Terrified

[Marasme]

i ve got a fairly senior position, several leadership roles, substantial track record in obtaining funding, leading research projects, supervising successful phds, publishing... and i am increasingly feeling dread at the smallest challenge.

This includes giving talks, anouncing new publications, dealing with open or covert conflict at work. And flights, and travel admin. Totally silly.

The worst is probably giving "big talks" although i am generally good at it, but toally over prepare. The second worst is dealing with any protocols or procedures linked to finance and admin, and total dread that i will mess up something major, cause chaos and disrepute.

Im even scared of emails, to announce any major outcome, rejection, decision... it can get ridiculous. I struggle to press the send button and stare at it for what feels like hours.

It s probably perimenopausal anxiety with a sprinkling of imposter syndrome, but it s exhausting. I really would like to be freed of these gremlins.

I don't work in academia, but everyone I know who does is ND, which can come with a side helping of bad anxiety/burnout.

Have you investigated this possibility?

hello @BarkLife thank you for your reply

like many of my academic colleagues, i have a strong ability to hyperfocus on certain aspects of my work / research, to the extent where i won t do anything else - it s all consuming.

i do see some aspects of ADHD that could coincide with what i do, but tbh i don t need a clinical validation of whether i am or not.

Ten years ago, i felt so much more confident despite knowing so much less - the insolence of youth, maybe!

Could it be burnout? If you've been working at pace for a substantial period it can just creep up on you.

You mentioned checking and rechecking details and protocols and foreseeing disaster if it goes wrong, I wouldn't necessarily leap at perimenopause where it could be that your traditional go to coping mechanisms have now morphed into something very unhelpful.

Personally, I've found having counselling very helpful - particularly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Are you having physical symptoms as well?

It would be well worth having a once over with the GP in any case to check if there isn't something underlying, particularly if this is a new sudden change.

It's bloody horrible having your brain suddenly start sabotaging your behaviour, so you truly have my sympathy.

Before I got to the end of the post I was thinking ‘peri?’ So many women I know have lost their confidence at work during this life stage - in fact the anxiety seems to be the biggest feature.

Have you discussed HRT with your GP?

It sounds like a very irrational anxiety which can be horrible and debilitating. Whether the cause is menopause or something else, CBT can be very effective for anxiety. Can you find a private provider and sign up?

Your academic track record sounds excellent and I'm sure you are a great scientist. A colleague one advised me "whenever you have doubts in academia, just pretend you are an arrogant man and do what he would do". That might work.

Do you think there might have been one episode or episodes that have undermined your confidence OP? I feel that I am more insecure now than I was when I was doing a PhD, but lately it's been improving a bit as I try to focus on identifying specific episodes that led me to feel like this.
In my case, these episodes are not the obvious grant rejections, terrible reviewer 2 reports... of course they hurt but I am normally able to pull myself together because I see them as part of the game. It's more like specific instances happening within the inner circle of my department: students writing in feedback that I wasn't fit to teach because I speak with a foreign accent; a colleague congratulating himself that our last search had apparently attracted "top scholars of their generation", whereas the search before that (coincidentally the one that resulted in me being hired!) had apparently not; a couple of instances of colleagues saying "no, in our department we don't do any research on this topic" and overlooking the fact that I had several publications on said topic, etc.
Even writing this sounds incredibly thin-skinned I know! But I think such comments hurt so much because they came from what was supposed to be a supportive environment. I have made progress by telling myself that it doesn't make sense that I have been torturing myself for years over stupid/uninformed comments like this which the person who said them likely forgot the next day.

OP, you do sound possibly depressed or burnt out. Sadly these are both logical reactions to the current state of HE but I wonder if there is more to it?

Hormones or another physical cause are possibilities, and I think @aridapricot raises an excellent point: how supportive is your School or Department? Does a group of colleagues including a line manager reliably have your back? @aridapricot is describing death by a thousand cuts in an unsupportive environment and this is enough to make anyone feel crazy. We all know women are more likely to experience adverse circumstances in academia than men.

My great sympathies to both of you

Is it general burnout OP or has something specific happened? I feel the same. I recently won a big grant and have lots of people congratulating me, but I just feel numb, anxious and awful all the time - I dread opening my inbox. I'm also jittery and anxious and so sensitive all the time. I'm doing edits on a paper and it's taking me ages to check everything and am worrying about missing something, even though I know it's not a big deal really. Everything just feels so hard - I just sat down at my desk earlier and thought I don't think I want to do this or feel like this anymore.

My triggers have been: I had an awful time with teaching last year - a very difficult cohort in general with a small, but vocal group of complainers determined to criticize me for anything and everything. I'm relatively inexperienced so it's harder to just brush that sort of stuff off. I've also been doing a post-doc with a nice but very flaky PI who cancels the majority of meetings at short notice so have been feeling isolated and like I'm in limbo (some post-docs are great, others just feel like a holding pen). The general stress over the state of HE has also been weighing on my mind, and sometime it feels like everyone else's stress/worry is contagious and I'm soaking it all up :(

I'm really hoping things will get better and I start feeling like myself/excited about the job as I've haven't considered a Plan B and like my former supervisor says, I've been thoroughly institutionalised!! Just wanted to send hugs and say you're not alone.

It could be burnt out, or it could just be me.
I work hard, i like to be busy and helpful.
One of my issue is high expectations on my own work and that of my team, which has been tested a lot lately. I ve had a couple of plagiarists phd students, and currently lead a couple of people in one subteam whose approach is last minute with very low attention to details - it drives me crazy, adds loads to my plate, but does not terrify me.

The terror is more linked to non rational thinking of enormous impending doom. E.g. i will email by mistake the entire uni with personal data, i will reply all to a sensitive thread, my newly accepted big paper will get retracted when they find out ??something??, i will make a stupid accounting error and won t realise it until accounts are overspent by £0,000s etc.

It's crazy thinking, but bad enough that i ve hidden the big paper acceptance email and not told co-authors yet. And this delaying will feed more terror.

i don't think it s one trigger point... i work with other hypercritical people, in a fairly hard nosed environment and lately the imposter syndrome has ramped up, especially as i work more and more outside of my comfort zone.

i often dream of having the nonchalance and aggressive confidence of my male colleagues- they never seem to doubt or worry, and when they mess up, they just aggressively defend their actions and blame the issue on others/the system...

thank you all for the conversation - it's not something i can ever discuss!

I feel for you, OP, and go through similar phases. My worst one is terror of inadvertent plagiarism, so not only do I have to check everything I’ve written, but also everything I’ve read.it’s freaking exhausting. I’d have published so much more if I didn’t do this!

I do this too about money. I wake up at 3am panicking I’ve overspent and can’t pay my postdocs. I don’t know how to get past it

I wondered how you’re doing now @Marasme? your post felt very familiar to me from a few years back when, in retrospect, I was burnt out. And that was pre perimenopause. I hope you’re feeling a bit better.

not good
i got better, then went on a exhausting 3 day workshop, it floored me, and i then got in a pickle with a tricky paper dispute. I am the senior person, it s on me to sort it, but it hit me at my weakest...

i ve not managed to shake off the dread since, i carry a permanent knot in my stomach and feel... terrified. I know that a good sleep would help, but insomnia is part and parcel of the stress :/

and now my funder has demanded a review of a large underspend and i m terrified they will cut us.

All this shit is bringing out my ocd tendencies, i ve started to micromanage again, to recheck everything etc...

Also in academia here, but what struck me was that this was EXACTLY how I felt before I began HRT. I started taking it as the hot flashes had started (suddenly dripping with sweat at night or, occasionally, when I was teaching). I was astonished by how it also got rid of all the irrational dread that had come upon me of late. It also helped all the aches and pains which I had just put down to getting older.

Me too. Sounds like some

There can be some psychological which can cause severe anxiety such as hyperthyroid. Might be worth making an appointment with your GP. Hormones are massively underrated, peri is an absolute beggar for causing anxiety as well.

thanks everyone- definitely not hyperT, nor any deficiency aside my low iron. Peri is a possibility, which my GP may or may not entertain.

i m not sure i have any other symptom of peri aside from anxiety, though, and i was always really bad at taking the pill when i was on it - i forget (been off it 15 yrs, it was not "good" for my mood at all, and DC planning was a good occasion to stop). I d be worried about committing to a treatment which i may not need?

It sounds like you definitely need some professional support though. Whether it’s burnout or there’s an underlying physical cause, you can’t go on like this. I know universities are in deep trouble, but please don’t let the general sense of ‘everything is fucked and we’re all going to hell’ diminish the fact that you shouldn’t be living like this.

I had anxiety right before and during menopause and felt pretty stressed. Looking back at it all, HRT may not have been a bad idea. As my poor ole joints are creaking, it may not be a bad idea now. I’d look into it for sure. You can get a patch you put on every few days which is easier to do than remembering a daily pill.

Regarding the funder, as long as you present a decent case for an underspend and a plan forward, you should be OK. I had an underspend once, and it was because the grants office at my uni would not float any money whatsoever—even a week or two before disbursement from the agency, and so I cut down on expenses to be able to have the funded events. When that was explained, all was well.

But you need some help. The constant anxiety is no way to live.