A single step

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." -Lao Tzu

I can't believe it's September 1! It's been a rough week. I'm struggling to deal with many things at the moment and thought it might get me back on track if I wrote about them.

I left work on August 22 and spent about 3 days "recovering", but not really. I worked the three days because I was preparing to meet with my advisor on August 26. I wanted to send him a draft after our meeting but I didn't get enough changes accomplished to send him one. I'm supposed to send him draft #3 on September 3rd, start of business. I'm finding it very difficult to make progress because I'm having a whole bunch of anxiety and panic about my life.

Do I even want to try to finish this degree? (yes, that is a question even though I'm only a month away)
Do I want to go back to work at that place?
Am I sick?
Where do I want to live?
What kind of job should I look for?
Who do I want to marry?
Do I want to keep ties with my family?

I have all these questions and fears running through my head. It's due to the school thing -- I'm working on this a lot now so I'm forced to face all the fears I already lived for the past 5 years. I find myself having horrible flashes of memory and fears about the future -- will any other professors show up to my meeting and ask me questions I don't know the answers to? Will I pass my meeting? If I pass, how extensive will the changes be (and can I finish and finalize the changes before the deadline?)? Is there anything else standing in my way of graduating?

Plus, I'm just having a lot of flashbacks because I'll have to fly back there in October for the meeting. Last time I was there I had a physical reaction to driving into town. I don't think I'll run into anyone I know there, except for maybe some professors. Everyone else I know has left, I think. I really don't want to run into anyone. It's hard for me to commit fully to this project because I have these intense fears that I won't pass. But I can only deal with it by telling myself that even though those worries might exist, I just can't think about it. Even if I don't know if I'll pass, I have to try. I have committed myself to trying and I NEED to try to finish for my own sake. I would have a hard time mentally coping with the reality of not finishing my degree, after all that I have lost due to being in the program. So if I fail after so much time hanging on, at least this way I can say I gave it one last push and tried by attending the meeting, rather than quitting after all this time. Even though it is painful to struggle through another 6 weeks of this, I would rather move on with my life knowing that I gave it one last push before giving up. Last year in October I was on the verge of quitting for good because I was really struggling to collect data and hadn't collected more than 30 participants. Now, I'm editing draft #3 and planning to have my final meeting in one month. That is a long way to come in a year, especially while dealing with applying to jobs, starting a new job, a breakup, working full time, and moving across the country. I just need to focus on getting really familiar with my material and editing my draft to perfection (as close as I can get it). I plan to do revisions after the meeting, but I can prepare for that by getting as much done as I can before the meeting -- including getting the draft in APA style and formatted correctly. That will all save me time after the meeting.

I'm panicky this weekend because I have to move out by the end of tomorrow, and I also have a draft due then too. I have a friend coming up to help me move tomorrow, but I haven't done a whole lot of packing yet. I've done some, but it's stressing me out because I really need to focus on this draft and taking all of tomorrow to move will interfere with my writing.

I'm also having what I think is a hormonal spike -- which usually causes me to feel flashes of anxiety and panic out of nowhere. Typically, the hormones intensify whatever you're feeling -- so if you're feeling positive that day, you'll feel REALLY positive and euphoric. If you're feeling panicky (such as if you have a dissertation draft due on the same day you have to move out of your apartment), it intensifies the panic into panic attacks. I have recently become aware of these hormonal spikes in the last year and have been able to cope with them better. Once I notice them (which these days is usually a couple hours after I first feel it), I tell myself, "Don't think about anything negative or make ANY decisions for 24 hours. Just wait 24 hours." And then I wait until the next day to reassess my feelings. I think it's a healthy strategy for waiting out the emotions because there is really nothing else that helps me deal with them. I can't really seem to find ways to make the bad feelings go away -- right now, that is. Typically I would be able to recognize the emotions and decide that I need some alone time with the TV or maybe I would make a day trip so that I could do something fun to distract me from the negative emotions and TURN THEM INTO positive emotions. But I can't do that right now because I don't have time. So for now I just have to keep plugging away at my draft and tell my inner self to shut up lol, because I don't have time to stop and do something fun to distract myself. Soon enough. It hasn't quite hit me that I will be done with this next month. In about 5 weeks I'll know the outcome and could potentially be done, but if things go well then I'll have about 8 more weeks left of work. However, the last 3 weeks won't be the same -- after 5 weeks I'll know if I passed or not and will experience a huge sense of relief so that the last 3 weeks would just be the equivalent of filling out new hire papers after you get a job. Once you hear that you got the job, you aren't stressed out about filling out the paperwork -- the paperwork at that point becomes enjoyable. That is how this would be.

Either way, I will know that I put a lot of effort into this for one last push and that I can finally relax again.

I've been making minimal advances in my draft over the past week, but need to kick it into gear today and tomorrow. I have a list of revisions to make, including L's and advisor's feedback, so if I can get all that done I think I'll have a pretty good draft to send by Tuesday.

I keep telling myself to block out any bad thoughts that creep into my head, to eat natural foods as much as I can throughout the day, to drink a lot of water, and to get a fair amount of sleep. Just keep doing those things until you can get through the tough time. Baby steps.