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Ask HN: How did you rebuild yourself after having hit rock bottom?
220 points by Schroedingers2c on March 4, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 311 comments
I [28M] got broken up with by my partner of almost 4 years a couple weeks ago. I thought she was the love of my life and I would marry that woman. I'm also in the last year of my PhD in a sub-field I have never envisioned myself in and somehow slipped into due to Covid and my own passiveness and weak sense of self. The PhD is also not going super well and I'm stressed about not having enough research to finish in time. I also grew up in a dysfunctional family environment (toxic parent relationship, some narcissistic/borderline traits in them) and have been struggling with the consequences of that on my development and mental health. I also don't have a large social circle, and some of my friends are scattered internationally.

As you can see, I feel like I've hit rock bottom. On the outside I look all successful, in shape and doing a PhD in a prestigious research group. But most of the time in my life I've felt empty, doubting myself and struggling with a weak sense of self and unhealthy thought/behavioural patterns that are hard to shed off. I feel like I've lost any passion for anything, and don't know what I want or need.

I've read tons of psychology/philosophy/self-help over the past 10 years and it helped to some extent. I've also started therapy 2 months ago, but it's going slow and it hasn't been very useful yet. The advice so far has boiled down to "do things you like".

I would be grateful for any of your advice or shared life stories. At the moment I feel like standing in front of a massive pile of broken glass.




This actually reads almost normal for a last year of a phd. But you’re in a phd program and probably much closer to complete than you think.

I’d reach out to your professors about your misgivings about your research. Make it clear that you’re looking to complete the thing asap and need guidance.

Forget the outside stuff. Relationships can wait until you’re done. Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless concern as you’re clearly nearly done with a huge life goal. A life goal that will change the context of your life ever after. Much more than any marriage could even. Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. (Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down.) But a degree is a hurdle you surpass once and get to wave the success of forever after. (Just don’t be a jerk about it, side point.)

Know that on the other side of your phd is a huge weight off your shoulders regardless of failure or successful defense. This time of strife will end when the phd. Freedom is soon.

You’re looking at a time where the job market remains strongly favorable. I graduated into the Great Recession and would have benefited greatly from this market, high interest rates and other things be damned. The future is still bright - just got to get past this last bit.


> Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end.

Or, alternatively marriage is the fundamental glue of society and the germ of new life across the vastness of time and in basically every culture through disasters and war. One of these perspectives is fair to the most ancient institution.


Someone working towards a phd in the final year of work shouldn’t be personally taking upon the baser weight and long term sustainability of society. That’s too much for any one person - Jimmy Carter clearly “settled for less” and still managed a lot more than the rest of us could hope in our lifetimes.

OP is perfectly fine to just focus on the degree and know the world will continue on while OP works.

Your framing this as something more than it is is abhorrent.


> Your framing this as something more than it is is abhorrent.

Framing marriage as something more than "a societal complication of a relationship" is abhorrent? Do you think maybe that's a little harsh?


That’s an outright abusive misreading of what I’ve said.


Again, I feel like you're being quite overly dramatic with your language here. No one is being abused.

Also, you said "OP is perfectly fine to just focus on the degree and know the world will continue on while OP works." but the post you're responding to never said anything to the contrary. They were just speaking about marriage in general - at literally no point did they tell OP not to focus on their degree.


> Someone working towards a phd in the final year of work shouldn’t be personally taking upon the baser weight and long term sustainability of society.

What if that's the correct selfish viewpoint on an individual level, but the wrong decision for overall society?

These are certainly some complex and nuanced issues, but just as a counterpoint, what if having a family is arguably the most important thing that somebody capable of completing a PHD likely does? Unless a PHD invents some important new technology that transforms humanity (and most PHDs probably don't get anywhere close to that level of contribution), the most likely valuable contribution they could make to the world comes with having large families, being a pillar for the community, and helping guide their children well. Successful families are the foundation for a stable and prosperous long-term future.

Idiocracy presented a very satirical look at the future that emerged from the smart people being too focused on education and careers over actually maintaining the society they were given. We all see the news stories coming out where there's the claim that average IQ rates are dropping, right? OP might not be able to solve that problem on his own, but if every PHD candidate made the same decision to put off family, maybe society eventually gets into some trouble.


Marriage is not all its cracked up to be. My divorce 1 year aniversary is this month, after being loyal and faithful for 12 years, I left due to abuse. I am now raising our child alone and I am so much happier now than I ever was while married.

Marriage is societal cancer.


There exists no society at all without marriage. The reason marriage is absolute central in all cultures and civilization is not because it's been forced onto people by bad men or because people think it's better, the reason is that cultures or people who don't practice marriage die out quickly.


To be clear, are you meaning strictly 1-to-1 "marriage", or are any of the many-to-one marriage types (poly, whatever) included?

Am curious, as the Saudi's seems to be "going ok" (for the males) with their harem approach. Not so much for the females I guess (no idea). That being said, their society seems to have lasted that way for a fair while now.


I know a lot of Saudi’s and also lived in the country. You are referring to a very small minority that practices polygamy. Most Saudi’s are in a monogamous marriage.


Marriage as a woman belongs to only one man and that man in turn has a duty to protect and support her and their children.


Which culture died quickly due to not practicing marriage?


All of them. They couldn't establish themselves enough to leave any important traces in history and are effectively erased. Sexual liberation is not a new idea, the reason why it's not traditional is because it is unsustainable and can never grow to a tradition


You do realize people can have sex, procreate and raise families without marriage, right? "Sexual liberation" doesn't negate sex, it only negates the proscription of involuntary sex and gender roles through patriarchy.

Also:

>All of them.

All of whom? Surely you can give us specific examples. Your certainty must based on solid archaeological and anthropological evidence, right?


We complain about ChatGPT making brazenly false statements with complete confidence, yet we have humans out here saying things like this.


This is a... hard anthropological claim to make. I don't claim to be an expert anthropologist, but I would note that marriage means very many things to different peoples. 'Western' marriage, as it were, is already fraught. One man and a women, sharing property? Well, what about two men, two women, or other genders? Non-cishetnormative understandings complicate this picture quite quickly. And what of property? The capitalist idea of property isn't the only one, and different understandings of property will, historically speaking, lead to different understandings of marriage.

All of this is to say that marriage is a fraught societal construct, not a societal neccessity.

This thread took a bit of a wild turn, but I felt I had to respond :)


You're using your lack of evidence as evidence not of absence but of presence?


Depends what society you talk about too.

Marriage isn’t integral to all societies, so much as monogamous partnership is (excluding some rare poly societies).

You also don’t need marriage to procreate , and several societies are built around the concept of children raised by the community.

That said, marriage is certainly the most persistent form of long term bond in history, but it’s not always borne out of mutual desire. It’s often been as much a means of politics as it has been of love.


What successful societies exist today without some concept marriage? I’m not aware of any, but it sounds like you have one in mind.


Ah you’ve introduced two other elements into the mix, and possibly have introduced the issue of conflation of causation and correlation.

1. What is a successful society? You may have a different definition but imho it’s one that hasn’t torn itself apart or causing active harm to itself.

2. I never said they didn’t have a concept of marriage, just that it’s not integral.

Both those points however are dramatically affected by colonization. Particularly Christian colonization, but not restricted to it.

Colonization both destroyed many otherwise successful societies and forced their own concepts onto the ones that remained.

As such I don’t think there’s any society that does have absolutely no concept of marriage, but there are some where marriage is not integral.

Various indigenous groups did not have a formal marriage, but did sometimes have a vow. Even within the US, you’d have the ancient traditions of hand fasting among settlers, which wasn’t a marriage but an informal vow.

The Mosuo/Na people of China famously do not marry.

Hence why I disambiguate between marriage and monogamous binding. heck, monogamous bindings for life are present in a lot of non human social norms too.

But marriage is different in that it’s a formalized procedure to do the binding, and in many cultures was tied to the religious or governmental authority figure as a form of bookkeeping and control, or to show political bindings.

And back to the point of causation/correlation, is marriage integral to success? I’d argue not since hand fasting continued into very relatively (to human history) recent times.


Interesting! I'd never heard of the Mosuo people, but from what I'm reading they fit your description well. Thanks for the detailed comment, cheers.


It absolutely is and you should reconsider your filter bubble


Great rebuttal.

Should we continue by saying “no it isn’t/yes it is, you’re wrong” repeatedly at each other then?


Evolve or die. Marriage is an unnecessary burden and construct in modern times. Love, date, cohabitat (non community property state), but the failure rate is too high (~66% of marriages fail) when the cost is similarly high.

Warren Buffett says the factor which most contributes to your future wealth is who you pick to marry. Do you feel lucky?

https://www.amazon.com/Science-Happily-Ever-After-Enduring/d...


Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together.

If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute? It creates a massive power discrepancy in the relationship. "Do what I want or I'll leave you in the street."

Married people work towards the same goal as a unit. Do whatever you want it's your life but marriage has very much been a net positive in my and my kids lives. I'm the primary earner in my relationship.


Marriage isn’t really a solution to any of the problems you state.

Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups.

Many countries also have rules around care for a previous partner by means of common law partnership etc…

Married people often don’t work towards the same goals anymore than unmarried couples.

Marriage can also be a form of entrapment for abused individuals, a means for political gain or forced on people. Even in countries that don’t think those issues are common like the USA where child marriage is more common than people think.

Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality.

Marriage can be a societal contract and/or it can be a vow of love. The former is archaic


"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality."

I appreciate you letting me know about reality as I have led a sheltered life with no real world experience.

I've been alive and married (20+ years) for longer than I was alive and single. Its been pretty ideal.

How long were you married for before you learned these things and formed your real world marriage experience that I am unaware of? If you were married and it failed then I can understand your negative view of it. I'm sorry it did not work out for you, the end of a marriage / relationship can be hard.

"Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups." lets change that to "Divorce is a very real possible outcome of marriage". prenups are a before marriage thing. So is a long happy life together.

My sister is going through a divorce because they married for reasons other than love and it was clear that it was not a marriage of 2 good people in it for the other.

My brother has also been married for longer than he has been single. Been through some incredibly tough family issues (deaths) that if they were not married would have probably broken them up. Years on they are very happy.

Marriage if done right and again entered into by people that care about each other is an incredible bond and one I feel has contributed strongly to society.

There are negatives to everything but again if its a good match the positives far out weigh it.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing, If its not for you then more power to you, there is no reason to knock the institution that has worked for so many others. Its been around and working for many people for tens of thousands of years. Maybe be open to the fact that there may be some good things that you are missing rather than that through all of human history people have been dumb.


You’re takin this far too personally to have any sort of productive discussion but here it goes against my better judgement.

Saying that marriage is not as important to society has no bearing on what value marriage should mean to you. I also never said that marriage is bad, or not for me. I’m married myself, but like I said, i saw it as a vow of love not a societal contract, unlike your statements that were all matters of societal contract that are neither solved by marriage but are also provided for by common law partnerships.

You inferred something because you took things too personally and saw things in the argument that weren’t there because you clearly took it as a personal attack.

In fact, your marriage is largely irrelevant to the discussion altogether since it’s purely anecdotal and doesn’t expand to the entirety of the human population, let alone the population of a single country like the USA where 1/5 of first time wed couples end in divorce, and who knows what percent of the remaining 4/5 include forced marriage or abuse.

Like I said, I’m married and I don’t think marriage is bad. But I’m also not so arrogant or narcissistic to extend my own life choices and extrapolate them to being integral to society.

I’m also not so narcissistic as to ascribe the success of marriage to the value of the people in the marriage. People change with time. Circumstances change. Marriage shouldn’t be a chain holding people together for eternity to the detriment of each person.

Also to be clear, I’m not saying you’re being a narcissist, though I do think your world view is clearly projected from your life choices based on your response but that’s not enough to judge someone online. Im saying that if I extrapolated my choices to others I’d consider myself a narcissist. Before you reply saying that I’m calling people names.

Marriage as a societal contract is archaic. I didn’t say it was dumb historically (marriage has a long and varied history, where love was often never a factor but made sense for the time), but it is archaic. Those aren’t synonyms.


"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality." Let's ignore you calling me naive. Besides that friend I'm not taking this personally at all no matter how many times you want to insist I am. I'm working on a Saturday and killing some time on HN responding to a post with my opinion and some anecdotal experiences. It's generally called conversation. If you would prefer single sentence responses, so be it. I'm going to go weep into my coffee now since you emotionally devastated me. All the best :)


The point is that your anecdotes are meaningless to the veracity of the point at hand. That’s why they’re anecdotes.


Please stop, there is only so much I can take. ;)


Marrying "a good person" can also mitigate all those concerns you have. If two "good people" co-habitate then neither one will just leave after 20 years. Overall, advice about "good people" isn't really actionable.


> If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute?

So you like to force your spouse to stay in an otherwise unhappy marriage by putting a ring on their finger and have them sign a paper? So romantic!

Kidding aside, among the many reasons people like to marry, this is one of the worse ones.


> Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together.

You might as well be telling someone to just be very lucky.


Or simply don’t marry someone you have just met! (And by “just met” I mean someone you haven’t been in a relationship with for at least 5 years)


The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws. Usually, the assets gained in mariage are split 50/50. This could also be set with a pre-nup. On the other hand, if neither party makes a good salary, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip.


"The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws" That's exactly my point. If they are not married then if the primary earner just up and left the other would be severely hurt financially.


Losing half of their wealth and honestly rolling the dice on whether a new relationship would be with someone who would be with them through thick and thin or just another “fair weather friend.”


If you are in a relationship with someone where the concern is losing half your wealth after 20 years together then I would advise not marrying that person. I make about double what my wife makes. If tomorrow she said, I want a divorce, then she can take half of what we saved over the 20+ years together without any issue from me (assuming infidelity was not involved, if it was I would go scorched earth). Anything I earned was done with her support. She was there to look after the kids on the nights and weekends I worked late. When I was working until 2am she would often get up to check on me. We earned the money together. When I left software development for 5 years and took a 65% paycut, she was the one that suggested it, indeed she made more than me during that time. When I came back to software she wanted to be sure it was not going to burn me out again.

I very much understand that I sound like a guy that started a business, beat the ods and was wildly successful telling you to open your own business while ignoring the reality that most businesses fail. America stands on the shoulders of those that tried and succeeded though.

I understand that marriages fail and that people get screwed over. I know I have been incredibly lucky with my marriage to my wife. There is really no way to know and I always recommend dating and living together for years before thinking about getting married. We roll the dice when we cross the street. Everything is a risk with no guarantee of a happy ending. For me the gamble was worth it and has paid massive returns far outstripping any financial concerns.

With that said some people get shafted and I really do feel bad for those people. Dedicating your life to someone to discover they are not who you thought must be a devastating experience.


This isn't really how it works though. She would take AT LEAST half of what you currently have, including stuff you had before you met. You would also have some responsibility for providing for her and your children in the future at a similar standard of living to her current one. You would have pension liability and could lose part of your business if you have one. This could likely be the case even if she was unfaithful. Not meaning to preach, just some things that I found out after the fact, that I never thought about when "young and in love".


And you get to take her stuff. If those are your fears marry for risk aversion. Marry someone who makes more money and has more stuff. You have to support your kids regardless if you are with someone or not. What does unfaithfulness matter in terms when dividing property. The unfaithfulness led to the divorce isn't that enough?


Great comment. Indeed it's not black and white.

And yes... live together for 3-5 years or so and then get married if you want. I wouldn't rush it.

> When I left software development for 5 years What did you do? Freelancing or left software dev in those years?

Was it easy to get back into it?


I left software completely. I had to get out. Every software job I have ever had results in me working 60+ hours a week, often more. I took a random office job at my wife's very large company. I was able to leverage my tech skills and excel. Got promoted very quickly. The main difference at least fore is when you leave the non tech job for the day or the weekend, it's gone. No need to think about it. Software is different, always some stupid deadline which requires nights and weekends. I eventually went back to software and have been here for many years now. I definitely feel like leaving again but the golden handcuffs and having kids makes it harder.

It was relatively easy to get another job. It was an entry level job making 55k but I only kept it for a couple years. Which is really a shame because it was the best software job I've ever had but it was a small company and I had kids to provide for.


Those damn golden handcuffs ;) … lucky to have that problem, but still… burnout / boreout is no fun.

I’m in a similar position as you, thinking about pivoting to something else for a while, but hesitant to make the jump because of economic uncertainty.

Thanks for the insight.


> if it was I would go scorched earth

Out of curiosity, why is that particular situation a red line for you?


Infidelity? For me its the ultimate betrayal. I can understand a drunken one night stand where the person that cheated immediately admitted to doing it. Anything else and you are essentially stealing choice from your partner. They are living a life based on an assumption of loyalty and you are allowing them to do so knowing that its a lie. Its choice theft and betrayal. On top of that, all trust would be dead. I don't want to have to spend my whole life worrying what my wife is doing if she is running an hour late from work or going out with friends.

I am very prone to emotional detachment so could adapt to being alone and be quite happy relatively quickly (probably within days). When my dad died I just flew up to my moms, organized the finances, organized the funeral and handled everything while everyone else mourned. I just moved on. I loved my dad a lot. I just detach. I haven't cried since I was a child. I'm not advocating one way or another for the healthiness of this but its just the way I am and see no need to change. Its allowed me to just trudge through things that should have shaken me up for months or years.

This is not a knock on my wife, she is amazing and I very much prefer her company to that of my own. I very much married up.

If someone does not confess immediately (like within a day) or cheats multiple times (even in the same day) or even worse has a lengthy affair I believe that is one of the worst things you can do to a person short of the obvious things like murder, violence, etc.

For me personally there can be no forgiveness. I'm not the moral police though, everyone is free to forgive as they want. If someone is cheated on and feels that its not a show stopper then that's their choice, I'm not them. This is very much just a personal thing, for which there can be no forgiveness. Divorce and separate lives is the only option. I would of course still co-parent (I would assume 50/50 custody) my kids with them and be civil (similar to how I interact with my kids teachers) but any emotional attachment would die. I would tell the kids why we are divorcing when they are old enough. This may just be a me thing its very easy for me to do the whole "dead to me" thing and just move on.

This is not a moral judgement on anyone else. People are free to forgive, pursue polyamorous relationships or whatever sexual agreements they want with the consent of their partners, etc. They key to all of these is knowing consent. My wife and I both know our rules around infidelity and its one of the pillars of our relationship.

Note: I'm writing very lengthy responses lately, I'm working too many nights and weekends and this is a distraction.


This is a very interesting perspective! I urge you to create a society or subculture which doesn't waste time on marriage. When it has lasted for at least one generation, come back and tell the rest of us about it.


The divorce rate is 50% in US and 40-50% in developed societies today. I would rather urge you to find a society that doesn't waste time on divorces and dysfunctional marriages today.


Does staying single make it any better? If you check the stats on that, I think you'll find married people tend to be happier, both financially and socially. The fact many marriages don't survive should not necessarily dissuade you from rolling the dice. Just be pickier about who you marry. Pre-marriage counselling can help weed out the improabable marriages.


I think they mean something like Canada's "common law marriage" as an alternative.

You never actually marry. No institutional stuff. No expensive dress to fuss over and never wear again. No huge expensive party for a lot of people that you actually don't like but have to invite. No expensive "honeymoon" vacation that has to be super special and that everyone around you wants to fuss about. No other expensive big party for all those people at 25 years married etc.

Instead you just get the same tax benefits as a married couple for having lived together for a certain amount of time. You stay together as if you were married for however long it lasts. Which in lots of cases is the same 50+ years some people stay married. Or not. No need for a paper. If you guys work out long term you work out long term. If you don't, you don't.


I can see how that approach would be attractive, since it is more convenient. But there is a cultural significance to ritual that makes life events more meaningful, and hence, more durable. If you don't treat it as a life-ling treatment, there is less of a chance you will treat it as such for 50 years.


I can see how the corset of tradition, social pressure and law can make marriage "more durable" of course. If you're facing eternal damnation and being ousted from the only social circle you know unless you marry before ever having sex and everyone around you does the exact same thing then of course many if not most people will endure all but the very worst marriages.

I'm glad this is finally past us in at least some places in the world. Unfortunately not everywhere. Not even in Canada or the US and other such countries.

I think the 50+% divorce rate in itself isn't the bad thing. It's not the root cause. It's just a statistic that shows how unhappy a lot of marriages have always been. But until recently-ish (and still in some places) people couldn't get out of it and endured it all and you can't tell me that they were better off that way.

You can treat "it" as a life-long treatment without all the pressures and the paper and all the other stuff.


Its not just the "corset of tradition" or social pressure. I mean rituals themselves have a psychological value. Kind of like how membership in an organization is made more durable by initiation ceremonies. Without those ceremonies, members tend to float away because they percieve less value in belonging.


What's the fertility rate in these awesome modern societies?


At planet sustaining levels and way below the rabbit kind of fertility that we still see in places where women have no rights and are forced into marriages and prevented from access to higher education.


My ex would scream at me if I even hinted to anyone that I was unhappy because "I was trying to make them look bad". Emotional abuse and manipulation, power imbalances, etc, skews stats in any group.


The failure rate for starting a business is much, much higher. Realistically, the failure rate for doing anything sufficiently ambitious or rewarding is going to be high. If your main goal is life is to avoid failure, enjoy your mediocrity.


So the number of successful marriages outside the U.S. is around 60%? Given the complexity of humanity, that actually sounds pretty reasonable to me.

By all means, forgo marriage but many of us quite like being married. I love it. Most of the time!


There’s lies, damned lies, and statistics.

This is one of those often misrepresented statistics. The divorce rate for first time marriages is much lower - off the top of my head I think it might be sub-20%?

This statistic gets skewed because some people go through multiple marriages. And I think it’s one of those things where it’s common that people have only been married once or like 3+ times. I’d imagine if you leave when one marriage gets tough you’ve opened the door to that being a viable option.


And yet the developed world is in turmoil, perhaps because we have abandoned the social contract involving marriage and the nuclear family for the good of our society.

I don't know the answer to this massively complex problem, but I don't think it's easy to reduce things to "marriage = dumb", especially with the world so divided and angry.


> find a society

in that mythical utopia that all bitter saps long for?

Yes, let's not EVER lay an ounce of blame on other corrupt institutions in the culture or wack government policies designed to debase humans instituted over the past 60 years for the rise in divorce. Let's not blame drugs or pharma or fiat funny money or anything else for the stress and troubles that normal people endure. Marriage is clearly the problemo.

This boring demoralization effort bores me. If I didn't know insufferables IRL that talk just like you (I'm sure you're lovely IRL), I'd say you were astroturfing because this is so lazy and on the nose.


Someone is in a foul mood today. Did you just have a breakup or a divorce?

Cheer up, chief. Maybe divorces can be prevented by getting better at setting the terms of marriage. Like pre-marriage counselling.


No, just chuffing at the rapidly dying zeitgeist of yesterday.

We did some marriage counselling last year and it was great for us, highly recommended.


I mean, monasteries have existed for hundreds of years.


Thousands. And a phd program is pretty similar to a modern monastery.


Monasteries were a system for sustaining unwanted children, and those children united became a very powerful institution in the world. Before monasteries unwanted children were generally "exposed", meaning left in the wilderness as infants to be devoured by animals or freeze to death. Birth control is why you only see old monks or nuns today.

Still, monasteries didn't produce any children.


> the failure rate is too high

The rate dramatically changes with demographic, for example many of those were married young and did not complete education.

> who you pick to marry

The quote doesn't say whether :) Married men also tend to make more money and work for longer periods of time. There is a cynical view of whether that's good or not, but 40-50 year old single men don't seem to be a particularly successful demographic.


Married men live longer, but the last years are mostly garbage anyway. If you’re co-dependent or really need that companionship, autonomy and agency might not be what you’re optimizing for. Cashflow and wealth doesn’t buy love or happiness, only choices and freedom. Optimize accordingly.


Your comment cautioned against marriage for its "cost". Now you are talking about lifestyle preferences.


My apologies, sometimes I forget connecting the dots must be more explicit. Tell me the lifestyle of someone who has their assets split in half and having to provide alimony/maintenance for (possibly) the rest of their partner’s life. I can only speak for my circle of social acquaintances, many divorced, all living terrible lifestyles because of the financial burden of divorce. Some got away with only losing half their assets and having to provide $3k-$5k/month post tax to their ex partners. Some, worse. One expects to have to work to death, and can never retire.

I’m just working back to first principals. You can be happy without the legal Russian Roulette of marriage is my overarching thesis, and I apologize again it took so many words to arrive at my point.


Now you're talking about financial burden again. I don't wish the situation you are describing on anyone, and I am sympathetic to making choices to avoid that happening. I don't think that is inconsistent with my other comments.

Just to add, here are a few other things that also limit your day to day freedom and add some risk of legal nightmares:

- operating a business

- owning a home or other building

- running for political office

- raising a child

- using a professional license (medical, law, civil engineer, etc)


>The rate dramatically changes with demographic, for example many of those were married young and did not complete education.

So OP, a 28 year old male still in the process of completing education?

I agree with ianai and toomuchtodo, marriage can wait (assuming one is even interested in it) until you've made your place in the world and have time and room to think about such things.


Conversely when i was in a similar situation, my marriage was the thing that helped carry me through. She was a rock and gave me the kind of support i wasnt really getting anywhere else. But we also shared the journey (hers and mine) and that experience in itself is more valuable than my degree (which i neither use nor rarely reference).

IMHO the reality is a marriage os neither something required nor something to avoid, it lies along side professional life and again IMHO, recommending one to get married or not doesnt deserve a place alongside how one should pursue their career goals. They should be equally pursued in a balanced fashion suited to the individual.


"Marriage is an unnecessary burden and construct in modern times."

Too early to say. It is possible (though by no means certain) that by 2200, the Earth will be inhabited by a mix of the Amish, the Haredim and various Salafist creeds which, while distinctly non-modern, never stopped reproducing themselves, while all the modernized groups did.

Edit: interesting that this comment attracted two downvotes but no rebuttal. I would say that the process is at the very least visible in Israel, at its conception in 1948 a very secular state whose demographics has since then changed a lot due to high TFR of the Haredim. And the Israeli politics seems to be following its demography.


As universal as divorce

Meaning, the "validity" of marriage is built into the power hierarchy. The same power hierarchy that determines whether a couple should stay together. People are going to get together. Wouldn't it be better if they could just be together without the need for an authority?


People have children and live their lives together all the time without involving the government or their personal deity. Marriage is a hierarchical construct rooted in male supremacy and heteronormativity.


You seem to be arguing that marriage is a dumb legal thing, ergo relationships are not important. Even if the premise is true, your conclusion is unrelated.

With empathy to the OP, this sentence > Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down

Is also kind of fucked up. There's no particular reason to suggest their partner left because they were unwilling to support a partner through a tough time. Maybe it is the case. But that's a very aggressive assumption that implicitly strips the lost partner of any individual autonomy.


I have noticed that Phd holders usually advise buckling down and dealing with whatever abuse or bureaucratic nightmares are required to finish.

I think I agree with 1 year out, but I would be surprised if this hasn't been going on for longer.


> Forget the outside stuff. ... Feeling like a failure or success is almost a worthless concern as you’re clearly nearly done with a huge life goal. ... Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship ...

Ungenerous translation: That thing that's been really important to you for four years -- just forget about it. If you stop feeling bad about it that you'll stop feeling bad about it. Also marriage is objectively a silly institution. Sounds like you'd like to get married. Maybe that makes you silly. Getting a PhD though -- that's going to change your life forever! You'll be proud! If you're not proud because you don't like your sub-field, well ... maybe that also makes you silly!

To the OP: Sounds like stuff's really hard right now. I'm sorry for that. Grad school is damn hard some times and relationships are too. If find the above advice reassuring or helpful, great! If not, try to brush it off and read other more supportive comments. I hope things get better for you soon.


>Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end. (Plus if someone is bailing on you when you’re finishing a degree they definitely weren’t going to be there for you in actually troubling times - like an illness or your house burning down.)

Excellent observations.


@ianai: The POSTER is talking about being under-prepared for integrating their emotions into their lives, and NOT in the "life goal" sense.

"[I am a] broken pile of glass" != "[I need to hear about the] job market" kind of situation.

As I read their posting, it's more of a "help me develop my emotional intelligence."


Which still sounds pretty normal for a last year of phd. Freedom and autonomy from the burden await past the degree.

Deep psychological work is going to take longer than a year, cost $$$$, could be fleeting, and clearly not going to finish the degree in a year.

Or quit the program and start a new life. But I’d strongly advise OP first honestly discuss that with their mentors.

Life absolutely will go on and the market will find a place for OPs work in either direction.


I see. Makes sense.

And for me it's sad for me to see a person, the OP, being / complaining of overwhelmed by the tall wave of their goals competing with their significant emotional trauma .. their psyche is pretty unhappy.


> Marriages are fundamentally just a societal complication of a relationship - complete with dubious legal consequences and a not a sure thing that can end.

Depending on how you see the marriage. Did people or God[1] invent it? TBH, I'm wondering if you are / were married or just talking.

- Marriage is not about finding the right person, but rather BE the right person.

- Don't expect a not perfect person to fulfill your desires, but rather try to be there to support the other.

- Don't try to change the person. You fell in love in the end with that person. Why change her/him?

[1] I know that this might not be popular on HN. I can accept that.


Hello internet friend,

As others have mentioned, you are arguably not as close to rock bottom as one can be. I hit rock bottom when I lost my home, my job, my ability to walk, was on assistance and bought my groceries with food stamps. How I got to rock bottom is a story for a meeting.

I found solace in recovery. Recovery is different for everyone as is rock bottom. Therefore if you feel you've lost more than you were willing to and you're at a precipice of a major life change that will bring you up out from the bottom, or you'll find rock bottom can even be lower than your realize. Again, what that means is going to be different for everyone, but if you have a need that you must change something in order to be better, then you already know what to do. Obviously if you're addicted to heroin, that change would be sobriety and recovery.

I'm not trying to give you answers as those are things you're going to have to figure out for yourself.

You've been around for three decades and been adulting for less than one. You've got at least 4 more decades to define yourself and your life. The best part is, you are the director, producer and actor in how that future pans out.


Fantastic post. I would also add possibly seeking a support group of/for his peers. I’m friends with Bill.


It works if you work it


Thank you!


I'd agree with some other comments here that you are pretty far away from rock bottom.

Rock bottom is a complete dismantling of your life. Failed relationships (romantic, friendly, professional, etc), lost job, bills piling up, apartment a disaster, inability to build a mental model that can cope with your current situation.

It looks more like you're in a relative minimum. From what I understand about psychology a healthy balanced life generally follows a pattern of building yourself up to a relative maximum, getting something completely wrong that challenges the framework you've built to orient yourself in the world, hitting a relative minimum, and learning to build yourself back up to a new relative maximum.

Consider the alternative, where there are no relative minimums. That would imply you either know everything, in which case your trajectory would be completely flat or ascending indefinitely. Well, that certainly can't be the case because not even the most brilliant people in history knew everything.

There is no advice or shortcut we can give that your therapist hasn't given you. These things take time. There is something about life that you've gotten wrong. This is your opportunity to learn what it is, fix it, build a new mental model, and prepare yourself to not make the same mistakes again.

You're in the fortunate position to have a lot of opportunity. More people are in the dysfunctional family history boat than you think. Sounds like you've done well, despite that.

Keep going.


> I'd agree with some other comments here that you are pretty far away from rock bottom.

“Rock bottom” is whatever negative experience is sufficient to get you to volubtarily rethink and commit to changing the life choices that produced that experience. It's where you personally decide to draw the line, not some objective maximum acheivable misery.


Sounds like a local minima, not ‘drinking yourself to death in a foreign country where you don’t speak the language while everyone thinks you’re dead’, which is more what I associate the phrase with hah.


Personally, yes. Outside in, not really. If you've broken up with your GF, think life is shite and that's your rock bottom, then yeah you've reached your rock bottom. The floor where you tow it.

However, I disagree and would agree that rock bottom in essence is where where the maximum achievable misery has been met. If life is a ladder, your still on that ladder, you can still progress. All you've done is fallen and experienced life in reality; you can grow from and continue.

If your not attached to the bottom peg, your at the bottom of the ladder with nothing but yourself, you've reached rock bottom. Being homeless is rock bottom.


Heh. I was briefly homeless some decades ago, and likewise had to give up drugs and drinking (actually, BEFORE becoming homeless)

There IS no bottom so long as you're able to dig. There is no such thing as maximum achievable misery. It's just a question of whether OP is able to go on, and whether that is the lowest he could go is NOT at all an interesting question. I would say by definition you can always go lower, so it's a moot point.

I'd look into stoicism, in the sense of 'identifying something that counts as virtue, or rightness, or goodness', and I'd ask whether there's anything you can do today that would count toward that.

If you can do that, it doesn't matter how big the pile of broken glass is. Only whether you're able to do something good about it, however small, today.


I've been there. around 26, I wasn't in greatest mindscape. Lonely, fired from my job, crashed my car, credit card debt, took drugs, spiraled out of control, got arrested and six years later I now own my own apartment and just redecorated it with new carpet. I've had a harsh life but I turn 34 on Monday and I feel I've done well to be where I am and still not where I was.

Change is hard, to throw away everything and start from the beginning when it really isn't your fault is a path not many choose. I walked the wrong path, ended up in the wrong puddle which eventually lead down the wrong rabbit hole.

I am extremely grateful for the window of opportunity that exposed itself to me, for what I was given, the support I was given. And now all I want to do is return the such. I do what I can, when I can, how I can. I volenteer regularly, not to gloat, donate. It's hard. Its hard for everyone. I feel more balanced then how I was and now do feel I now seem to have a sense of urgency to fight for others who don't get such luck. Especially the animals.

We are in control of our destiny but are restricted from the freedoms we should have, with the world in dismay is concerning but it only takes one to start the shift back in to motion and change everything for everyone. Whether my dream becomes a reality, I better get back to coding.


This is something that caught my interest outside of OP’s problems.

From wiki: “A period of extreme mental stress, often characterized by being homeless and being rejected by all friends and family.”

To me rock bottom is a storytelling term. So it’s relative to the story that is being told.


Agreed. Synonymous with "An all-time low".


Saddest pissing contest ever


I'd avoid the comment that "you are pretty far away from rock bottom" - because it does not help the OP.

Like, "Really? Criticize them?" That is why I'd avoid it.

Everything else written about "takes time" @prhn is great and healthy IMO.


> Failed relationships (romantic, friendly, professional, etc), lost job, bills piling up, apartment a disaster, inability to build a mental model that can cope with your current situation.

I've realized this is kind of what my mental model has lead to, the worst part is I don't really know how to fix it or change. Fortunately I have years of living expenses if needed, have insurance and a number of close friends. However, WFH has gotten me to a point where it's a struggle to even do a few leetcode problems a day, work on contracting or even make a youtube video. Insurance doesn't cover mental healthcare and it never really helped before.


> I've also started therapy 2 months ago, but it's going slow and it hasn't been very useful yet.

My #1 piece of advice is, find a new therapist.

Therapy isn't one size fits all. You need to not only find the right type of "modality" for you (e.g. CBT and IFS* are worlds apart, generally you want somebody "integrative/eclectic" who will combine the right modalities for you), but you also simply need to find somebody to click with. It really does depend on trust and chemistry to a shockingly large degree.

I know multiple people who did years of therapy that was next to useless, then found a new therapist that just 2-4 sessions made a huge difference.

It's entirely normal and expected to "shop around" with therapists. Try an initial 1-2 sessions with 3-4 different therapists, and be upfront with them about what you're doing as well. They won't take it personally -- they're therapists -- and they're even more aware than you that therapeutic outcomes are super dependent on just finding the right personal match.

When you find the right therapist who is really in tune with you, you can go from having a "breakthrough" every couple of years, to every couple of sessions. It's crazy how different the outcomes can be, and how few people are even aware that the outcomes can be so different.

(Note that this is less applicable to CBT which is very recipe-oriented, paint-by-numbers, surface-level treatment. CBT can be great as a short-term fix for distorted thinking patterns, but it's not designed to address anything deeper, so a good match with a therapist matters less.)

* CBT = cognitive behavioral therapy, IFS = internal family systems


I think this advice is too-disruptive for this person: It's too quick to just throw away another relationship.

The poster talks about being Distant from Friends, and recently Separated. Also they talk about growing up in a Toxic Family - another "bell ring" for the "feeling unsupported" song. Advising them to swap out a ANOTHER emotionally supportive person in their life, their therapist, is going to cause them further abandonment - it's going to cause them to suffer.

So, come at that specific advice from a different direction. Advise them instead to open up to the therapist more. The problem doesn't yet seem to be an incompetent therapist. It's more that their relationship is still shallow.


This is good advice. Many therapists are one-trick ponies. For example, talking about trauma for three years won’t help you if your real problem is undiagnosed ADHD. Some challenges require ongoing help from a therapist (borderline personality etc) but otherwise if you’re not seeing rapid improvement they’re not helping, and might be making things worse.


I second this advice. If you don't feel like a therapist is almost immediately helping you identify, process, and communicate your emotions and history then it's not a good match. I know first-hand that it's a PITA to switch to a new therapist but the return on effort can be massive.


This advice is golden. Please OP, listen. I can only second this.

There is so much truth in it, that even the German medical insurance system understood this and made it so that the first five sessions with a therapist are only for getting the feel of each other. Only after that you settle for the therapist or for "real" therapy (paid by the insurance). The first sessions are also paid, but you can switch until you find the right fit (if one can find an appointment in Germany, but that is another story).

So please, OP, look for someone more fitting.


I have been with her now 4x. I have talked about my upbringing and that that is the motivation why I came to see her. Then the breakup happened, so the last two times we talked about that.

Apparently she is specialised for adult children of complicated parents. And apparently next time we will do some questionnaire or something. So far we have only talked and she suggested one book ("iRest - Healing PTSD") which I started reading. She is supportive, but so far she mostly said I should find things I like doing, join sports clubs, try mindfulness and basic stuff like that. I know that my issues run deeper.


If you do have PTSD, I’ve found that somatic experiencing therapy has been amazingly effective for me. Talking about trauma only gets you so far. It sounds crazy and very “woo”, but I’ve found that trauma really is stored in the body in the form of held muscle tension. I found that I was literally physically bracing myself against the things I feared, 24 hours a day, every day. The constant physical tension was telling my brain “something is wrong” and no amount of talking about it would help dispel that feeling. Learning to identify where this is happening and how to release it has been invaluable for me.

I second the previous commenter’s opinion. Therapists all have their individual ways of seeing and working. What works wonders for one person will be a waste of time for another. If you’re not getting much out of it, keep looking for someone that can help YOU.


+1, I've been to 5 or 6 therapists and 80% of the progress came from the first or second session. The remaining sessions were almost always repetitive and useless to me.


This can also be a pattern of avoidance.

If you are challenged and you dont want to face the hard issues you quit and find another one.


I'm talking about finding your first long-term therapist, to try out several.

Not about jumping therapists every three or six months.

Also, people who can't face the hard issues generally just quit therapy altogether. They don't usually jump therapists. Switching therapists really is usually because it's not working, and more of the same therapist isn't going to help.


Damn! Favoriting this comment, thanks for the lesson. Might become handy later in life :)


Getting dumped by your partner can really crush your ego as a man. Don't worry, it will get better.

The hardest thing for me was that I still loved her, but of course rationally didn't want to (mother of my 3 kids). One trick I used was to disconnect the real person with the person I loved. This allowed me to still love the person in my head, but not the real one (sounds stupid but it really worked). Basically "the person that I love is in my head and doesn't exist. The real person just looks like her".

Rock bottom means you have nothing left to lose, or at least you feel like it. For me it felt kind of liberating. Because if you have nothing left to lose, there are only things to gain. You can take stupid risks and it won't matter anyway.

Your breakup is still fresh, so try to talk to some friends who went through a similar thing.

Hang in there, it will get better.


The difficulty comes when this is a life-pattern, established as a child before the OP was equipped to moderate the ups and downs of relationships.

It won't get better. That is appearing to be the concern of the OP.

IMO the OP needs to be supported and nurtured during this transition. So, finding self-care anywhere they can is the advice I'd say. And for the long-term, advice from a therapist can help train their child-mind to better handle this dynamic life.


Thanks for your reply. Yes it is still fresh, I also still love her and find it very hard to accept this new reality. I've talked a lot to friends and family the past 2 weeks so that helped. I know all I can do is let time do its thing.


Most people of strong personas and characters have ended up there by hitting rock bottom several times and bouncing back several times with more and more resilience each time.

It’s really in these moments that you can define yourself, that you reach out for philosophy and literature and ways to cope and face life.

As they say: life is made of failures, and it’s always about how you bounce back (not how you avoid failing)

The second thing is that life is made of multiple sub lives. Your life as a toddler was nothing like your teenage years, which was nothing like your adult life, which will look nothing like your life as an old person.

Transitioning is always hard, but growing as a person is also about accepting that we are not meant to live the same little cushy and stable life that we got accustomed to for too many years.

Breaking up is one thing, at some point close people to you will die, you will lose some of your physical abilities, etc.

The best thing you can do is find a strong philosophy of life, and not worry too much about what your life was or what your life will be. Just enjoy the moment.

Enjoy your experience as a human being. All of it.


Wise words. Thank you!


>I feel like I've lost any passion for anything

This is one of the hardest aspects of depression, one which I'm struggling with right now again, actually.

Having been in this place many times in my life, my best advice is:

Do things first. If you do enough things, passion will flow from that. (wouldn't hurt if those things were plausibly interesting or valuable to someone).

The natural alternate philosophy is much less likely to work, which is: wait or or look for things you are passionate in, before investing effort. This is more likely to support a catch-22 cycle of depression.

But, the mind doesn't actually work this way. Nothing is objectively worthy of passion. Successful movie stars get bored of fame. I've listened to researchers passionately fulfilled by studying literal garbage.

Our brain learns to find meaning in things as we invest and explore them.

Our feelings and values change over time.

When depressed, you predict you will never feel better, or care more about things. That sort of prediction is empirically very unreliable for depressed people.


Yep... Thanks for the advice!


I can only tell you what I would want myself to do in your situation.

I would want to hit the road. I would pause the PhD and go on a long road trip. Alternatively, I would set about hiking one of the longer trails in the U.S.

Clichéd? Maybe. But I have found the most peace and serenity in my life when on the road, broken out of my constant circles.

A rather extreme measure? Yeah, bailing on the PhD seems rather extreme but, future me, looking back on this phase of my life would absolutely agree it was the right thing to do at the time. (And here I should emphasize, this is me talking to me — your mileage may vary.)

There was only one similar period in my life and, while I didn't know about the long trails in the U.S. and didn't otherwise really have the financial means, I did cut all the cords I could at that time: work, place I was living, toxic friends, etc. My long-distance girlfriend had not "dumped" me, instead she was, again, off in college rooming with someone else. I decided at that moment to write a letter telling her I am leaving her.

So very much a clean break in my life.

It was strange to be standing there at the bottom of that well in my life but in hindsight I see that it was the point where everything started just slowly getting better. I think emotionally, and self-esteem-wise I had finally begun to feel like I had "agency" (to use a popular term these days).

Oh, I started listening to very different music then, took up the guitar and started playing... Whole new set of friends as well. I may have started smoking then as well — don't ever do that.


Thanks! "Agency" hits it. I often feel like I'm a passenger in my own life, like it's just passing by in front of my eyes like a movie. Like I'm this small entity sitting in my brain just observing what's happening.

I am planning to take out a few months after the PhD to do something crazy. Like hike New Zealand top to bottom, or US east to west road trip or living a couple months in a small Italian seaside town or Pacific island to decompress from society, or become truly conscious about our society (visit all the places that support our society like waste plants, sewers, drinking water plants, electricity plants, farmers, distribution centres, ports, mass food production centres, clothing factories, oil refineries, paper factories, etc.).


King, I dropped out of my PhD (probably shouldn't have, but I don't regret it because the build back is going really well, I moved back from America, was unemployed for a few months).

I know this will sound wildly out of order, but do start working out. It's been crazy how much of my self esteem and idea about myself changed. Like transforming your body will legit give you confidence about other stuff.

Next is try to move into research that's very 'employable', employable likely means that the research holds a huge amount of value to society, internalizing that will prevent you from questioning how meaningful it all is (academia often isn't but by building skills, you derive meaning in a sort of preparatory way)

Lastly get off twitter and stuff. Even HN if you can.

All the best! Keep in mind rooting for strangers is a common human impulse and a bunch of ppl are doing it for you.


Yes absolutely be careful to fearful of social media. At worst the people there could be trying to torpedo your trajectory through making you feel bad. Not worth the risk.


Thanks! Yep, I am in shape and have been working out on-off, but am determined now to go to the gym every single day for the foreseeable future to get ripped.


A breakup two weeks ago is massive. So soon after I wouldn’t expect you to feel better than this, it’s good you don’t feel worse! Many people would.

And when you’re ready I’d suggest thinking again on what your therapist is saying because they have a point. After a breakup you have an opportunity to do things 100% for you with no one else to please. As basic as choosing dinner and Netflix/streaming/torrent title or as elaborate as major world travel (visit some of those international friends - and before you mention cost remember traveling young and alone is the cheapest, you have flexibility in dates and accommodation you won’t have later with kids, spouse, tired bones that need soft mattress).

I know it’s hard to see the opportunities in your situation but they exist. Small indulgences and bigger ways (eventually when you’re ready) of leveraging the advantages of being alone are the route to eventually becoming happier and stronger and healthier than you were even before the breakup. And from that strength comes better answers about your future.


Thanks!


Hi. Feel free to ignore all of this. I hope this helps (selfishly, it helped me a bit to type). I see comments that are giving good advice. Some are suggesting that what you are feeling isn't rock bottom. In my opinion, whether or not that is true doesn't matter. Reality filters through the lens of your mind. If you feel that this is the case, it is. To you. I have been, and still go through, the same things. Because of my past, I have issues trusting people, and knowing that it is true doesn't help. I no longer have many friends, few meaningful relationships, and many people could care less if I exist. I review the history of my life and sometime wonder if my existence was a net positive for those with which I have collided. Only a core set of people who helped raise me know me and love me for who I am. There are fewer of these as time passes. Finding someone you trust that you can confide in without judgement helps. For me, being able to express how I feel to another person who cares about what I am thinking has helped immensely. By nature, I am solution-oriented and get stuck in a kind of mental fix loop when I encounter a situation I can't control or resolve. I am working on trying to focus on the situations I can control, and ceding the rest to "what is". I Recommend that you approach your therapy as a way to unburdon yourself without the expectation of a fix. The fix will come. This seems like everything that matters. If you can, try to zoom out. Try to do something new. Try to see that this is a tiny situation in the fabric of reality and choose to change it. Again, I am just a random friendless internet dude talking out of my ass. I am not qualified to offer advice, but I just wanted you to know that you aren't alone.


Thank you, appreciate your kindness! Good luck on your journey as well!


From "issues trusting people" => ∞-smart emotionally intelligent response - applauding you @batch12

Adding to this, OP: you are not alone. +1 more.


You just got dumped by your life partner. You are experiencing immense mental pain, and maybe even physical pain. That is normal. In fact, if you had no reaction to being dumped by your life partner, you may have deeper problems.

It's possible that the breakup is making you more pessimistic about your PhD. How were you feeling about your PhD before the breakup?

Here are some optional suggestions. Try Tinder. Try psilocybin. Try standup comedy. Try going to another country (and live cheap if needed). Try being an Uber driver. Try a crazy hairstyle. Be creative.


Yes it makes me a bit more pessimistic about the PhD, because I was struggling with the PhD already before the breakup. My relationship was a big support and comfort that helped me grind through especially the past few months of the PhD. But now that's gone so I feel like I'm a bit cracking under the weight of finishing the PhD within the next year.


Don't rebuild: that version of yourself is forever gone [1]. Build another you: rebase mercilessly. Of course, one path to wisdom is to discover there was never an you to begin with: each morning we re-instantiate the memories and take on the goals of a past tyrant.

[1] Recent HN: The overfitted brain: Dreams evolved to assist generalization https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35009509 In book form, check Jeff Hawkins' A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence for a hint towards a new metaphysics of whatever being a person is.


I went from selling three businesses to being homeless on the street. I don’t think, unfortunately, there’s a magic solution.

I can provide some generic advice about what helped me:

1. Determining who my actual support network was. I invested in my repairing and strengthening my bonds with my friends and family who had been there for me - and while not cutting ties with fair weather friends, deemphasized spending time with them.

2. Repeatable daily habits are important. I forced myself to take multiple walks a day, set daily completion goals for my work, attend therapy/group sessions. It’s hard but I firmly think beyond the benefit of developing a good routine, it’s imperative to fill your time when depressed. The more you can lounge in your infinite sadness, the easier it is for said feelings to permeate deeper into your psyche and persist.

3. Consistency with sleep and diet are huge. I’m a short sleeper - which I’ve been lead to believe is advantageous but made it easy to convince myself I could run on essentially no rest. A tired mind is, in my experience, more likely to make the kind of mistakes that exacerbate a career and/or personal slump.

4. I made a concerted effort to read a new article or attend a talk on a topic I knew little about daily. This was extremely important in helping me find motivation to explore new career/intellectual pursuits as well as, I believe, improve my mental flexibility.

5. I gained quite a bit from attending church. This isn’t me advocating for you to do the same but I would try to find some sort of group setting (at least once a week) where you are not at all focusing on career-related items. I think even a gaming group (such as D&D) or a book club could fulfill this purpose.

I’m also happy to talk any time if it is at helpful. My email is in my profile. Good luck.


> I went from selling three businesses to being homeless on the street.

If you don't mind me asking: Did you blow that money somehow? Or have you just sold the businesses for very little? Or was some other disaster involved?


Mostly medical issues and poor money management exacerbated by my mental health issues.


Are these actually life changing exits for the businesses or did you mean it more as you were successful? Would love to get an idea on the numbers if you can share.


I had enough in my Roth IRA to retire on in my mid-20s. I blew most of my liquid assets thanks to massive medical debt and bad money management.


Thanks for the advice!


Of course - please reach out if I can ever be of help. Even if that just means opening up my rolodex for positions post-PhD or simply chatting.


I’ll give it a shot:

It is rock bottom for the glowing persona you constructed to match your parents’ expectations. You learned to do this before you can remember, and the tendency to do so will be something you’ll need to learn to manage.

It is not rock bottom for the actual you, and this you is only beginning to realize they even exist. Learn how to name your emotions. Force yourself to not care what others think through engaging in something permanently humbling and repeatedly making mistakes that others can see until it doesn’t bother you.

Learn how to engage with the idea of what other people think of you with mild scientific interest and amusement. The way they react to you usually says more about them than it does you.

Learn to not do the shiny thing that is so easy for you, and instead find every opportunity to relax the increasingly impossible level of control required to maintain the self-image you’ve constructed.

Learn to listen to your heart, and act on what it says.


Thank you. Especially the first two sentences are interesting.


If you grew up in a toxic family of the type you're describing it could be that the hardest thing is to realise that as an adult you can do whatever you want. Sounds obvious and easy but can be really hard to internalise and act on. And it's the thing that matters most, because once you do have the feeling that you can do whatever you want, you can figure out what you want and do it and live a happy life. It will probably not happen overnight but rather over a long period of constant work, so find what you need to help you on this journey (therapy sounds like a good idea, just make sure that you are working with the right therapist).

I would ignore anyone telling you that your experience doesn't qualify as "rock bottom". You know best. What it really means is that you feel you've suffered enough and you're ready to do the work and move away from suffering and towards happiness and self actualisation. Even if it doesn't feel like that right now, this is a very good place to be.


Indeed, well said!


Been exacly there when I was 25. Breakup after 5 years of first serious relationship, nearing the end of a phd. It sucked. I'm now 15 years past that and my life couldn't be better.

This is what I did: 1. I got a new hobby involving regular workouts and which was somewhat social with new people. Never really did sports before that, but this really helped me from getting isolated from society. I found new friends and got in shape. There is many of those, kayaking, rowing, soccer, ultimate, ... pick any one. Even running groups could work. Many evenings I came home tired after training, sometimes crying from heartburn, but that eventually passed. And 2. I finished the phd and then got a job in a different country, awesome place, new surroundings, own apartment, new colleagues, new life. This is rather easy with a phd. I didn't really click with my field either, but the decision to power through the last 1-2 years and just wrap it up and then move on was gold. That's what a phd signifies to a new employerand also yourself: You can finish something and power through, even if in tough moments. Every phd has those. Finally, after moving and new job and gotten in shape, got friends and a new relationship and it's great. I didn't have to fight for the latter, it just came autotomatically with new self confidence and casting a wide net. (I'm not really the social type.)

So, let your future self in 15 years tell you: this will all pass, you have a great future ahead!

P.S.: I also read self-help stuff and relationship advice and psychology. The moment I stopped, I started to feel so much better. It just reminded me how crappy I felt. Constantly. Once I threw this out I could embrace my new hobby and new beginnings. There will be throwbacks and evenings where you don't do anything but cry and eat chips. That's ok. Just don't let it consume you and steadily move on.


Thanks for your story, sounds quite relatable! I am planning to finish the PhD and put everything in the next 12 months and then probably move countries or even continents. Glad to hear you made it.


Absolutely this. I think self help is wonderful. But, it is very very easy to overconsume!


You gotta move. Walk. Every day. 15K steps. You have to get outside your bubble. There’s more going on than what you see and feel, and there’s something beyond what you’re experiencing right now.

Part of the problem is you have to burn the time, but the more you wallow the more this time will swallow you up. It may take a year or two to get over this breakup, but if you move and stay productive, this time will not have been wasted and you’ll come out a bit better. If you wallow, you’ll waste this time. If you mellow the wallow, it’ll be a victory in and of itself and a driver for healing.

I’ve never gone on a long walk and felt worse. And it’s something you can do every single day.


I am indeed prone to wallowing, so thanks for that advice.

Funny that you mention it. Since the breakup I have started every single day with a ~1h walk in the next park, no matter the weather. I intend to keep that routine and at the moment I find a bit of peace in doing it.


I’ve hit rock bottom a few times in my life. Once I was food insecure and another I was on short term disability for burnout. My latest period of strife is due to a traumatic death and a couple of near deaths of loved ones. I’ve done a ton of therapy, read self-help books, had executive coaching. What’s helped the most was deciding what I want my life to be, understanding the gap between here and there, then making incremental changes.

Regularly, throughout the day I remind myself that I am strong in my body. I am confident. I am a successful entrepreneur. Anytime a thought enters my brain stating otherwise, I pause and switch back to focusing on what I want.

What you focus on magnifies. You don’t have to believe every thought that enters your mind. You may feel empty in many moments, but I’m sure if you look hard you will find small moments throughout the day where you feel fulfilled like when you’re exercising. You also made it into a PhD program despite your dysfunctional upbringing. States of being are not binary so you don’t need to attach yourself to a state of emptiness and self-doubt. They can co-exist with other states of being.

It’s normal to feel stressed in a PhD program, especially toward the end. It’s also common for relationships to be impacted as graduate school is a transformative and demanding experience.

Keep going, keep your head up, and be kind to yourself. Replace self-doubt with self-compassion. There’s a new and exciting life waiting for you. By this time next year, this will all be behind you.


I'm not going to tell you that other people have it way worse than you because its not relevant. for you this is awful and devastating and I respect that.

Uncomplicate your life. Choose 2 or 3 things that are core and spend a year or so focused just on those.

Fitness, your phd and maybe 1 other thing. You have to find yourself again before thinking of starting another relationship. Go do crazy random things. Have one night stands.

"do things you like". I feel like maybe you dont have many of those right now. Thats not a big deal.

Find odd events that are happening around you and just go to them. Go to a restaurant in the morning and have breakfast alone outside. Take your time and just enjoy it.

You are already fit, take on a harder physical test, run a marathon, do an iron man, sign up for a power lifting competition. Do it, when you lose, laugh about it and do it again. Get embarrassed. Embrace the suck. Eventually it wont suck so much but by experiencing new things you are allowing yourself to change.

"due to Covid and my own passiveness and weak sense of self" Again on the physical side but maybe try boxing or Brazilian Ju-Jitsu, something that will make you feel powerful. Join a Rugby club, get hit. Come back the next day.

Go volunteer, I really mean that. Go help someone else it will clarify your position in the world.

Close the door on what was. Who do you want to be?

There is truly no magical answer friend, you just have to get up every morning and try. I think you are going to surprise yourself.


Well said, thank you!


Exist.

That’s what I did for a good chunk of my twenties. My life has changed dramatically since then.

It’s hard to set a direction for yourself with that mode of living, so I pivoted from art school and joined the Air Force to focus on serving.

I’m sure the work you do can positively impact the world. Find a mission and focus on staying busy with that. Finish your PhD towards that end and continue take care of your physical health. Help people.

As a society we tend to focus on joy and pleasure as the keys to happiness (do things you like), but there’s something deeper I think you can find once you’re okay with simply existing as you feel today.


Interesting, thanks!


For me it was a life-altering traumatic injury in my early 20's followed by the common pitfalls associated with such an event. What turned things around for me was taking ownership of my situation. Understanding that while it certainly sucks, whether I continued to spiral downward or crawled my way back up was entirely up to me. It was absolutely within my power to turn it around and I chose to do so. I actually remember the exact moment the decision hit me. It took several years, and more than one attempt to get back to "functional" and feeling "normal". And 20+ years later, I still live with the consequences of that injury, that's part of me but doesn't define me. I've accomplished a lot, have a good family, career and still have a lot left to contribute.

ymmv, but the tough-love mindset worked best for me:

- Nobody's coming to save you. You have to save yourself.

- People with extraordinary good or bad luck tend to make it themselves.

- Failure is an event, not a person.


Hey, you up for a chat? I guess I'm kinda a younger version of you, currently in my early 20s, having some (life-altering | possibly-life-altering) medical issues. I liked your learnings and would like to hear more about your journey if possible. Cheers


You're getting a lot of excellent advice here. I feel similarly to you and have been through my own troubles that have seemed quite immense to me.

In the end, the best thing for me has been Buddhist meditation and practice. I know it's a weird thing to say, and that it will probably therefore have no effect for me to say it. But I've been there, and am doing much better now, and my Buddhist meditation/practice is the main reason. So I recommend it. Feel free to ask about it in a reply if you'd like more specifics.


Thanks for the reply. Which practices did you try and/or which one helped you the most? In what ways are you doing better compared to before? What makes you confident that you can attribute the improvements to meditation?


Nuts,I missed that you asked for more info at the time. If you're still seeing these replies let me know and I'll answer.


Sounds like youve described my life as well so as much of a cold comfort it is; you arent alone in this experience.

Some suggestions.

1. Theres usually a big gap between understanding and belief. You can “know” something is true but not have it feel true, or let that knowledge have any positive affect on your outlook or physiology. This simply takes time. Be patient and kind with yourself.

2. Self help books are good. Therapy is better. But you’ll also find there are tons of different types of therapy. What works for you will take time to figure out and will also depend on your background, level of resistence, your comfort with vulnerability, the vocabulary you have to describe your experience, etc. Again, stick with it. Dont overdo it. Rememeber that 9 women can’t have a baby in a month.

3. Relationships and endings can be especially difficult for people who were potentially raised by narcissists or any cluster b personality style. Youve most likely learned behaviour that worked for you in childhood but wont help you now that youre an adult. This is now being understood as maladaptive patters from CPTSD. It’s worth digging into. Id recommend “the body keeps the score” and “complex ptsd: from surviving to thriving”.

4. Your body and your mind operate more like one unit than we all care to admit. Its important to exercise for at least 30 minutes a day. Not a walk. More like sweating. Nobody ever wants to do this. I still never want to do it. Id suggest doing everything possible to lower the activation cost of getting some exercise.

5. This tension requires an outlet. You probably spend a lot of time in front of a computer reading, writing, etc. I find writing with a pen and paper helpful. Theres absolutely no need to ever read what you wrote ever again. The mind is wild but it does seem to offer some relief.

Lastly - and I apologize for being trite - when youre going through hell, keep going.


Thanks for the recommendations! I know some of Pete Walker's stuff but have never read his CPTSD book yet.


Sounds like you are a sensitive, thoughtful and feeling individual. And you are reaching out to more people, strangers, presenting yourself as a massive pile of broken glass - a poetical description suggesting you'd like to talk about yourself in the context of a Feeling <> Thinking self-ideation. (ADVICE: you might want to naturally add more of that to your life, e.g. a regular poetry class, or write a daily Haiku, so EXPRESSING YOURSELF BECOMES YOUR LIFE.)

ADVICE: it's going to continue to require mindfulness, ongoing for the rest of your life in order to maintain the kind of mood-state that you desire.

Sounds like you label yourself as week and unhealthy thinking. Soooooo ADVICE ... challenge that as being "correct for the moment" and "maladaptive". It's still adaptation. And you've got a long life ahead of you to update your Stimulus > Response chain brain.

ADVICE: Look for healthy activities which support your mood - for me it's simple daily exercise - and look for thought-patterns that help "tank" you, with the aim of recognizing them when they pop up again. Counselor can help you recognize, "Oh that was a boost for me, I'll think about how to incorporate more of that into my routine."

ADVICE: Give therapy SIX MONTHS to show signs. AND tell the counselor the Criticism that you tell us, here, EVERY SESSION in some little or big way, for that six months, until it changes. The counselors can be there to guide YOUR thinking and action, not to do the living FOR YOU.

STORY A reason they could be saying "do things you like", is because you don't appear to do things you Truly like, from their perspective. Typically with children of Narcissists, the child's emotional needs are neglected. Sooooooooo you might be underdeveloped in a few ways around self-fulfillment. Google "CEN neglect narcissist". Accomplishments aside, what makes you happy, and what do you want?


Thank you so much, very thoughtful response! I like your observation on the pile of broken glass. I enjoy describing things poetically / with mental pictures / with analogies. I've never thought about it really, though.

My childhood dream job was being a pilot, but my eyes are slightly too weak for the medical thresholds. I still have that passion for aviation. I'm always excited to go to the airport, or see planes flying by. There was a time when I could identify which plane was flying 40000ft above me just by its size/shape/shape of its contrails. I played a lot of flight simulator in my teenage years.

Funny thing is, accomplishments made me happy at least in the past. I come from a small rural village and my family had money struggles when growing up. With a lot of hard work and isolating myself during my undergrad I managed to get into a very competitive MSc. program in one of those universities everyone knows. That gave me a big boost in confidence and made me feel good about myself. It also helped getting into the prestigious research group I am in now. But at/after the MSc. I somehow became disillusioned with academic/work achievement and realised just how uneven the playing field is (I met many very privileged people at that uni). And also that it's more important to go your own path rather than adhering to what society tells you to do (because, in slightly Orwellian terms, what society tells you to do is certainly influenced by fat bellied, suit wearing people in board rooms).

Other than that? I guess I've always been into sports. I like "optimising" my health (but not to an obsessive degree). I like great literature and philosophy (although I'm sometimes thinking it's a form of escapism for me and that I secretly want to heal myself by absorbing some of the insights). I like the outdoors and nature. I like travelling and being in motion.


You are welcome, fellow internet stranger. Being human can be complex, and it can be healthy to nurture conversations like this. Hopefully this HN forum will provide you with kind, friendly guidance and feedback.

Thank you for sharing so much about your life! Fills my imagination, and gives me some details to better sympathize with your path.

Way to go, is a compliment I'd like to pass. I speculate you enjoy the achievement of adventure. Like, your concept of "living well" appears to me to include this kind of adventure. I think it's fair to also say, you deserve to be celebrated. ADVICE So .. maybe include some of that in this '23 post-breakup "making my life better" survival pivot?

ADVICE Having a mentor (savvy to education-field competitiveness) might help with the uneven feeling you describe. Has that worked out before, or if you tried and it did not, was it also toxic for you? I imagine that being disadvantaged versus another person can be turned around and made to feel more of an exciting challenge. The "life is a game" approach - and I know well how (negative, positive) emotions influence reality, so that can also be a part of the game.

You are a human and we're at the top of our planet's food chain. We are a product of millions of years of evolution, and your mental process is going to be sophisticated. Keep respecting the challenge of knowing yourself. You seem to be introspective, and actively doing this.

(This may be more for me than you:) There are still magical moments yet to unfold for you, biologically speaking. (The onset of adult thinking around puberty is not the last change to look forward to.) And finding a companion person who is maybe good for making kids / a home, and is a friend, is a wonderful form of support when it is healthy. Plus we all come with mental/emotional baggage - so, wisdom / self awareness, and self-control are generally useful IMO.

> Funny thing is, accomplishments made me happy at least in the past. [...] get into a very competitive MSc. program [...] made me feel good about myself.

This is a significant observation - identifying what's rewarding after you accomplish. Feeling good is part of it. Knowing deeply how 'feeling good' matters to you can be useful. Maybe I'm talking more at myself than you here, sorry if so. There is also the motivation of BEFORE, how did you get there in the first place? "[...] a lot of hard work and isolating myself during my undergrad I managed to [...]" Why did you do it? What kept you studying and practicing?

I don't yet know, how Motivation to achieve and then the end Reward interact with each other. I know that my thinking is sometimes my worst enemy, telling me the Reward is no longer worth the effort, and simultaneously I lose my Motivation. There was some brain-science articles / medical notes I was looking at the other day that diagrammed some of how this works (partly in the context of Meth making it impossible for users to be happy, yuck) which might be assuring to you too, if you can find it.

For you, the "I like XYZ" stuff is critical, I think. The adventure of life. Yes there is reward, though it may be (internet stranger speculation ...) that just Seeking could be a bit more important for your mental health.

And, I'm sorry the relationship fell apart - that's complex stuff.

EDIT: +1 for unexpected poetry. Art is I think a part of the human experience.


I'll echo other commenters here on the PhD side, if that helps you out.

Nearly all PhDs are having the 'work' troubles you are, I sure did, all of my friends sure did, I don't know of a single person that hasn't had issues like you are having with finishing their PhD. Really, what you are experiencing is so common that I would be surprised at anything else.

If you can, talk with your advisor or committee and explain what is going on. I know most PhDs can't really do that, but it's worth a shot. Try to figure out the bare minimum, and just do that. Remember, your degree doesn't come with an asterisk that says you just barely got it, or that your advisor had to wrangle the committee to pass you, or that it took you 8 years to get. You just get a diploma like everyone else and a little hat just like everyone else.


It's feeling, as a non-PhD but still pushes myself, that emotional intelligence is what is needed to help the OP process their Toxic Family (narcissist parent), and loss of recent support, because the OP talks dismissively about the support they're receiving from their therapist in terms one might describe a Toxic Family.

I wonder if the OP is framing their world in their child-mindset.

And the "push hard to PhD" behavior is an indication of a split. A focus on intellectual. Which suggests under-attending to emotional awareness.

So, "do something that is right for you" eventually leads to thinking about what is right, which leads one necessarily to Feel what is right. Keyword is to Feel. Being aware of feelings. Boom.

Keep going to therapy, OP, and engage - it's scary and worthwhile.


I can relate to this.

I just broke up with my boyfriend of 6 years, and it feels like your world has ended. After experiencing painful breakups with the same person, I understood that the only thing that will ease the pain is time. It is hard to leave it to time to heal when your every minute is painful. But you will grow out of it. If you think that you can do something to get back with her, try it now, not later. But if you also think that it is over, then wait with patience. KEEP YOURSELF BUSY. Focus more on your PhD. It is harder than ever for you to do that now but just think how cool and great it would make you feel like if you could take this negative situation and use as a source of motivation and determination.

The things will get better. You will look past and be happy with what you achieved so far.


Thanks and hope you're ok!


Your girlfriend broke up with you and you don't like the subject of your PhD. Those are quite common experiences and very far from rock bottom. So just keep going with your life and things will be fine, because they're kind of fine already.


I'm so sorry to hear about the difficult time you're going through, but please know that you're not alone. Many people have experienced the same sense of emptiness, doubt, and uncertainty that you're feeling right now. It's understandable that you're struggling given the breakup, the stress of your PhD, and your challenging family background.

It's important to give yourself time to process your emotions and work through your struggles, but please don't lose hope. You're taking positive steps by seeking therapy and trying to make sense of your experiences. Remember that progress isn't always linear, and it's okay to take things one day at a time.

Lastly, please don't forget to be kind to yourself. You're doing the best you can in a challenging situation, and that's something to be proud of. Remember that setbacks and struggles are a natural part of life, and they can often lead to growth and resilience in the long run. Keep your chin up, stay optimistic, and know that things will get better. One way to cultivate a more positive outlook is to keep a gratitude journal. Each day, write down a few things you're grateful for. This can help shift your focus from what's going wrong to what's going right, and it can help you cultivate a sense of gratitude and appreciation for the good things in your life.


Thank you, appreciate the empathy and advice!


Hi friend. This mirrors my experience closely over the last three months. Top grad school, close to finishing with a job lined up. She got a job far away after struggling for 6 months to get one. Since then I’ve been broken. No passion for grad school, or anything anymore. I quit therapy since it was so unproductive and expensive.

Though I’m probably not the best person to get advice from, here’s what has helped me.

First of all exercise. I’d suggest swimming. I picked up running after several years of not doing it and hurt myself pretty badly since I’m no longer the young person I once was.

The second thing that I am finding helpful is bumble. I’m in no way ready to have a relationship but the lack of confidence I had after losing my life partner was/is so profound. By going to drinks with people I’m able to feel desired again. It feels great to feel wanted again after being dumped by the person who knew me the best. Try to not compare people you see to her, it’s going to be impossible though. Be in the moment as much as possible. Do one date a week. This isn’t about being social or whatever, it’s about prioritizing your mental health. Go on dates with people you’d never consider talking normally (I’m a nerd). For me, seeing finance people, actors, etc in places that I’d never normally go to like a karaoke bar has been the best exercise to forgetting I’ve come up with.

So far that’s it. My goal is to develop as a person, by finding new hobbies and getting passionate about something again. I’m afraid that I will have to wait until after graduation.


Thanks mate! Hope you are doing ok, sounds like we understand each other.


I am not saying this to be cruel, but you have not reached rock bottom yet.

A person you loved, who was important /everything to you has left. You are desperately sad. This impacts your life and your work /studies.

Most people will experience this in some way during their lives. The lucky few who dont. That does not make it any easier and nothing anyone can say can make it go away.

This is a process. It will take time. Nobody can make it just go away.

The statistics are in your favor my friend. People usually recover :)

When you do, you will still have an open wound and it will make your next relationship a bit more difficult bur you will also be better prepared.

However, you still have a place to live, you sound reasonably healthy, dont have any serious drug issues, you can feed yourself, you can shower. Dont trivialize this. This is more than a lot of people ever have.

You have hit a most difficult time of grief.

Ancient wisdom for such patches is to get drunk and f..k wh..- This is misogynistic, wrong and does not do anything to help anyone.

Ancient wisdom from a different place would be to hang out with a shaman and eat mushrooms or similar. (The shaman part if vital)

Now we have therapy, self-help books and even pills.

If you have the funds, possibility, ability and time, something I have tried to go somewhere strange / different. It can either help you, you get distracted by strange things and ways. Or it just make you feel even more lonely and isolated.


I'd accept that you are going to pursue getting over the line of the PhD even if it wasn't an ideal fit or your other misgivings about it. It's really just a piece of paper when it is all said and done, and it sounds like it will be a very useful piece of paper since you were in a prestigious group.

Once you've accepted that will happen, you just need to set a simple plan of how to get there in one piece. Make sure you are indeed carving out a little bit of time for things you love doing. When you are depressed that can be very difficult but just think of what you really loved and enjoyed two or five years ago and put it on the calendar, all the better if it is a cheap plane ticket or some other reservation required so you obligate future you to do it. I'd also suggest sending a message to all of those scattered friends to reconnect, easy to do and will help ground yourself.

Finally, do you have any sort of exercise habit? If not seriously consider doing something 3-4x a week for half an hour that gets you sweaty. You don't have to love the activity but it helps if it's fun or just fits into your routine effortlessly.

You are so goddamn young mate. you are going to make it.


Thank you!

I do, I'm in decent shape and am determined to go to the gym every single day for the foreseeable future to get ripped.


As others have pointed out, finishing your PhD can be brutal. It can absorb all of your time, effort, and energy leaving you isolated in an existence devoid of joy. I am not certain what your area of study was, but you might take a look at a book called "The Ph.D. Grind" by Phillip J. Guo. He shares his experiences working toward his PhD in comp sci and how he had been isolated and worn down from his efforts. I found it reassuring to know that I was not dealing with things unique simply to me, and it enabled me to reassess my trajectory.

Breaking up with partners is a terrible feeling, and it has compounded your issue since you've likely lost your closest emotional support at a time when you might rely on them the most. Time will help you with this problem. Meeting new people can be incredible because you find that you experience life in a completely unique and exciting way depending who you share your time with. When you are ready for that again, those opportunities will be there waiting for you.

Concerning your issues from home, Myself and many of my friends included had not realized how much our childhood and family life had affected us until we were well into our 30's. This is true despite having been aware of dysfunctional family issues from a young age. I've also had a number of therapists from my youth and many of them were useless. However, therapy is still the solution for this and I'd like to be clear why this is important to you:

Any close exposure, especially developmental, to narcissists or those with borderline traits can be devastating. The average person is highly ill-equipped to rationalize their experiences with someone of this nature.

I'd recommend you find a specialist in this area. Not all therapists are the same, find one that can work on you, with you. You will need help to disentangle the reality of your youth and you should not have to do it alone. However, you don't have you do this right now. You should focus on counseling for your immediate issues, however you assess them, in order to maintain forward momentum in your life.

Lastly, I am a realist: You can probably do this. All of it. Recover from this emotional deficit, finish your PhD, develop meaningful social relationships, and improve your well being through self discovery. What you are capable of is simply a matter perspective, and remember this is limited when you are so close to the bottom.


A phd is a grind, probably the hardest grind anyone can do in life (barring poverty or illness). And it really does make people very sick and leaves scars that last for life.

I don't regret my PhD, but I am a fundamentally different person after doing one, and in many ways, i'm weaker for it.


Thank you for the thoughtful response and empathy! The second paragraph pretty much hits the nail.

I've been analysing, dissecting, journalling my upbringing for the past 10 years and have made substantial progress I would say. But mostly on a cognitive level and on a level of being able to understand that it was not normal/healthy. I'm not so sure about the level of emotions / truly internalising. I realised over the past year that I cannot fully heal alone, so I finally looked out for therapists (after pushing it away for months). Many books/articles/videos/podcasts about psychology, narcissistic parents, CPTSD as well as discussing everything with my siblings (we are 4) have helped validate my/our feelings and enabled me/us to understand. I've already read several books other commenters suggested. On a deeper level I still feel a bit broken, low self-esteem, passive / somewhat avoidant, daydreaming about being a hermit in a forest, full of self doubts, unsure who I am, etc. very often.

I hope therapy will lead to some breakthroughs on that level and, yeah, I will make sure I'll try to find a good fit.


I’ve heard this idea from a few different sources: after the breakup of a longtime partnership, give yourself at least a month per year of the relationship to recover emotionally. It’s certainly not widow(er)hood, but you’ve lost a big part of your life.

Four years, four months. Aside from treading water on your PhD, do as your therapist suggests and focus on “do[ing] things you like” these next three or four months. If you don’t know how already, learn how to cook a few of your favorite meals. You don’t sound like you have the #1 problem/cause of “rock bottoming” (alcohol use disorders), but you might want to avoid alcohol-focused interests right now.

On the flip side, at least she bailed before the marriage, mortgage, and kids. She’s broken your heart, but she's hasn’t ruined your financial future. That sounds a bit cold, but might be a non-negative thing to remind yourself of when you start dwelling on her.

(Edited to add) My husband met me when he was 32, about a year after he’d finished his PhD, taken a couple of months to find a job, and moved across Germany for said job. It doesn’t feel that way right now, but you’ve got time.


A SSRI, a bit of walk, eating vegetables and fruits, friendship, and thinking about what you wanted to do when you were 15? Love, it come and go, come, go, come softer, go softer, over time :) At 28 it is sometimes hard to accept, but it's a network of neurons that needs to adjust it's weight over time, even if it's thru (a lot) of pain. And what about tomorrow, you'll rarely can tell for sure!


Don't worry about it. Imagine some variation of what you are going through, only at 45, 55, or 65 and then realize that you are young, educated, and have the whole world ahead of you. Figure out what you want and go get it.


Therapy is a good idea, but be sure to get the right therapist. Trust your instincts: if you don't think this person is right, now is the time to change.


Huge +1 to this. It sounds like they may need to switch therapists. I’ve had personal success with therapists that have expertise in CBT, DBT, and IFS.

OP may also want to explore mindfulness/meditation, which has been a huge QoL improvement for me.

Some resources I’ve found helpful: - Book: Adult children of emotionally immature parents - Book: How to meditate by Pema Chodron - Website on DBT: https://dbtselfhelp.com/ - Book: The Antidote: Happiness for people who can’t stand positive thinking - Meditation Apps: Waking Up, Headspace, Ten Percent. Also, if you don’t like one, try another. They all have distinct styles.

Seriously though, do therapy and hop therapists until one clicks. I read on here once “you can’t read the label from inside the bottle.” This type of work significantly benefits from a good outside perspective.

Also, OP, be kind to yourself and, as another poster said, allow yourself to just exist for a bit


Could not stress this point more. OP's therapist should be all over these issues, offering different tools, strategies, frameworks, etc. Good therapy actively solves problems. If your therapist is not doing this, fire them immediately and get a new one. Look for a cognitive behavioral therapist.

Also, exercise, meditate, and get enough sleep.


I felt similarly awful in my late 20s, I think this is a particularly difficult time for a lot of people. I don't have any particular advice there was nothing anyone could have said or done to make me happy at the time, I just white knuckled through it, obsessed myself with working and pursuing my goals monomaniacally, and eventually came out the other side feeling content.


Four years is a long time. Maybe this was your first significant partner. Those breakups can be hard.

Open yourself up to people around you. Friends. Colleagues you trust or admire. Have and make dinner with them. Be social. Be vulnerable to people who seem receptive.

Keep a good routine. Don't let it get out of whack but don't overwork yourself into isolation.

You'll be okay in time. HN is rooting for you.


Yep, had a 8 month girlfriend before (first love) but this one was the first significant and really deep relationship.

I have reached out a lot to near and distant friends/colleagues and family. It has helped and at least one new deep friendship with a colleague seems to come out of it, which I am quite happy about.

Thanks for the last sentence, made me smile.


This is the way, based on my experience and being in a similar place at that point in my life (now 40). Breakups are hard and 2 weeks is nothing. IMHO in addition to time, seek balance: socially (reach out to close friends, slowly make effort with new ones), keep your routines, exercise regularly, and realize your professional life can take many turns and its ok to pivot. You are young still and have plenty of time to develop new relationships and career paths, take a breath, take it slow.

If you cam afford to, also consider taking a trip a few weeks from now. Very anecdotal but i found capping off the low point youll go through the next few weeks with something novel can help you shake off the old mindset once you are ready.


Thank you! I'm trying all those things and got into a daily morning walk routine and am going to the gym every single day for the foreseeable future.

I also found a Surf & Yoga week in Portugal I might do.


The passions will come back in different shapes and forms, it feels like a loss not to have them but they’ll resurface when there isn’t a ton of pressure on your shoulders. Think they’ll come back after you finish your PHd or after you quit it if you decide to do so.

As far as the lost relationship goes, maybe it’s for the better now than later. Try to improve yourself first before you enter another one.

Improving yourself is most work: physically through phisical exercise and exercising your will. These will carry over some energy into improving yourself in other areas which you should not ignore. Then let life take its course. I’ve hit rock bottom at some point in my 30s and survived. Now looking back at my old self and the relationship I was in 15 years ago and can’t stop laughing, with hindsight Im glad things turned out as they did. But at the same time I feel for you because I remember the dark pit I was in. If you can cry go for it, don’t be ashamed to be vulnerable, it really helps.


Listen to "Pink Floyd: Coming Back to Life" -- especially the live Pulse version, with an older Gilmour singing.

The words "where were you, when I was burnt and broken?" never rang closer.

It allowed me to pull myself together slowly.

EDIT: here you go: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYh1O3NIU7Q


Yep. Times like this actually make certain music hit so much better. Listen to Pink Floyd. But also check out old blues - Howlin Wolf, Ledbetter, Willie Dixon, Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Son House, Elizabeth Cotten, etc. Even/especially Stevie Ray Vaughan.


It was a long way. I was 34 years old when I broke with my partner. She worked witn me at the same place (Spanish university). I have to work with she 3 more years until I have to go out of that place, because it was very hard to work with she (and her new boyfriend, he worked at the same place too).

It was very hard. I had to return to my mother's home, and tried to search first another job, then another place to be, and last another couple. A process of 10 years.

Things I learned from then:

. Patience and keep calm. After some years things will be ok again, but it needs time (and work). It's a long hard way, but keep calm, don't want to solve everything in days or weeks.

. Family is important. I really thank my mother for his support in a very difficult time.

. I think I had to go out from that work the day after, not three years after.

. Only few people at work would be real friends.

Sorry for my poor English and good luck.


We can only control our actions and reactions, we don’t have much control over the outcomes of those ..

So taking away the burden of specific outcomes and just keep doing whatever may be our actions as matter of duty is way to free up ourselves from stress and anxiety that comes when outcomes don’t meet our expectations..

It’s perfectly alright to expect the things to turn out in certain ways but it’s another thing to be attached to expectations of those outcomes ..

We are tiny creatures in grand scheme of world around us… accepting it and finding something to be grateful for in our everyday life is way to go IMO..

New partners will be found, new relationships will be developed, things can be studied/ researched for whole life .. what matters most in this moment to be able to acknowledge that we have very little control over things around us and being grateful for whatever we have in our life..

I found Bhagavad Gita to be very empowering.. May be you will as well ..

Good luck !


Thanks for the reminder. This is one of the things I "know" but have not fully internalised yet I think.


28 is super young. You really will have no trouble rebuilding yourself sentimentaly, don’t worry about that (you’ll never find the exact same love, just another one, because everybody is unique).

I haven’t done a phd but it’s pretty famous for being super hard emotionally, so this is probably « normal ». You’ll manage, just like everybody else do.

About feeling « empty » : find yourself a hobby. Since you’re the phd type, i would recommend something that makes your other parts of your brain work : artistic, and manual. Could be working with plants, joining a band, join a woodworking group, anything. It’ll give you instant gratification and draing you physically enough to make you enjoy the simple things in life : a fresh cup of water and a good night of sleep. Plus, it’ll help you rebuild a social network around a shared interest.


I "love" the toxic parent relationship, because that is the kind relationship that you are most used to and for you (and me) it makes it feel normal. You get used to it and when other people treat you the same way, you don't even realize that you should set boundaries or put a stop to it.


It feels like the world is ending when you break up with someone so significant. Everything seems worse.

I've heard many stories where the grind of a PHD breaks people.That stress must make this harder.

You're probably doing way better than it feels. You're in a PHD program to start. Academically that puts you in a very small percentage of the population. Just to make it that far shows you're smart and hardworking.

You're only 28. I know it feels scary when you're 20s are near the end but you are so young. I didn't get married until I was 34. You have lots of time to develop relationships. Many haven't even had one serious relationship at 28.

I know this must feel terrible but your current rock bottom is higher up than many people will ever get to. You are doing great and your future looks very bright.


Thanks for the encouragement!


You didn’t mention this possible aspect of hitting bottom. I’m reading this possibility because it is part of my own history, and so many things are in common, toxic family, overachiever, living by default, girlfriend dumping me. It may not even apply to your situation but if does, this could be huge.

That thing is addiction. If you suffer from addiction and aren’t willing to do something about it, then the reality is, even if you can’t see it yet, the reality is you haven’t hit bottom yet. And by addiction I mean doing anything in a self-destructive way. Drugs, alcohol, sex, spending, gambling, emotional outbursts, even good ole pot, anything for which there is a *A 12 step organization for.

Until addiction is arrested, the downward spiral continues.

If this does not apply, please disregard.


What do you have in mind with "doing something about the addiction"?


If your parents were narcissistic with you since you were little, you likely suffered from childhood emotional neglect.

I am reading an excellent book on this topic called "Running on Empty: Overcome your Childhood Emotional Neglect " by Jonnice Webb.

To determine if you might be suffering from it, an excerpt from the book:

“Emotional Neglect Questionnaire

Do You:

1. Sometimes feel like you don’t belong when with your family or friends

2. Pride yourself on not relying upon others

3. Have difficulty asking for help

4. Have friends or family who complain that you are aloof or distant

5. Feel you have not met your potential in life

6. Often just want to be left alone

7. Secretly feel that you may be a fraud

8. Tend to feel uncomfortable in social situations

9. Often feel disappointed with, or angry at, yourself

10. Judge yourself more harshly than you judge others

11. Compare yourself to others and often find yourself sadly lacking

12. Find it easier to love animals than people

13. Often feel irritable or unhappy for no apparent reason

14. Have trouble knowing what you’re feeling

15. Have trouble identifying your strengths and weaknesses

16. Sometimes feel like you’re on the outside looking in

17. Believe you’re one of those people who could easily live as a hermit

18. Have trouble calming yourself

19. Feel there’s something holding you back from being present in the moment

20. At times feel empty inside

21. Secretly feel there’s something wrong with you

22. Struggle with self-discipline

Look back over your circled (YES) answers. These answers give you a window into the areas in which you may have experienced Emotional Neglect as a child.”


Yep... I answered 12x Yes, 7x Somewhat (or Yes in the past) and 3x No.


I overcame a weak sense of self by learning to draw boundaries. I can't stress how important this is. When you have weak boundaries, you let others control your life. Learn to draw clear boundaries that must never be crossed. I recommend googling the problem.


You didn’t say anything about your financial and substance [ab]use. Seems like you don’t know if what you’re doing is what you want and your GF broke up with you. The latter is nothing. You’re 28; I’m 30. You got decades ahead of you.

You’re lucky this happened to you right now and not after marriage and with kids.

If you don’t have your own self, there’s no point in holding on to relationships. They will eventually decay. Go to the gym, walk, run, play, meditate. Get your own house in order before worrying about relationships. Get a therapist.

Btw this ain’t nothing from rock bottom. I’m assuming you aren’t a burn out. I’m assuming your SO didn’t try to have you thrown off the stairs and kill you.

Tell yourself that you are lucky this happened now and you survived


Everyone’s rock bottom is relative. And however low you are now, it can get lower. Break up with your therapist and get a new one if it’s not helping, but you need to want it to work. Stop drinking alcohol for now, it’ll just make everything feel worse.


90% of life is about standing up in the morning.

And there is no trick.

Life is an arse for everyone, and don’t assume golden boys who are always laughing aren’t hiding absolute misery. I’ve seen one of them dying alone of cancer. I know, I was the one there.

After a break-up, spend time just making friends repeatedly and relentlessly if you want to bounce back. CouchSurfing, Yap’n’go, nothing too much job-oriented, games nights or game bars... What people like is people who entertain them with light subjects. Make yourself apolitical, refuse that topic.

The girlfriend and the career aren’t for everyone, and it’s ok not to succeed. Try to give, from time to time, that’s what makes men happy, and the inability to give is often what makes them unhappy.


Don’t want to be rude or dismissive. You’re obviously going through some tough times. But you’re pretty far from rock bottom. I’ve been a lot lower and there was no bottom there either.

I hope all goes well: You finish your PhD and put this breakup behind you. Therapy helps and you feel better about yourself.

But if it does take a turn for the worse here is my short advice: First of all, get good sleep. Second, limit or cut ties with people who want to see you fall, or talk to / about you as if you already have, regardless of who they are (even parents). Also remember that healing / rebuilding yourself takes time, but as soon as the derivative is positive time is on your side.


1. If you feel like you need to panic (or cry), feel free to do it. You must allow yourself to feel (and express) like you're the biggest loser ever walked the earth.

2. You seem to have an analytical mind given what you wrote. Let that guide you. For example: maybe you recognize that the PhD will be a big multiplier commercially in your career. The right question could be: how do I finish this quickly, effectively and efficiently so that I can reap the benefits over a lifetime. Hint: maybe ChatGPT can help.

3. You've been in love. You will be again.

4. Screw self-help. Your _actions_ are the only thing that will get you forward. Let actions shape your thoughts.

Good luck.


Surround yourself with positivity and gratitude.

A neighbour might need help with groceries or meds. Look around, see how you can help others. Don't expect anything back. Know that you made super tiny winy dent in the world. It's powerful energy. If early waking up is your thing, go out and look at dawn sun.

Simple things.

See anything negative? Toxic gossipers? switch off, skip. Period.

You are making choice to see and accentuate the positive around you. This is hard time for you - and it is finite.

Sounds like you have good thing going (your PhD). It's supposed to be hard. Get positive energy, buckle up and just run that course with support system in the research group.


> I'm also in the last year of my PhD in a sub-field I have never envisioned myself in

I can only help in a tiny little way, but I hope it helps.

My go to intro question for profs when I was in school, was asking the topic of their PHD thesis. They spent years working on it, and I always thought it odd no one else ever asked them.

It seems like almost no one I've ever met ended up working in their PHD field. This includes liberal arts, not just STEM.

So if you don't envision yourself being in your subfield, well, that's good because it seems almost no one stays in the same subfield. Maybe you'll be the outlier, but what are the odds?


If it helps this isn’t too different to almost every PhD I knew during their final year. My wife was in bits during that year. Just keep pushing on till it’s over, and if you need a holiday to help alleviate burnout do so.


I was in a similar position in the past. My ex (5 y togheter) broke up with me in a very sudden to me manner. Details aside, my whole life did a backflip and fall on a neck. I was super depressed, crying and lost af.

First thing I did was to reach out to my friends. It is really hard to have any kind of constructive perspective in such situations. That’s were the most trusted people are needed. If you don’t have too many close friends, and it may sound a bit desperate but stay with me, find anyone who seems friendly and is willing to listen. You can also do something creative. Trust your common sense what feels refreshing to you. What makes you lighter. Just find a way to share your feelings and emotions. If you want to feel better you can’t seethe in resentment. You can’t carry past this way. You have to learn what it is and how to put it aside.

The next big step for me was to realise that there are other women that I could like as much as my ex. It was very surprising to me that someone else could be as lovely as she. That I could like someone else. Or maybe even love. But to do that I needed to meet a lot of people and put myself out there. I reached out to my friends to spent time togheter, I went to festivals and try to shift from very closed social circle to meeting a lot of new ppl.

The last step (this is a big generalisation) was to realise that I want to be happy. That I want to make myself into a person that’s happy. I don’t want people or things to make me happy. I want to be able to do it on my own. I explored isha yoga, wim hof practices, read many books (I searched HN and Reddit for “books that changed your life” and read a few). I had set my priority to “I need to feel better before I will decide what to do next”. And it is nothing nice. I learnt a lot about my mistakes. I asked my friends to tell me all the brutal truths they can manage about myself. It was crashing. Crash after crash I disillusioned myself from what I thought was working pretty well in me. But every time, after a few days I felt… better? Like more honest about who I am right now and who I would like to be. And that there’s a difference I need to accept and start to work on.

It is a very brief summary. I hope it will be at least a little bit helpful to you or anyone. Let me know if I could help anyhow or answer any questions.


Thanks, and I emphasise with you! It's hard to come to terms with the fact that all these beautiful plans and hopes just, poof, disappear. And not just those, also the security, comfort and vitality of a really great relationship.

I did reach out a lot to some friends and family, and am gathering plans on how to improve/build myself. But yeah, it's hard. At the moment I'm still completely uninterested in meeting other women, even just for hookups.


Could be worse, also 28 and I just got laid off after my first year of being a technical product manager. I have a somewhat scattered three years of dev experience prior, although around 2yrs was my longest stint.

Been applying to jobs for about five weeks and other than a few interviews nothing has kicked back. Either no response or flat out denied, contemplating just re-learning a bunch of leetcode stuff I hate. All of my friends make north of $200k and I've just been floundering.

Future does not seem bright - clearly my track record is a black mark of some kind.

Hope things get better for you my friend.


Even if your getting a few interviews is something then nothing. How are you approaching these interviews?

Your track record is not a black mark, it's just a busy market out there. You have to pitch it just right to get it. Mangle the Tech Product Manager skills with your dev stuff. Interviews are tough and practice beforehand.

Ignore what your friends make because that will sour your mood.


Tbh, I kind of hated being a TPM - frankly it felt like a fake job and made me miss being technical. Unfortunately, I've just never been able to have the chops for leetcode interviews which is why I took the opp to transition to TPM and gain more leverage.

Fortunately, my friends who are better off are very supportive - in some of these interviews I can't help but think I sound desperate or maybe just annoying.

Thanks for your kind words


I'm bias, but would say to anyone looking for a new job ignore the FANG, leetcode approach. It's not worth the hype anymore. You can always join later with experience which is valued more highly. I wouldn't be surprised that in a few years time they'll be the ones on the firing line.

You've got given experience and an opportunity, you recognise that TPM isn't your thing and that if dev is; move your focus and promote that energy. Code a local project, demonstrate that within an interview. The secret to interviews is blagging.

"I was a TPM, Giving it my best effort I gained the ability to XYZ

But after the year, I found that this wasn't the career path I wished to follow. Dev is more my attitude and recently in my spare time I coded this super-cool time diary using x-lang to brush up my skills. I feel that I can mix both to give the best to the company".

That itself will turn more heads then someone with a piece of paper with FANG stamped on it. It shows you learnt, tried, wanting to learn and move on. Double the knowledge more the experience. There are plenty of jobs outside who will happily hire for the dev.

It won't be the big-bucks as FANG gets you, but money is overrated. Find something that keeps you just less than comfortable. Flushed with cash is nice dream, but the pressure, intensity of it all are all not worth it. With lower paid jobs you'd get you a more laid back environment, control of your destiny and closer experience to real life which you then use as your bargaining chip later on.

I've never wanted to be a corporate cog that when it looses it's teeth is thrown out the back door. The stress isn't worth it.


> I also don't have a large social circle, and some of my friends are scattered internationally.

I bet you have a larger social circle than you think. I recently got invited to the wedding of a friend I hadn't heard from in years. We all have these friend-seeds, people whose name we know but whose bio is somewhat unknown, apart from whatever gave you their name. People who've been in the same boat as you at some stage in your life, but you didn't find the time to talk for whatever reason.

Like plant seeds, they can last for years and still be viable.


What are you going through is a normal reaction when going through a breakup. You just need perspective and that will only come with time. In the meantime focus on your physical health - diet, working out, sleep etc. Don't repeat my mistake - these things may seem completely pointless now and future may seem bleak etc. But please, just do it, you will thank yourself in the future. Watch some movies, I recommend "Swingers" (1996) and "A Serious Man". And remember, there are plenty of fish in the sea.


The great news is you are still very young, you can fumble around for another two years trying to pick yourself up and will still only be thirty.

More practically, it’s simple, just not easy, take one step at a time and then have patience, as long as you are making progress you just need to keep going.

Worth reading:

https://www.oliverburkeman.com/freshstart

https://ckarchive.com/b/xmuph6hrzxwrd


You have to keep yourself busy. Focus on your phd, travel, do new hobbies, hit the gym, try to reconnect with old friends, etc. Anything to feel occupied and meet people. If you also feel you don’t do progress with your therapist, find someone else who clicks for you.

You feel bad for the break up, everyone has been there. You are stll young, you have your whole life in front of you. You will meet someone else, you will finish your phd, you will get a job, things will get better and you will laugh of those past times and all these things you cried for.

Take care.


Like some other commenters have alluded to, one problem at a time, put your other problems onto a shelf for now. Try to give yourself buffers in any and all areas of your life that you can manage. Don't beat yourself up, self-forgiveness and self-acceptance are key. One mental model I've been using for burnout/depression is that my primary goal is to maximize the derivative of energy. That is, I don't care or think about how much energy I actually have, only the rate of increase of energy over some time.


Get through the PhD as long as there is no imminent risk to your health. After that, just take a year to decompress. Travel, cleanse yourself of the relationship, and once you have space, meditate, think, reflect on what you want to do next. If you have some minor savings then just use that and then come back and re-enter the world. If you don't, work a simple job for a few months to save some cash (like a simple analyst type job) and then take off and then re-enter the world.


Yeah this is kind of what I have planned.


I would wipe your partner from your mind. Forget about tracing any problems to your parents too. It's worse than unhelpful. If you can't stand your parents, keep them out your mind. Focus on yourself. Be consistent with your gym. Finish the PhD in in least stressful way possible. Take up some hobbies; something manly, like Judo or BJJ two or three times a week, and something social that has girls, like swing dancing or salsa.


> I also grew up in a dysfunctional family environment (toxic parent relationship, some narcissistic/borderline traits in them) and have been struggling with the consequences of that on my development and mental health.

I know what you mean here. Victims of narcissistic abuse often become vulnerable narcissists and codependents, deferring their own needs for those of others until the damage becomes too great to ignore.

You didn't mention what psych books you read so I will suggest Games People Play by Eric Berne.


Yep, one of the slightly less healthy aspects of my relationship was that last year we got quite codependent (I believe, though, influenced my a few external influences, but not only).


I will try not to judge your situation, even if I may disagree with your assessment of it.

When I was in rehab for drug addiction, after I hit my bottom (or what I hope was my rock bottom), something I learned was to try and approach something in the smallest increments possible and to acknowledge / celebrate wins (no matter how small).

Maybe this doesn’t apply to your situation, as my primary goal was to stop my substance abuse but if you can try to tackle your problem(s) in small increments, it might feel more manageable.

Best of luck!


You are probably eating a lot of food with zero nutritional value and many of your problems might magically seem to disappear if you are naturally relaxed and eating properly.

If you are like me, I spent decades in your state. And then I magically noticed that when I eat food that actually has vitamins and minerals and take mineral supplements all these crazy anxieties become manageable.

If you are taking on all these problems and your health is off, you are garaunteed not to solve them no matter how you think about it.


"You are what you eat", as a guiding health metaphor applies to your mentality, in my experience.

EAT: good thoughts. Positive framing of negative circumstances.

As an adult, you can really only count on yourself always being there for you. So, "feed your thoughts" with healthy food.


The gut is definitely linked directly to the brain. Way more research needs to be done on this.


I appreciate your advice. My baseline diet is fairly healthy, though.


The funniest thing is people downvoting me recommending looking after your health.

I’m sorry? Was this not obvious? If you are eating nothing but white bread and candy and alcohol, while undergoing severe stress combinations.

Downvote all you want it’s the truth.


Consider activities that broaden your perspective, e.g. reading a biography or travel somewhere.

Consider journaling deeply about areas that trouble you, whether recent or distant past. Also consider journaling in detail about the best possible outcome for yourself. Forcing yourself to organize thoughts in writing can help understand confusing situations.

If therapist isn't working, find another one. It's totally normal to try several.

Best of luck and good on you asking for help.


You're not homeless, in prison, $400,000 in debt, or fighting a $400/day heroin addiction so I'd say you haven't hit rock bottom yet.


You are standing in front of a massive pile of broken glass. It hurts like no one ever told you it would. To lose a women that you thought you would spend the rest of your life with hurts. It's hard. But you reached out. You know it's going to be hard and you asked the world for help. There are people all over that will be there for you. It's funny how many you find when you need them.


If you’re not poopin your pants, you’re not at rock bottom yet.

But… I have some experience. Divorced, remarried, work was shit. Couldn’t focus or concentrate and felt burnt out. Finally I go into the doc for help with dealing with the ex (omg stressful) and discovered I had a pile of health issues, including a tumor (not cancer) that decided to flood my system with a stress hormone. That’s been removed, but things aren’t back to 100%.

I was on TRT, but that was stopped recently cuz it turned my blood into gear oil (hematocrit levels in the mid 50s). It helped to a point, at least where I got the habit of going to the gym and being active again.

I suspect I’m low on growth hormone due to symptoms matching up, but I’m not the endo - that appointment is in June.

I’ve had to completely restrict distractions at work. The only IMs I let in are from fam or a few close friends. Non work slacks are turned off, etc.

Get yourself a good work up, check all your hormone levels. And get active. Walk, run, ride a bike, lift heavy things, whatever works for you. Just do it.

Don’t wait until you’re middle aged to find out your body is a wreck and try to fix it.


Reads like my last year of phd studies.

Try not to isolate voluntarily and work a bit less. Put down a strong regimen of time to work and time to relax.

Interview for jobs, for me I learned a lot for interviews when prepping, and it helped me out of the endless feeling of “there’s light at the end of the tunnel but it isn’t getting brighter”… it’s also a lot easier to say to your adviser “i have a job lined up and leaving”


For me interviewing is incredibly stressful and anxiety inducing, OP might not have enough time/energy to get to the part of the curve in which interviewing becomes a net benefit.

I do agree with the relaxing part, treat relaxing like it's your job. If your university has a sauna or hot tub, maybe give those a shot. It has to be real relaxation though, you put your phone (email) down for the day and you are not thinking about it or feeding that itch. Move slower than the pace of research (or the pace of a corporation) and mentally checkout when the work day is over.


I’ve thought I hit rock bottom a few times, turns out that as long as you’re still kicking the bottom can always fall out from under you. Like really hard. Took a global pandemic to get my life back on track due to all the money they were throwing around letting me escape the situation I’d gotten myself in.

No real advice to give other than keep on keeping on.


I believe everybody has answers to find… and happiness is elusive.

But seriously this is almost too selfish.

It is almost making me sick and angry simultaneously, and I didn't know that was possible. The downvotes will only represent my ability to swim up stream or as my friends Bad Religion might say “against the grain”.

Here is my recommendation since you are asking:

1. Volunteer at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen 2. Go tutor, some undereducated children with your advanced Ph.D. 3. Sit in on a big AA meeting (you don't even have to be an alcoholic) 4. Put your loose change in a parking meeting as you walk down the street 5. Walk along the streets and pick up trash, to make the world a better place 6. Go to the gym 7. Give someone you don't know a nice compliment 8. Play sports 9. Become a big brother or sister at big brother organization 10. Suck it up 11. Remove yourself from social media

Therapy is great, but there are other parts to the equation.


* You are not alone * It gets better * Being self aware and making posts like this, reaching out, is a HUGE positive step and positive indicator for your own self love and care. Keep doing it * YOU ARE NOT ALONE :-] I can share my personal experience and listen to yours in more depth. Contact in my profile.


Journaling, meditation and exercise. Those have always helped to center me and reinvigorate my inner alignment.

I use journaling to analyze my thoughts, feelings and behaviors. It’s a tool for putting myself under a microscope. Often tough questions can become much easier to answer.

Meditation is powerful. I can’t fully articulate what it does for me but it improves my self worth and allows me to interrupt negative thought loops (which is what I call your situation).

The journaling pairs nicely with meditation as I discover earlier and earlier triggers of bad thoughts via journaling. Then I preempt them via mindfulness - the skill cultivated while meditating.

Finally, exercise is key for healthy body chemistry. It contributes to healthier mind, leading to better progress.

I don’t do these things as often as I should but when I do I feel great about everything and I feel more myself at the same time.


>But most of the time in my life I've felt empty, doubting myself and struggling with a weak sense of self and unhealthy thought/behavioural patterns that are hard to shed off. I feel like I've lost any passion for anything, and don't know what I want or need.

You've got to look inward and figure yourself out - that could fix a lot of the other things you brought up.

If you know yourself and your ethics very well and you work hard to live them out, you're probably happy no matter your circumstances. Meditation or long boring walks can kind of open up your subconscious so you can start doing that; you can just wait until a random thought pops in your head and start pulling that thread, ask why you thought that, where's that coming from.

Also taking psych/life advice from strangers on the internet is pretty dangerous.


I am 47M and can relate to what you are feeling. U might be hitting Mid Life Crisis a little early. ( A few of my younger friends experienced it too)

There could be imposter syndrome where you feel like you do not deserve the good things which you have.

1) Take very good care of your health as you might start to disregard your body signals. 2) Weather this out using meditation. ( I used Breathing techniques called Pranayama ) Find if you might like a Vipassana retreat in Bangalore or perhaps Isha Foundation or whatever technique suites you. 3) Keep connection with School friends alive 4) If you did not get Married consider yourself lucky. It is fast loosing its appeal for long run and laws have simply not kept up with feminists in full swing. (Hormonal imbalance makes us think in wierd ways about opposit sex)

Hope this helps. S


Therapy, meds, support groups on Reddit, and exercise are the best thing you can do to deal with childhood trauma. It actually seems to get worse if you don’t manage it, I probably only really started attacking my trauma at 28/29. Made a big difference in personal and professional success.


I would ignore the comments that tell you it's not rock bottom. They won't be satisfied unless you are near-death at the bottom of the ocean.

My advice is, watch the episode of Seinfeld where George Costanza does the opposite. If every instinct he has is wrong, then the opposite must be right.


I really love this advice. Not because doing the opposite is such a great recipe for happiness, but because it's a way to start flexing those muscles that eventually allow you to decide for yourself and do what you want.


running, lifting, climbing, biking

the world is bullshit only physical exertion makes it good

if those are to challenging try walking far like 10 miles in a day, or if in shape 20.

live!!


This might not be popular on HN, but:

1. Just sit on your knees and cry out to God. Tell Him everything you feel, from the bottom of your heart.

2. Tomorrow is Sunday. Find a church near you, go there, and if you can, talk to a pastor.


If your therapy isn’t going well, find a new therapist.

Regarding your feelings about your PhD, is it correct to assume you have an advisor? Have you spoken to them about both your stress and your recent break up?


I rebuilt myself after hitting rock bottom with this course: Dhamma.org

Changed my life.


Wow, did not expect that many responses. Thanks a lot for all the encouraging words and pieces of advice! I will respond to some specific comments in their comment threads.


By self re-evaluation for a few years with very minimal interactions with others. I wouldn't recommend it but it worked for me, given I had to detach completely from my religion in the way how my society was functioning in regard to it. But I cannot stress how well it shaped me from a morality perspective and pretty thankful for that. Im very morally straight, I've never hurt anyone or any entity no matter its size(beside mosquitoes and cockroaches)


“This too, shall pass”

I went through a similar experience early in my college career. I wish I could tell you about one simple trick that changed everything and saved me years of pain and struggle.

The truth is that I dug in, finished my work, and eventually over time … everything worked out.

It taught me that in life sometimes you will find yourself in a season of immense struggle. Ride the waves, do what you can to improve your situation, but above all have faith that this too, will pass.


You seem like well reflected. Personally what stands out from your therapy is that you get some advice on what to do.

I would not like such an approach and would change the therapist. It should be you who is advising yourself with the help of a therapist but not the therapist him/herself.

There are too many people out there who call themselves a „coach“. I would try to find somebody who studied behavioral therapy


Stop wining and looking for external approval (be it your shrink, your GF or HN community)! The only thing you need is your own approval of yourself.

It’s not as eas as to say about it. But totally doable if youre honest with yourself and set up such an intention.

I know what Im talking about. Iv been in the shoes similar to yours. Including phd thing.


About the therapy, use it to identify black spots, traces of vicious circle(s) in your life. About love, everything has been said by everybody.


I credit the book "No More Mr Nice Guy" by Robert Glover as creating the foundation I needed to get out of my valley after my breakup (engaged, 8yr total).

Other self-help books and an ADHD diagnosis built on top of that, but that was the one that changed things and got the ball rolling.

It's not a breakup book or anything, it just covers it incidentally. Going through entire book is what rebuilt me.


I have only one suggestion: change therapist! And do it soon. Too many therapists are trained to keep you on that chair because that's how they get paid. You need a therapist that will agree to make you feel better in a month and start getting to an achievable goal in a reasonable time frame. Talk to your therapist about setting goals and see the reaction.


I’m sorry that you’re having a hard time. Calling this rock bottom, or even YOUR rock bottom, is…incredibly ‘Hacker News privileged’, or at the very least needlessly hyperbolic. I don’t think I’m reading too far between the lines to glean that you aren’t aware of the fine fine line between yourself and someone that’s far far far “worse off” than you.


I've had a failed marriage and hit rock bottom all at once (including 5 years in prison, kids not talking to me, etc). For the relationship part, if you had a tight friends group, they would just keep you busy until the pain turned numb. We don't have that community always and have to keep ourselves busy.

It sucks waking up to an empty home. I went from making my kids breakfast/packing lunches every morning, getting daily hugs and 'I love you dads' to this huge soul crushing void. It sucks.

Before sentenced to prison so still out in the world, but after losing wife/family/career/home I kept busy with podcasts, audiobooks, comedy records always going to fill the 'friends keeping you busy' part. Now's not the best time to spend a lot of one on one time with your inner voice, he's a smart dude but not always our personal biggest champion/hype man :)

I forced myself to maintain normal sleep patterns. If I wanted to sleep by 10 and couldn't, I either exercised more or went to bed earlier and earlier. Forced myself to maintain a healthy diet. Forced myself to exercise regularly and consistently. Those are a must. Get up the same time every day, go to sleep the same time. Plan and eat healthy meals. Have easy emergency healthy meals for when you are too depressed to cook. Have an exercise routine and if you can't sleep, up it. If you go to a gym, swim, it's such a different modality. For me I mountain biked. I mountain biked a lot. When I felt like I was going to crumble (divorce lawyer dates, court dates, realtor selling the house date, hyping myself to make my weekly phone call to each of my kids knowing that they weren't going to answer but that I still needed to keep calling) I got on that bike and road until I didn't have the energy to be anxious. But I didn't ride risky, didn't seek adrenalin because the last thing you need is to get hurt. Hmmm, looking back I also did a lot of white water rafting. Again your brain has to break it's unhealthy constant negative focuses and just focus on getting past the current rocks in front of you.

So routine, intentional (and proactive) self care, with healthy distractions to break the unhealthy focus on your current situation and giving yourself space.

You'll get through this I promise. You will be surprised in life to find out just what you can and cannot get through. Keep your head up! It's not just you, what you are going through while unique and incredibly painful to you and worth being given the weight it deserves as one of the hardest things you will go through is also something you share with the rest of us afflicted with 'the human condition'.


Thanks for sharing your story and advice! Hope you are doing ok now!


I recommend whatever you do you must: * ensure good nutrition * ensure good sleep patterns * exercise 3-5 days a week


Vacation, No Internet, even for 2 weeks, no phone, the longer the better. Somewhere where activity is easy i.e.: the seaside.

Yoga, lots of it.

Therapie, some of it.


There's probably a lot of people out there who wouldn't consider what you just described as "rock bottom".


I made the decision to not allow things to bring me down. I invested in new hobbies to push back the pain and in turn that eventually led me into getting a decent job. I focused on the things I could focus on - myself, my work, my friends, and I kept trying to expand my social circles.

You are the only thing holding you back.


I’m 5 years out from a tough last year of a PhD program. Married with kids now.

It gets better. Power through the final stretch.


> I also don't have a large social circle

Can you find a singles group to grow your network. They have tons of them at local orgs (churches or town clubs). Join one of these. I have a hunch that getting into a new crew may be what you are looking for since therapy is going a bit slow.


My rock bottom was becoming homeless in Toronto. I created a YouTube channel that I’m trying to build up to hopefully monetize and get me out of homelessness.

https://www.youtube.com/@homelessintoronto


My secret is I didn't. Savings has been saving me as my CV has been consistently rejected for over 3 years now. Absolutely no perspective for a new female partner. I don't see myself owning any real estate in foreseeable future.


I was in a situation many years back that was similar in feeling but varied in circumstance. The sense of loss, worthlessness, lack of control, lack of agency, stress and isolation is an incredibly potent mix. I'm sorry you're dealing with all of them at once. It is overwhelming.

My own emotional lows are cyclical and I've had to bounce back several times. At different stages in life my approach to doing so has varied wildly. The approach you need will depend on your history and what you believe about yourself. Right now it's the narrative about yourself that your mind has constructed which you need to address.

Do you believe that you are weak and passive? That life is happening to you, rather than you manifesting it? Then prove to yourself that you are bold, capable and effective. Maybe you aren't yet and need to become so. Don't listen to people telling you that you are already what you feel is lacking. They are comfort words which deny that growth is possible. Prove it to yourself and you will know it forever after.

Choose something that scares you immensely and do it. For me it was heights, mortality and risk: so I began skydiving. For you perhaps rock climbing is more fitting. If you've hit rock bottom, learn to climb the rocks. It will require patience, fortitude, mindfulness, awareness of your body and movement, coping with fear, and deliberate action.

You won't feel passionate about this and may avoid it. You may not even like it. Forget what you like and earn it. Passion will develop alongside progress, and progress will be slow. From your point of view the ascent will look like your PhD. You'll end up taking paths you didn't intend, as if the rock is guiding you. Are you being passive? Will you second guess yourself? Your choice is to use your position to advance yourself or give up.

Look back at your progress and see how far you've come. You'll have a new perspective on what felt boring and gradual up-close. Which is more terrifying: the slow climb ahead or the descent? If you give up, will you do it slowly with shame or allow yourself to fall? What does rock bottom look like when you see how far beneath you it truly is?

As your passion and competence grows you may have daydreams of setting aside your PhD. You'll want to take a sabbatical to climb. I encourage you to do this if it feels right and necessary. I encourage not to if it feels like an excuse, and to focus on the metaphor.

You will develop the confidence and fortitude you currently lack. You will regain your lust for life when it hangs in the balance. You will make friends you never knew you wanted. You will forever know what you are capable of.


Thanks for the elaborate advice!


I was you once in the same place you are now. I can tell you that it gets better. The tldr is that you have to change your perspective. Sounds so easy right? Fortunately it is the only thing you have any control over.

So what you need to do is work on and develop your sense of self and self esteem.

The rest of life is about accepting uncertainty of everything else. For example, when you get older you realize that you can't even make your kids like you, you certainly can't control them.

So whatever you do, choosing or not choosing is your choice.

Some things that have helped me:

Listen to the audiobook "I don't want to talk about it" by Terrence Real. Keep doing the therapy and maybe find another therapist if the one you have isn't helping. It sounds like you are cerebral so you may need to read a lot of self-help books and understand the theory behind psychotherapy to get some relief. You might even be smarter than your therapist. Ask your therapist what books they recommend. Here you are using them as a professional resource.

You might not be able to think yourself out of depression. Thinking your way out is what CBT is all about. You might need to retrain your body and nervous system too. This is what breath work, meditation, cold exposure, exercise, volunteering and sports are all about.

Give your body a break and stop drinking alcohol and doing any drugs. Get good sleep and most importantly eat well.

Learn breath work, meditation and cold water exposure (this is an ongoing thing, not necessarily a cure all but part of the process). It helps you regulate anxiety.

Journal your thoughts, write in the 3rd person about yourself, ask a friend what they like about you. Write about your accomplishments.

Take a vacation, go visit some of your international friends. Remember that it is ok to take a break. Sometimes you need that break to harness the vast meta-cognitive properties our brain has to reason about things. People always say they had great insight in the shower, or on the beach. Give yourself the space to disconnect.

Help others volunteering, join a men's group, play a sport, exercise. It helps to get outside of your head. Maybe your school has group therapy for PhDs, see what your therapist says.

As you do all of these things your perspective will shift.


Thanks a lot!


Went to therapy, family, and psychiatrist. There is no alternative.


Talk to a psychologist please. Anyone who has decades of experience in this problem domain. You can start to work with them, and eventually figure out what works for you quickly.


OP:

> I've also started therapy 2 months ago, but it's going slow and it hasn't been very useful yet. The advice so far has boiled down to "do things you like".

> I would be grateful for any of your advice or shared life stories.


Hey man, don't worry, it will be all right!

About ~10 years ago in 2012-2013, within a ~6 month period (i) my startup [1] which I've been doing for 4 years failed / we shut it down (ii) my wife left me (we've been together for 7 years), and a few months later told me that she'd been cheating on me.

There was a ~6 month period when I was very depressed, sometimes I wasn't able to sleep for multiple nights in a row, and even when I got sleep, it was a few hours at best. It was a terrible period, I felt humiliated and reduced to nothing. I looked at my friends with stable boring jobs and families and thought that I messed up big time. I was so depressed, I even went to church a couple of times Sunday morning, because I couldn't sleep and I felt so sorry for myself, even though I'm an agnostic physicist.

Then something really unexpected happened: I got a job at a successful startup [2], which had great culture and lots of young people, and suddenly I was partying 2x a week with my new friends from work. While I was doing my own startup I stopped doing sports, so I picked up a +15 kg. The depression helped me lose most of it, and since I suddenly had a lot of free-time (no startup, no wife), I started doing sports again [3]. Even more unexpected, being divorced turned out to be appealing to ladies (I jokingly call it the "wounded deer pity phenomenon"), and I noticed ladies sending me signals, which helped my self-confidence get back on track.

Overall, in another ~6 months, to my huge surprise, there was a huge turn-around in my life, and in the end 2013 became one of the best years of my life! It was super-surprising, because it started on such a downer (Jan-6 was when my wife told me it's over, next day she moved out), but by Q3 I was hooked up with my girlfriend [4], feeling super happy at work and I even did another Ironman that year and beat my previous best by 2 hours!

So... it's completely normal to feel depressed in such situations. Just give it some time, build yourself up, and find a good social situation. I personally also started a Phd, which I didn't finish because of the aforementioned startup, but I don't want to tell you to do that. You can create positive vibes around you even by going to a co-working place 2x a week, doing some team sports, etc. Another thing that helps is going to therapy. It's completely normal to go, these days I do couple's therapy semi-regularly with my (current/2nd) wife.

-

[1] https://github.com/scalien/scaliendb

[2] Prezi

[3] triathlons

[4] later/currently wife, we have a beautiful 4 year old boy


Thanks! Happy you turned it around!


Whatever you do, don't take SSRIs, there is good chance that you won't be able to come for the rest of your life.


Being a victim is a mindset, sure you can come from a shitty place but that doesn't determine where you go next.

Thinking you are a victim is also highly addictive because it shifts responsibilities from you to something that is not-you (parents, boss, partner, society, your gender, racists, ...)

While not all circumstances are your choice, at a fundamental level remaining a victim is a choice.

There's always somebody worse off than you.


> at a fundamental level remaining a victim is a choice

It would be nice if this was true. But sadly it’s simply not. Everybody understands that there is physical abuse that cannot be overcome. Unfortunately there is also psychological abuse that cannot be overcome.

So I agree we should all strive to avoid remaining victims, but I don’t think it’s healthy or even correct to say that those that do have chosen to be victims.

See also: victim blaming.


Victim blaming is completely different, that's saying that you deserved to be abused. Nobody deserves to be abused.

There is a longitudinal study on PTSD cases that investigated why only 35% of people suffer PTSD while some of their colleagues go to similar events and while going through trauma processing, bounce back after some time.

The main finding was that many of them found helpful frames of references to manage their feelings around trauma (often along the lines of... the guy next to me was worse off, at least I am alive) and that allowed them to go into post-trauma growth.

Assigning present-day problems to old events is just a very common way for people to take on a victim mentality and avoid dealing with what is in front of them.


I’m not saying it’s exactly victim blaming, but it’s pretty close: you are attributing the cause of somebody’s misery to them, instead of the person that abused them.

Try the same line of reasoning with physical abuse and you will hopefully feel less certain. E.g. why does one person fall, hit their head badly and become paralyzed, while another could just shake off the same punch? And if you met somebody who had been beaten badly by a parent and become paralyzed for life would you give them a pep talk about how it’s a choice they’ve made? Probably not (I hope).


The choice is obviously not on being abused. The choice is on moving past it and taking a positive outlook going forward rather than keep looking backward at the injustice that happened to you.


Obviously. And what I’m saying is (obviously) that that is not always a choice. It would be nice if it was, but the human mind simply does not work that way.


Early on, I noticed:

(1) There is actual reality.

(2) There is how you feel, your emotions.

While (1) and (2) can affect each other, the connections are weak and indirect, and, mostly, first cut, (1) and (2) are independent.

So, for things like doing well in some school work, getting a car repaired, having a good romantic relationship, getting the bank balance up, having money enough to buy a house, losing weight, ..., nearly all that is (1) and not (2).

Good news: If you get all the bugs out of some computer program, then the program will run the same whether you are feeling good or bad. That is, no matter how bad you feel, the program doesn't care and will run the same anyway. Sooo, that situation is a way to make progress in (1) even if are not doing well with (2), and that progress might help you do better with (2).

As an experienced programmer, you really CAN get the bugs out of that code and have the code run, no matter how bad you feel -- progress in (1) is right there, available to you, and it is sufficient for you just to get the bugs out of that code!!!

Uh, that you are able to write this query and post it here on Hacker News puts you way, Way, WAY ahead of maybe 80+% of the people alive today and 99.9+% of the people who have ever lived. A lot of those people were really happy, had good lives -- it's possible and has happened for many millions with much less in advantages than you have.

Uh, for romantic relationships, I tried to understand what worked, what didn't, and why. I settled on -- interruption, not everyone will agree -- one that works is driven heavily just by Darwin, and he wants (i) emotions, (ii) sex, (iii) pregnancy, all QUICKLY, and then return to (i) and do it all over again several times. If Darwin is disappointed, the relationship is on thin ice. In particular, please Darwin or don't be surprised to have the relationship fail. Sorry 'bout that.

A lot of things -- plans, activities, efforts, etc. -- are necessarily chancy. When trying such a thing, insist that it work, fairly well fairly quickly, or abandon the effort and try something else. That is, it's too easy to have lots of reasons why the effort really SHOULD work and, thus, continuing, for weeks, ..., years, decades trying to make the effort work. Fact of life: We don't know everything that is important; we don't understand all the details; we are really NOT in actual control. So, we give a good shot; if it works, terrific; if it doesn't, drop it and try something else. And by "give a good shot", don't bet too much; don't bet the farm; hopefully don't bet more than you can afford to lose.


Have you heard about our Lord?

From everything I’ve read that’s probably something you should explore.


The red-pill was extremely helpful for me.


Also, therapy generally encourages effeminate behavior. Re-read the Unabomber Manifesto while standing on your pile of crunchy broken glass and let it sink in.

Everyone in PhD programs feels the same way.

Sounds like you need some gym-and-beer friends.


This is a long story and I am not sure if it will be useful to you (or anyone else for that matter), but I'll post it here anyways.

I lost both my parents and sister in a car accident, about 20 years ago. I was raised in a close family with good parents, so losing those people was hard for me.

Afterwards got in a depression. I'd guess my depression lasted about 7 years.

One of the main reasons that made this loss so hard for me, was that my goal in life was to make my parents proud. In a way, this was my focus. And with my parents gone, I lost my focus. I needed to find new goals in life.

During my depression, work meant little to me. I didn't try to improve my skills. I preferred losing myself in World of Warcraft. It was a nice way to distract myself from my feelings.

At some point the depression got worse and my brothers & sister intervened. They helped motivate me to visit a psychiatrist. I visited the psychiatrist every week and I agreed to commit myself on a few small tasks each week. Like cleaning the house, exercise, etc... Each week I'd visit him and the tasks would become a bit more time consuming. The psychiatrist also wanted to prescribe me some medicine, but I didn't want to take medicine, so he let that pass.

After a couple of months I felt quite ok again and at some point could manage again to find some work. However, I still kinda missed some long term goal in life.

I don't exactly know how, but at some point I decided I wanted to emigrate. I got sick of the cold, dark winters in The Netherlands. And I was kinda contemplating moving to Chile at some point. Seemed nice enough (low cost of living, decent healthcare, reasonable IT infrastructure, Spanish is supposedly easy to learn, nice weather in the central part of the country, etc...). However, this was just something running through my mind, nothing concrete. Not really sure how to make this big step.

Later on I worked at a start-up of a friend of mine. The start-up didn't perform as well as hoped. After several years I decided to throw in the towel. A headhunter offered me a freelance opportunity at a major Dutch company, so I decided to just go for it. The company decided to take a chance on me and this is how I got into freelancing. With the freelance job, my monthly income tripled and now emigration seemed possible if I saved some money for some years.

To relax a bit (and likely because of my migraines), I would occasionally start visiting a Thai massage parlour. After returning from the parlour I would feel extremely relaxed. I would always visit the same lady and after some time we connected and she would start telling me about her family in Thailand, showing photos and such. And now I got interested in visiting Thailand sometime.

So at some point I decided to go on a holiday to Thailand, just for 2 weeks to see what it's like. At first it was way too hot when I visited Bangkok. But after a few days I could cope better with the weather and would check out Ayuthaya and later Pattaya. There I met my (now) girlfriend, in the last few days of my holiday.

My girlfriend gave me these kinds of vibes that she would be a good mother. So I kinda wanted to visit her again ASAP. I believe I worked just one month from The Netherlands and afterwards made an agreement with the company that I would work remotely from Thailand for a couple of months. The company was ok with this, they gave me a task that I could do in isolation, so the rest of the team would not be impacted. This made it easier to deal with the time difference.

In the meanwhile I also started again on a hobby project of mine while making use of a nice co-working space in Pattaya. I would visit the co-working space every day, meet some people there and work many hours. Would also swim everyday, as the condo I rented had a nice olympic sized swimming pool. I would feel really happy during this time. Perhaps the happiest period of my life.

I do have to admit I didn't do a great job with my freelance work at the time. I believe I should have devoted more time to the freelance job, but I guess it felt more fun to me to work on my own projects. Still, I guess it planted a seed. I could live in some other country and earn my money working remotely as freelancer.

After 6 months or so, we decided we should stay together. So my girlfriend got pregnant. 2 months later I moved back to The Netherlands. I worked a couple more months at my freelance job, but in the meanwhile looked for a permanent remote job. I found a company in New York that wanted to hire me as a freelancer. So with a new freelance job, I quit my current freelance job and moved back to Thailand.

However, now all was not great. It seemed to owner of the NY company and me were not a great match. He kinda needed a developer who could also be a good designer and I am just not a great designer. So pretty soon we decided to separate our ways. Now I was out of a job and in Thailand. At least I still had many savings from freelancing. So I decided to try to find some work on Upwork. Not a great success. After a couple of months trying Upwork, I moved back to The Netherlands and started freelancing again, this time for a fintech company in Amsterdam.

I worked 1.5 years for this company as freelancer. This ensured we could buy a house in Thailand, buy a car. I believe in this 1.5 years I went 2 times on a long holiday to Thailand to visit girlfriend and daughter. I would also call every day from the office (due to time difference).

Then, at some point I decided to try another remote work platform, Codementor. I passed the tests and the interviews and quickly found another US company here to work for. With another freelance job secured, now was the right time to move to Thailand. And basically I've been in Thailand ever since, working from home, but now at a 2nd company (Australian based). I've become much better in remote working then when I first started out. I believe I am much more focused now than I was at the beginning. Perhaps kinda failing the first 2 times was required to teach me how to do better.

But now I also have real goals that I want to strive for:

- I want to make some games.

- I want my daughter to have a happy childhood.

- I don't want to spend 40 hours a week working for some client, if possible (find a good work/life balance).

- Ideally at some point I make some game or app that allows me to full-time work on my own projects.

- In the future I would like to have permanent residency in Thailand (to feel more secure at old age).

- I would like to learn the Thai language, to be able to better communicate with locals.

- I want to save up a good amount of retirement money.

- Would like to have a nice condominium near the beach (we currently live upcountry).

I think it's important to have some long term goals to work towards. Those long term goals make life worth living.

If you don't have any long term goals, perhaps consider doing a sabbatical of sorts - stay a long time in a completely different environment as you are used to. My older brother went to a kibbutz in Israel for half a year when he was depressed. And I guess I went to Thailand to figure myself out. (A kibbutz can be really affordable, since you get a small weekly wage and you get a room for free, but you have to work a bit in return).

Also, it never hurts to try to train a stoic mindset. The book "A Guide to the Good Life - The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" [0] might help here. It might help you deal better with adverse events happening in your life.

---

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/d...


Wow, interesting life story!


That’s not rock bottom. Shooting up drugs in the street is rock bottom.


Not to mention he has a roof over his head, food in the frige and a comfy bed (I assume).


Many students in grad school are very close — maybe one decision away from that, and sometimes continuing in the program or not is that decision.


It's relative. I believe that you shouldn't tell someone depressed that they haven't reached the bottom yet. Try to show them one direction: up.


thats the spirit!

No matter how bad you think things are, they can ALWAYS get worse. :-D

This is actually one of the things that drives me forward.


Rock bottom is different things to different people.

Some people don’t mind being homeless, for others it’s the pit of misery.


When I hit my own rock bottom a couple of years ago I stumbled upon Jordan Peterson's lectures about meaning and the bible. It helped my rational mind understand and accept that the rational mind isn't the be-all and end-all and there is something transcendent outside of it. Whatever that is, you can aim at getting better at "dancing" with it and the better the dance the greater the sense of meaning. YMMV but it worked for me.

(the lectures were "2017 Maps of Meaning" and "The Psychological Significance of the Biblical Stories")


I can only imagine the weight on your shoulders right now, and I'm so sorry you're going through this.

You might have felt like giving up on your career goals/social life/life in general at some point. People tell you it gets better, and when you've hit rock bottom it's impossible to believe it, but it does get better when you start taking better care of yourself. As with most skills in life, it is not immediate, however, and requires hard work and commitment. The good news is that it feels great once you decide to commit to yourself, which is the person you forgot about at some point, which allowed you to hit rock bottom.

What worked for me: understand and accept that it is *ok for you to be selfish and focus on yourself*, whatever that means to you. To me, it meant going to the gym every morning and having somebody else take care of the many responsibilities I took upon myself during lockdown, and which allowed me to slip up in my PhD during the last couple of years. It also meant accepting that I won't finish my PhD on my original timeline, and that's ok. The job market is not that great right now anyway, so it is ok if you need take more time. Be gentle with yourself :) The career path that is supposed to be for you will find you, but you need to give it a proper chance by spending some time working on yourself and getting to know your strengths a little better. You might have forgotten them: you wouldn't be a PhD student at a prestigious research group right now if you didn't have them.

Some specific tips that worked for me when I hit rock bottom (though mine was different, we share the PhD aspect of it):

- gym every day, once a day (morning for me, but some friends prefer evenings)

- show up to your lab every day (the energy in your lab is better than at home right now, and if it's not, make your lab better; avoid being by yourself at home)

- decluttering (home, lab, research, commitments, etc: delegate as much as possible, so that you can focus on you what is truly important to you)

- meditation + prayer (specifically, asking for guidance and help to take better care of yourself, and to find the path that is meant for you)

- helping others: there are other folks that are struggling too, they're just not telling you about it. if you noticed someone could use some quick 5min help (listening, coffee, decluttering), help out.

- once you're a little stronger: make an effort to connect more with others everywhere you go (commute, coffee shop, library, gym, lab, uni outside your lab, etc); people usually respond well to communication that is honest, non-judgmental, and that comes from a good place. listen more than you speak. you'll make a lot more friends locally in no time.

Wishing you all the best in your recovery.


Thanks a lot for the advice! I've been going to the gym for years on and off now. But I told myself that from now on I am going every single day for the foreseeable future.


I have hit rock bottom about three times in life. One was losing my dad when I was 11-12 years old. I couldn't do much to get out of the slump because I was too young. It was my mom who led the family and took on the role of breadwinner+emotional support for her three kids. I genuinely owe her a lot for her resilience in such a different time for our family.

Second time was when my first girlfriend whom, like in your case, I thought was the love of my life and would marry. Back then, I was young; a bit arrogant (tend to think my thoughts/beliefs are the correct way to do things); thought honesty==saying things the way I see them without filter (not censoring things before I say with empathy) and worse, thought my then gf will put up with it. I was wrong. After a couple of years of putting up with my stubborn ways, she told me she's breaking up with me. It came as an absolute surprise to me and despite my pleas to her that I'd try to change my ways, she didn't buy them (she believes that people can never change). Since the apartment we lived was under my gf's name, I had to find a room in a city (San Francisco), which I just moved 4-5 months ago to follow my gf (she got a job in SF before I found mine). I knew no one in that city and didn't have a car. Because I graduated from college recently, I was relatively poor as well. My gf gave me 2 weeks to move out. I remember walking in the rainy, cold/misty weather of SF after work every day to look for relatively cheap apartments in SF, Daly City and Oakland (saw a couple of shady apartments). I even got flu and lingering cough in that period. Eventually, I found a room in SF and moved my stuff using Cal train (only took 3 trips total because I didn't have much). After moving into my new apartment, it took me six months to recover from the heartbreak. It took me a couple of years to completely get rid of her from my mind. It helps a little that during the break-up period, I was preparing for grad school applications (GRE prep, for example) and work, so I was able to divert my attention and energy to there.

The third time was when my second gf, the one I met in grad school, cheated on me in my fourth year of PhD. She took a job in PA; our relationship became long-distance for about a year; and she found a boyfriend at her new job, but didn't have the guts to tell me for (I think) about three months until I slowly figured it out. That happened in November and I had a terrible Christmas and New Year. I asked for a break from my PhD supervisor and he let me (because he knows that I am not going into academia and thus, I could graduate with just 3 papers to my name as the first author. This means, I just need to finish 2 chapters in my thesis summarizing previous research and can defend that). I was also financially supporting my two siblings for their college and I literally had ~$2000 in my bank account left. So I promised my PhD advisor that I'll come back and defend my thesis. Then I left the University town and took an internship in NYC, which turns into a full-time job. Because my ex-gf cheated on me, it was easy to get over her. I think it took maybe 3 months after starting my internship to get back to normal. I was afraid to get back to the dating scene for a year or a year and a half.

All of this to say that time will heal you. Hang in there. It's not the end of the world. In fact, nothing in life is until maybe we are in our dying bed or an asteroid is about to hit the earth. Take the lessons from your previous experiences and try to become a better person (e.g., don't repeat the mistakes you made in your previous relationships). There are more than one person in the world who can be your soulmate (since break-up with my first gf, I met at least 6 girls--I am not the kind of person who actively date/go on hook-ups--who I was able to connect emotionally (I only ended up dating two of them and the last of them has been my wife of four years). Relationship aside, I'd say that PhD is not that of a big deal. In the end though, we have to make money. It's nice to have a PhD at the tail of your name (I never use it to be honest because I dislike formalities/showing-off), but in the worst case scenario that you don't have it, it's totally fine. You got quite a bit of experience from doing research in grad school and you take the knowledge with you in your life, which can become quite handy in your career.

Know what is in your control and what is not. Focus on what you can control and try to achieve better outcome in what you can. Try to stay connected friends/family consistently if you have good relationship with them (if not, it's still okay; I didn't have any, but I survived, so can you). That will keep you from feeling too lonely sometimes. Also, feel free to do some exercise/establish workout routines for self improvement. I was able to do 100+ push-ups after the first break-up with my gf because I exercised and also took long walks in SF (around Golden Gate bridge park) while listening to music; these really helped. Most of all, please remember that this is not the end of the world. New (some good, some not-so-good) experiences await you and you just need to take whatever positive you can from this experience, and use it as a base to do better in the future. Stay strong and try to do the best in what you can control.


Thanks man! Really appreciate sharing your story!


You're very welcome! Just wanted to let you know that almost everyone hits rock bottom(s) in their lives. It can be very painful, but time always heal and you'll end up wiser as you get through that. :)


TDCS, EMS, Ketamine


First, comments saying you haven't hit rock bottom because it could be far worse are missing the point, and I don't think they're helpful. Rock bottom is relative to your experience up to this point. You could reach lower lows, and that would give you a new perspective from which to judge what is truly "bottom", but that's not your perspective now. If this feels like rock bottom, it's rock bottom.

I'm mid-rebuild, and I can confidently say that beyond finding a good therapist, I believe the #1 and #2 most important habits I added to my life are meditation/mindfulness (look up "Vipassana"), and Yoga (I'm just using the Yoga with Adriene YouTube channel [0] - she's got some great stuff).

There are lots of other things you can/probably should do, but when I made meditation a cornerstone habit, it made me realize I was frequently not feeling like part of my body. Adding Yoga started to really integrate my mind/body connection (a concept I couldn't even imagine before I started the practice), and these two habits make everything else I'm doing feel easier.

The bottom line is that you see things more clearly and stop identifying so directly with thoughts, and this in turn makes it far easier to modify other aspects of your life that need addressing. Those could be external factors (I was doing a bad job of keeping my apartment clean) or internal factors (I was also frequently telling myself stories about my experience that upon examination were untrue, or at least not the whole truth).

Everything else I'm doing stems from a cascade of events that started long ago:

- Abusive childhood

- Led to overly pouring myself into external things, anything but myself, mostly work (with great success)

- Led to problems in my relationship and lost a partner of 15 years

- Shortly after this, lost two family members, a dog, got in a car accident, someone broke into my apartment, etc. etc.

- Burned out, quit my job, went on sabbatical to figure things out.

Obviously everyone's story is different, and not everything I've described will be relevant to you, but my broader recovery path has involved:

1) Finding a good therapist. As others have said, if you feel stuck, look for someone new. But don't expect therapy to be a quick fix, depending on the nature of what you're dealing with.

2) Physical activity. Getting my body moving (beyond just Yoga) has had a hugely positive impact. I convinced myself that I can go for a 10 minute walk no matter what, and eventually that turned into 3-4 mile walks every day or two. If you can do cardio, great, but don't feel like you have to go join a gym and sweat every day to get the benefits of moving your legs.

3) Getting out in nature. I never saw myself as an outdoors person. Then I went on a road trip, and visited various national parks. There's a certain kind of perspective you gain if you take in the grandeur of nature mindfully. I ended up extending my road trip and roving for over a month.

4) Realized I had to stop assuming any one thing is "the cure". Getting out in nature was healing and wonderful. For a short time, I thought "this is what I need to do with my life", before I later realized that this would be just as unbalanced as the no-nature version of existence. Mindfulness is what helped me move beyond all-or-nothing thinking. It's not that I believed this kind of thinking was a good way to be, but I just wouldn't realize I was even thinking that way.

5) Realizing that I need to fundamentally change my relationship with myself. I realized that I had lived my life as if I was orbiting around it with work and relationships at the core. Building a strong morning routine that is for no one but me, and rebuilding my life around that, has given me the feeling for the first time in my life that it is me at the center. I didn't realize how stark the difference was until work and my relationship with my ex were no longer the dominant factors in my life.

I had kind of shrugged off the importance of core habits and routine as something for other people. But I've learned that there is pleasure in the path of improvement itself, and when I started to embrace that, things started to truly change for the first time.

Some books / apps / resources that have been really helpful for me:

- Sam Harris: Waking Up [1] (book) sent me on a consciousness rabbit hole, and this turned into a really beneficial exploration and now I use the Waking Up app to practice the mindfulness techniques described in the book. There are other books/apps, but seek out mindfulness, not just some form of concentration meditation.

- Robert Wright: Why Buddhism is True [2] (book) is first and foremost not a religious book, but a book that explores evolutionary psychology and how our growing understanding of the human brain maps cleanly onto some aspects of Buddhist philosophy. If you're curious about meditation, but don't know what you'll get, this book tries to give you a glimpse of that. The 2nd half of the book honestly kind of peters out a bit, but

Resources:

- [0] https://www.youtube.com/@yogawithadriene

- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waking_Up:_A_Guide_to_Spiritua...

- [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Buddhism_Is_True


Thank you so much! Good luck on your further journey!


If it's a person/relationship issue-- distract yourself by dating a new person

In general-- go on a trip


"(toxic parent relationship, some narcissistic/borderline traits in them)"

Could it be contagious/inherited? Sorry to be a jerk but you are not at rock bottom, only at "Bwawawa I look/feel like a loser!".


Rock bottom is different for many people. You don't know what things feel like for them.

And I really don't think that you're truly sorry - plenty of other people tried to convey the same idea (eg, "not rock bottom") with empathy rather than the nastiness you've employed here. Try and be better to others and have a nice weekend.




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