Despite being something I very rarely mention to all but a few close friends, I feel rapidly that I'm beginning to need more than one sole outlet for the single biggest obstacle to the completion of work in my PhD, namely, that for the last four years I've suffered from what most people call Depression, and what a different sort of Doctor would call Major Depressive Disorder.
There are plenty of excellent sources, valued reader, that explain the precise details of this condition far better than I could possibly attempt; and a short jaunt to your favourite search engine will surely confirm this. Nonetheless I feel compelled to add as best I can some particulars of my situation and how it pertains to my performance (or lack-thereof) in my research at this time. I include a few silly cartoons I made in moments of despondency. Make of them what you will– I appreciate some of them may seem almost narcissistically self-piteous, but I hope they might serve some purpose in explaining or allowing people to empathise with this condition.
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The popular comparison for depression is that of a black dog– the larger and more cumbersome the better– draping itself across your back or lap and sapping you of the energy and will to continue in the pursuit of daily things. I have mixed feelings about this analogy: for on the one hand it conveys the almost physically tangible "weight" of hauling around a brain deficient in serotonin and intent on ruining your day, while on the other it equates the condition to a creature many of our species find adorable and cute.
As such, in my own mind I've always preferred to imagine a more amorphous blob. A sort of sentient lump of tar malevolently swamping your work and your faculties of reason. While I appreciate it may be impossible for some to consider something affecting you very pertinently in your higher mental faculties, it is something worth keeping in mind whenever a friend confides in you that they have such a condition. It's still a physical ailment: Something in my brain isn't working properly, and it seriously affects my ability, in turn, to work. I would not dare to pass judgement on similarly afflicted friends, as I have heard some do, that suggests they are merely "lazy". In the same way a severed leg would seriously impede one's ability to run (unless replaced by a suitable prosthetic), an abnormal mixture of hormones in the brain seriously impedes one's ability to get anything done (for which, perhaps sadly, no such prosthetic can provide a cure).
This need not even be serious or important work. One of the reasons I feel privileged to know friends who can empathise with this rather stupid condition is that some days you really long to share with someone that you managed to brush your teeth, and are feeling distinctly proud of this achievement.
Ultimately, aside from lacking any kind of feeling of motivation to begin a task, I have found that one's own inner-monologue often confounds the matter. Consider a state of lowered mood, which has prevented you from achieving a pre-determined goal of fixing your buggy code by a given day. Now consider the feeling of failure gained from such a missed deadline, and quickly one can appreciate the sullen downward spiral of self-doubt and misery which results. Again, this may sound hyperbolic or even self-centred, but its veracity cannot be fairly doubted and is supported in lines such as that by the ineffably insightful Stephen Fry when he describes the "blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness". Notice the inclusion of the word 'lethargy'.
In the event I alternate between feelings of vague contentedness with the progress of my Transfer Thesis and relevant research, and almost overwhelming negativity wherein I convince myself I am incapable of any significant achievement or completion of my Doctorate. For now, at least, here I remain: holding on to the hopes that I will succeed despite this encumbrance and with the support of those I can rely on, and that I will not succumb to the terrifyingly real prospect of having to stop what I'm doing and move elsewhere.
I might have just wasted ten minutes of your time with this incoherent ramble, for which I apologise, or I may have provided a tiny glimpse into what I think about every day that I sit in this office. Either way, and whether or not I know you personally, thank you for taking the time to read all this and give me an opportunity to voice myself in this small way.
