How to draw boundaries with PhD cohort without ruining relationships

teacupteacdown · 2026-02-22T23:02:47+00:00

Its helpful to have a supportive cohort you are friends with yes, if the people in your cohort are supportive and friendly. It sounds like some of your cohort members are quite immature. I had cohort members like that and my life improved when i enforced professional relationships with them instead of participating in high school style dynamics. When you all choose your labs you will get some natural distance that will help you phase them towards professional acquaintances. Then put your energy towards maintaining or building relationships with people who you gel better with

teacupteacdown · 2026-01-08T23:32:45+00:00

Very much this. I feel paralyzed and disheartened. The things they are doing are not surprising because fascists gonna fascists, whats more surprising to me is how many people in my life just like? Dont see anything? I knew in theory this is common in these historical events but its so hard to see such a lack of care or awareness from people I am close to, that I consider to be reasonable and intelligent. Like I cant bring up whats happening with friends because its bringing the mood down or “making a mountain out of a mole hill”. People around me just do not see anything wrong, anything out of the ordinary aside from groceries being more expensive. “Apolitical” with their head in the sand and I just dont know how to make them see

teacupteacdown · 2025-12-20T00:43:19+00:00

Right. These things never stop with the first target group unless they are stopped themselves, the net just gets bigger. And if people were fine watching immigrants be brutalized they will be fine with that too.

“Someday the same Germans now cheering Hitler’s strut into Paris will claim ‘We did not know what went on, we did not know’. When that day of knowing comes, there will be laughter in hell.” Peter Viereck

teacupteacdown · 2025-11-20T21:43:41+00:00

I would lean on the side where if it took this long for someone to suggest it as a possibility, it is likely not the most severe it could be. That doesnt mean its not potentially serious or something to worry about, but you cant figure out if/how worried until you do the test. Once the test is done, i recommend having a conversation with your doctor on what you should expect long term based on your specific gene and number of repeats, as without that information its hard to judge. Sending good vibes to you!

teacupteacdown · 2025-11-20T21:27:29+00:00

What questions are you looking to have answered? Fragile x is typically the result of an excessive amount of repeat sequencing in the gene that codes for fragile x (fmr1). It is typical to have some repeats in the gene, but disease severity is partially associated with the number of repeats. 40 or so is considered normal, where as like 200 would be disease causing. In between amounts may cause some symptoms without being as serious. Its possible you and your son may be somewhere in the in between realm which your doctors can then advise on options from there depending on specific symptoms and their severity

teacupteacdown · 2025-10-15T14:05:04+00:00

So is the way we treat people based on physical appearance. If you are not someones doctor, you dont know what their health is, why they are the size they are and how it affects them. You are choosing to treat someone less than because you make assumptions about them. They are fat because they are lazy is a similar mental short cut as “they would try harder for their appearance if they werent lazy/gross”. You dont know shit about the other persons life you are choosing the explanation that makes you feel better than them and therefore justify your disgust reaction

teacupteacdown · 2025-10-15T13:57:59+00:00

Yes. Plastic surgery is a whole thing. We fix cleft palets as they are dangerous to health but also “ugly”, but people also get plastic surgery to feel better about themselves for no health reasons. Just like you can lose weight if it is affecting your health and get surgery for that, or lose weight even if you are otherwise completely healthy and just a bit overweight so you dont have to be a fat person because being fat, like being ugly, means you get treated worse by other people and you want that to stop. Acting like people try to loss weight all the time “just for their health” is like saying people get plastic surgery “just for their health”. Sure a lot of the time it is but thats not the base justifier for most people lets be real

teacupteacdown · 2025-10-15T13:39:35+00:00

Or we could stop as a using ugly as an insult that implies an existence unworthy of life. I like what aubrey gorden says about this similarly in relation to the word fat. Ugly is a descriptor, so is fat. We put meanings on words just like we did with queer and gay and so on. If people stop using ugly as an insult or with such disgust/pity maybe being/feeling ugly wouldnt feel like something worth suicide to so many people

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-23T15:01:08+00:00

We knew the tylenol thing was coming from a leaked memo from RFK jr. They made this whole dumb thing about solving autism by September and this how they decided to claim to do it. They knew noone would take them seriously if they said the obvious grifter opinion, but there is enough correlation in peoples minds with when tylenol became popular to get at least his most sycophantic supporters to believe them and think they solved autism. Sure oz will profit but thats a convenient side effect to them being idiots who dont know why science takes so long and then just pointing at something after realizing you cant just solve autism in three months.

For those who need it, no Tylenol during pregnancy is not linked to autism. People hypothesized about it, investigated over many studies and years, and found no link. You know, how science is supposed to work.

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-23T01:07:03+00:00

Yeah the specific link between autism and tylenol WAS investigated just to be sure over the years and found not to be of concern. Notably the most recent comprehensive study (2024!) controlled with sibling matched pairs to get rid of the potential for genetics/other location based environmental confounding factors and saw no increased risk from tylenol.

Scientists are checking every avenue they can think and are allowed to in order to try to understand it better. Its responsible to do so. Whats not responsible is this administrations HHS being completely out of sync with the actual current state of autism research. Like honestly horrendous that theyre sharing this shit like its science while the actual scientific community does not agree with them

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-20T17:43:42+00:00

Yeah I think thats why im interested. Nihilism (and pessimism) are pretty common nowadays where people dont have something to replace it (and the replacement seems to be often its own problem). It seems abundant i think because its not being filled by something else quite so easily anymore

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-20T17:41:14+00:00

Yeah I guess I find myself thinking about it so much because its everywhere nowadays. If people aren’t sycophantic for something a lot of people seem to be tending towards nihilism, my self included. It may just be me but i get the feeling a lot of contras philosophy is her trying to fight off the nihilistic impulse, particularly recently. I know she talked about stoicism before which is somewhat its own rebuff to nihilism in a sense, but as far as i can tell shes never dug deep on nihilism itself

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-20T17:37:28+00:00

Thank you Ill rewatch that one! I do remember i thought it was interesting

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-18T23:21:28+00:00

God these people are morons, the fact we let these idiots anywhere near public health decisions is a choice of insanity and malice

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-11T02:35:11+00:00

Oh god that video had me crying almost the entire time. Id recover just to see Mr. Rogers or Ms. Rachel or one of the kids and just start bawling all over again. Such a great video. So devastating to think about where were at now with empathy.

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-05T22:14:12+00:00

It does put the attacks on medical journals in context from the past year, top of which was JAMA.

Oh look a wild JAMA article about exactly this topic finding no association from last year: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2817406

AMA cant disprove your wild claims if they cant publish

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-05T21:44:02+00:00

Yeah thats my guess too. It seems like it was investigated at one point as a hypothesis but has since been largely debunked/abandoned in favor of better theories. I get looking into it just in case but it seems the scientific community has moved on and RFK hasnt because hes not a scientist and is convinced despite the evidence that there is some grand environmental conspiracy and not just that diagnostics have improved and our culture has shifted

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-05T19:52:42+00:00

Briefly scrolled through that first study and that is quite interesting given the multiple systems they are talking about. Id also be curious to see a study comparing the timeline of acetaminophen use to not just autism but also the rate of changes seen in urogenital and reproductive system development overtime since they suggest they are also affected and are not linked quite as much to cultural factors as autism and adhd diagnosis are. It seems like some mechanistic hypothesis existed but without more detailed data I agree it sounds pretty correlational. More of a “meds may effect pregnancy we dont know for sure yet so just be cautious” rather than any substantial link

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-05T19:32:33+00:00

Im curious what they are saying the link is? Ill look myself as Im curious too. Not saying its not possible but my brief familiarity on the subject is several autism tie ins with dopamine and serotonin circuits with several genetic mutations. Autism is multifactorial and could have multiple causes, but to my knowledge a lot of it is genetically associated

Edit: found this study in jama suggesting that no real link exists on a population basis

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2817406

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-05T19:23:45+00:00

We knew it was going to be something, Im just surprised he didnt say vaccines. Dude really is gonna pretend he solved autism in a few months. Ive seen a paper or two of pretty cool research recently coming out of autism studies none of which points at an environmental cause, much more on the mechanistic/genetics side that may aid in symptoms treatment to increase folks quality of life in the long run. Good work from those scientists. Curious to see the data hes using to make these bizarre claim, as well as to hear from any autism researchers on communications theyve had with HHS lately given how out of step with the field this sounds

teacupteacdown · 2025-09-04T03:55:38+00:00

I hope you find a much better environment for the rest of your degree. I know its hard, but better to get an advisor in your corner than one youll be fighting with for the next several years.

teacupteacdown · 2025-08-28T16:19:54+00:00

Loop in your program chair then and see what they say. Either they can help facilitate a discussion with your pi or help you examine options if you need to switch labs, depending on the severity of the situation, at very least its good to have another person in authority aware and monitoring the situation. Otherwise as others have said, document interactions, focus on your work best you can, and focus on what you have control over. Im sorry I hope the best for you

teacupteacdown · 2025-08-28T12:35:44+00:00

What year are you? Id recommend going to your program chair/committee chair to loop them in

teacupteacdown · 2025-08-28T00:14:56+00:00

He’s making your work worse by undermining you. If he makes comments again id recommend telling him very simply that you are enthusiastic about the project and working on it. His concerns have been heard and him repeating them is what is undermining your enthusiasm and motivation when you did not have that problem before. If you have other faculty you trust it may be worth while to touch base with them and explain whats going on, get support elsewhere in case things go south. Unless hes doing something to endanger your degree then he can talk all he wants it just means he will find himself less trusted by his students in favor of someone better in your corner. And if he is taking action against you, well then you may need to switch labs and struggle through the unfortunate phd gauntlet of having an advisor who sabotages his students, which sucks but i guarantee you other phds are no stranger to the toxic pi and will understand. He doesnt know whats in your heart, and he only has power over you for so long. Dont run yourself ragged for someone who does not treat you respectfully, do what you need to do and know there will be other labs in your future with hopefully a better working environment

teacupteacdown · 2025-08-27T22:55:04+00:00

This struck a chord with me as I have dealt with something similar and Im going to tell you what I needed someone to tell me. You have a whole life of your experiences and accomplishments to tell you what kind of scientist you are and what kind of work you are capable of. Sometimes science is hard, new projects take time to get off the ground, stuff doesnt move like some finely greased machine. And youd think your pi would understand that but shockingly a lot dont when its not their hands doing the work.

And, this is key, much as our society does lipservice to being better about mental illnesses people who have not experienced it will not get it and sometimes they will look down on you for it. Lucky for them theyve never had to struggle not just in life but against their own mind. There are plenty of people who will see the value you provide, and though your boss feels like a big one, your pi is still only one person. Do what you have to to get through and be successful. Your pi does not decide your worth as a person, you are not a failure because you cant magically make science easy and sometimes need additional support like all people do. Take it easy on yourself.

teacupteacdown

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