Questioning my path

So I recently just took myself on a solo trip interstate. I very much enjoyed it. This was the first time visiting this city, and the first time travelling somewhere alone and not meeting up with anyone at the other end. I really need to do this more often. I'm not responsible for anyone but myself, I can do what I want for however long I want to. Which for me meant visiting lots of museums and galleries, and spending several hours in the Botanic Gardens! 

It was also great to not have as many loud and intrusive thoughts for a few days. I'm sure they'll pop back up again, but I'm really hoping that they will be a bit quieter, if only for the rest of this month.

Anyway, I've been back for a couple of days now. I had a day of rest yesterday, and a day working from home today because I was too tired to drive anywhere, especially an hour to uni. 

However, now I'm starting to question if I'm even up to a career in academia. I've barely scraped through the past 1.5 years with all of my physical and mental health issues. I haven't even started writing papers or my thesis yet (I don't count methods). 

Perhaps like previous times in my life, after a while of not doing research I will miss it again. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy what I do, it's just the constraints upon me and the battles I fight every single day just to get out of bed or to take a shower are exhausting. I don't know if I can keep doing this long term, something in my life has to change simply so I can function more efficiently. 

What would I do instead? Do more animal work for a while, but I know from experiance that won't be enough to intellectually stimulate me forever. It also won't be able to get me out of the financial situation my family is in. I could also do more casual work at universities, but there's not too much job security in that, there is also a preference to hire internally. I could also go back to making content, but that never really made me much money, and I hate the technological side. 

I have no urge to quit my PhD, I 100% want to finish this. However, I am doubting if I can continue in this line of work afterwards with how I am now. Will I ever be able to swim? :P

Absence of negative emotions ≠ happiness

The absence of negative feelings does not equal happiness.

That statement is something I need to remember. It's completely logical, but often forgotten. remember, when you are bored or indifferent you are neither experiencing a negative nor positive emotion. 

I've been listening to The Psychology of Depression and Anxiety - Dr Scott Eilers. That's where this reminder came from, but also some other things I picked up on whilst listening to an episode on happiness. 

He talks about how our life experience is all internal, and everything outside is just stimuli. I absolutely love this. He further goes into how it's all about how we translate or interpret said stimuli that give us our life experience. An example he uses is if you're in another country and everyone speaks a language you don't understand. That stimulus means nothing to you unless you can translate it. Sometimes when we have health problems (mental or physical) our translator doesn't work - it just doesn't get the message through to us or it distorts the message so we are not receiving what the message is in reality. 

Anyway, I started listening to this episode for a second time to reinforce some of this stuff. I've listened to quite a bit of his stuff these past few months, and I highly recommend it. It compliments any other therapy you might be receiving too. He also posts it as YouTube videos if you prefer a visual (see below).

A good week?!

Wow, so this week has been a strange one for me. As in, I think it's been good?! What the hell is good?! It's really freaky to be honest. I've felt productive, I've woken up before 9 am and not been completely exhausted, I'm generally in a good mood. 

I've been house sitting for the past ten days, only to finish yesterday. So this has definitely lifted my mood. Let me breakdown how this is good for me:

• Being in a house by myself (happiness ++)

• Three cats, 2 of which like me, and one of those I have chosen to be my cat girlfriend many years ago <3 (happiness +, social +)

• Three chickens, one of which used to be my chicken (happiness +, social +)

• Dishwasher (happiness +, comfort +)

• Spacey kitchen (happiness +, mental health +) room to cook nice meals (happiness +, physical health +)

• heating (happiness +, physical health +, comfort +)

• desk space and monitor to work comfortably from home (mental health +, comfort +, health +)

• access to Netflix, allowing me to watch season 2 of a series I first watched in 2020 (happiness +)

• pillow that is more comfortable than my own (physical health +), this means less migraine symptoms (comfort +) - I need to buy one of these, it sort of looks like the image below.

But more has happened that has also likely influenced my mood.

I was unable to meet with my uni counsellor the other week when I was very bad. So I contacted the psychologist that my family has worked with before to see if they had time. I have met up with my counsellor just over a week ago, which kind of helped, but I have also met up with the psychologist this Monday as well. I pretty much spoke to them both about the same thing that was my last post, fairly cat focused. However, after going over it again on Monday with someone else, I have been feeling good. Lets break down why this might be the case.

• talking through my problems yet again, getting more validation and acknowledgement about my life situation
• Psychologist is private, not uni associated. The session could be about whatever I wanted with no mention of uni work if I so desired. 
• Less time to travel getting the psychologist than the uni
• They have worked with members of my family for more than 5 years at least, so they know a lot of what my life involves already
• they are male, and I always get on better with males than females
• I feel easily very comfortable with them, its like chatting with a friend 

= Psychologist (mental health ++, social +)

I know they cannot be my "friend" per say, they are a health professional and I am their client. We have similar interests as well, which also can blur the lines a little sometimes. I have been aware of this for a while and it's the reason why I was not seeing them already. I quite self-aware that I could be projecting a relationship that did not exist, so I was avoiding one on one sessions with them for a while. I brought this up on Monday too, and they totally get it. It feels good to have brought it up and have yet more feelings acknowledged and validated. 

One last thing, my supervisor is away for a month, so I feel less pressured with my PhD :)

So overall:

happiness = 9+

social = 3+

comfort = 3+

health = 7+

Now how do I keep getting these positives in my life? What happens now I am back home and the negatives are loitering just around the corner? 

I'm not going to spend too much time on those thoughts, I have the motivation to do other important things, like my PhD, so let's just ride the motivation train for now?