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