Not the 100th post on Depressed Academics

I was looking at the blog page today and noticed that it was at 99 posts.   That made me wonder if we should do something for our 100th post.  Maybe some reflections by the various people who have posted.  Maybe a request for input from blog readers.  Except I couldn't ask the blog readers because ...well that would be our 100th post.

Then I realised that there are three posts in process of being written (or possibly forgotten about), so actually there are only 96 posts.  There will still be a couple more before the 100th - this is now the 97th.

So ... should we do anything special for our 100th post?  If you have any ideas please do comment - or if more private contact us by email.

If the answer is no that is fine by me.  Depression is not a topic to celebrate, so maybe having a 100 different things to say about it is not a thing to celebrate either.

Links: Stephen Fry, and Ambigrams

As with some other links, it's quite unlikely you won't have seen it.  But it's so good, here is Stephen Fry's wonderful piece "Only The Lonely."  Sample:

"I am luckier than many of you because I am lonely in a crowd of people who are mostly very nice to me and appear to be pleased to meet me. But I want you to know that you are not alone in your being alone."

In other news, a wonderful series of ads from Samaritans of Singapore.   They are ambigrams, reading differently the right way up and upside down.  I think I came across these from Doug Hofstadter many years ago, but they are by far the best use I've ever seen of them.  It perfectly illustrates the difference between what we say and we feel.

Depression Awareness Ad from Samaritans in Singapore

Hashtag Full Professor Problems

I had a paper accepted to a top journal and I felt nothing. #FullProfessorProblems

You've heard of first world problems? You know, problems which most people around the world would be thrilled to have.  The twitter feed for the hashtag #FirstWorldProblems is always lively.

I'm coining #FullProfessorProblems.

Yesterday I had a paper accepted for a top journal (JAIR, the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, since you ask.)  This is a fairly big deal. It will probably go into my "REF" submission as one of my four best papers for the last few years. JAIR is probably the second best AI journal, after the journal just called "Artificial Intelligence" (or AIJ).  This makes 4 papers for my career in JAIR and 6 in AIJ.  10 papers in 25 years since starting my PhD doesn't sound many that many, but actually it is.  I'm statistical enough to have checked and those totals put me in the top 100 authors for each journal.  So if I wanted to boast (which I don't but if you want me to ... ) well I don't want to since this isn't a job application, but you can imagine what I could do with that stat if it was.

It's also a single authored paper, meaning I have a sense of "I've still got it" and knowing for sure I wasn't riding on my colleagues' coat tails.

And I felt nothing. Maybe just a smidge of satisfaction.  But no joy, no elation. That's what I am used to feeling when I get a major paper accepted.  It's not that it made me feel miserable, it just didn't make me feel great.  

I am not going through a bad patch mentally right now. I wouldn't say I feel great. But I don't feel terrible.  It's no problem to get through life and I can enjoy some of it.  But I do enjoy feeling great when I get good news, and I didn't yesterday.

To be honest it is a bit worrying.  I remember a similar reaction - no emotion then worrying - a couple of years ago when I noticed my h-index tick up by one.  Again that's a fairly big deal, and anyone who knows me knows that I obsess about citations.  Feeling nothing worried me a bit.

On the upside, I suppose, I seem to have been taking bad news fairly calmly too.  Though I can worry about that also - as in it's not my job on the line if we don't get a grant.

I don't know if this is the medication (escitalopram) talking. I ran out a couple of weeks ago and that did seem to coincide a bit of bad patch so I'm happy to still take it.  Maybe it evens out the highs and lows. Maybe it's just being older and more blasé.

I know, I know, I know. I'm going on about this good news for me.  And moaning because I don't feel great about it.

I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I just wanted to talk about what I was feeling. Or in this case, not feeling.  Since this blog is "Somewhere you can talk about it." 

I told you it was #FullProfessorProblems. 

p.s. Not quite on topic but a useful tip to pass on ...  I didn't have a rapid comedown when I read reviews (which is common if people misunderstand a paper) because I used a technique I either learnt or deduced from Alan Bundy: don't read the reviews the same day.  (He has often said that reading reviews ruins a day even when the paper is accepted. So if possible it's a neat trick to have a fun day with the good news and read the review the next day.)

Update 8 July 2013. 

This amazing mug appeared in my office today.  I strongly suspect ... well see my tweet about it. But this made my day, and indeed Aaron congratulating me the other day after having read my post was probably the first time I had felt happy about this paper acceptance. 

@aquigley gave me an amazing mug and all he gets is this lousy tweet thanking him. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/gm5Z86k34B
— Ian Gent (@turingfan) July 8, 2013

The outcast dips lower

My parents are older; they had me in their forties. I am in my mid twenties. Many of their cousins are now passing, and recently (maybe last year?) my aunt on my father's side. The notion of aging and disease has been common in our conversations for a good couple years. I am not numb to it, but it just is what it is. This is not to say I don't think aging concerns or even death related notions in terms of getting older are not valid. They are. They are just different than spontaneous death occurrences. 

This is what I mean: I was online and came across a name of a guy who went to grade school with me. He had died last year. At first the name sounded familiar, but it wasn't until I saw the pictures that I remembered who he was. I read through a whole page dedicated to memories from family and friends, and I felt strange.

I would not describe me as suicidal the last couple of days, but recurring urges to hurt myself or to kill myself would float on by like those planes with messages trailing from behind. The thoughts/urges would of course be out of sight soon enough. More of an annoyance than anything. Today's thoughts are different: I should have died and not him. I don't have anyone who loves me as much as him. I did not touch that many lives. I should overdose. 

As I write these things, I can't help but go through my skill check list: 

• What happened to trigger these thoughts? 
• What was I feeling emotionally?
• What was I feeling physically? 

What happened is I tried to reach out to my once closest friend (again) who has been avoiding me because I have been so difficult to deal with. This friend did not get back to me. I felt angry. I felt stiffness in my shoulders.

I didn't at first understand why I wrote I don't have anyone who loves me as much as him. But reflecting on my answers to my skill questions, I feel like it's obvious I am feeling rejected in some sort of way. And not just by my friend. But my family. By acquaintances. 

I feel like I don't quite fit anywhere. I am in transition from going to one university to another university to begin my PhD. It's a really big deal. I am scared. When things get tough, and my mood is low, I can't help but think of escaping. But at the very least, I can sit down and identify my sources of frustration and suicidal thinking. 

Random thoughts... Feel free to ignore

I'm writing this having just had a bit of a cry on my partner A's shoulder. I feel guilty for having done so as he's ill too with food poisoning. In my opinion I should be taking more care of him, than he is of me. 

Life seems ok on the surface... I have my tutoring (one tutee only at the moment), volunteering and accounting study... Relationships with friends and family are also going reasonably well. I've started having driving lessons, in order to make applying for 'proper' jobs easier. 

On paper, I seem to be doing the right things.

But my feelings alternate between sad and empty. I fear that this is the start of depression coming back. So right now, I'm just doing what I can to feel useful. Like not cancelling commitments and appointments, and trying to do more around the house, on a more regular basis. I'm hoping routine will stave off full-blown depression. I'm hoping this episode will pass at some point without further dip. Because right now, I'm functioning. And I don't want to go back to the days when I wasn't.

I found myself awake at 3 am this morning... The dreaded hour in my experience. Throughout my earlier episode of depression, 3 am was a constant companion. I would always be awake at this time.

This post might sound a little flat, after my other posts. I guess that's how I'm feeling: flat and numb

My Left Cheek

Some years ago, nearly 20, I was having a tantrum after what I regarded as bad service in a restaurant.   To be clear, I was late 20s, but it was definitely a tantrum.

We stood near the top of the Mound in Edinburgh, and I grabbed my wife's hand and held it to my left cheek and got her to stroke it.

I've no idea how I knew to do that.  But ever since then, if somebody strokes my left cheek, I can't stop myself smiling.  And even feeling happy while it's happening.   It's a very weird feeling.   It's something like being tickled except I'm smiling instead of laughing.   Unlike tickling, I don't mind it.  I am ticklish but I hate being tickled.  But this is nice. Also unlike tickling, I can do it to myself - well at about half intensity: it's much better if somebody else does it. Since I need it when I am miserable or crabby, I often play-act at not wanting it, which is kind of fun because inevitably I grin foolishly.

It is my left cheek, not my right.  It doesn't work on my right cheek.

Later, when my father died, I found a piece of paper with his very frail writing on it from his last days.  I broke down, and my wife tells me that my mother stroked my left cheek, but I don't know if she knew about it or whether it was instinctive.

Since I discovered this that day on the Mound, it has been a small but significant pleasure in my life.  It's also an oddity: other people may have equivalents but they don't get talked about.

The only relevance to this blog is that it doesn't seem to work well with depression.  For anger, frustration, sadness, it seems to help.   Or just for a small piece of pleasure.   For depression, it doesn't seem to work.  Sometimes I actively fight it, rather than play-act fight it, because I am miserable and I know it would make me happy, which at that time I don't want or feel I deserve. On the other hand, it seems to just be a momentary lift, rather than taking me to another place where I feel better.

This has been a long way of getting nowhere, but I wanted to share this mental oddity with you.

The low self-esteem beast at a networking event

Something I jotted down last week... Wasn't ready to post at the time. Feelings were still a bit raw. No that I've calmed down a bit (just a little bit), I thought it might be interesting for others to read. Only minor editing (spell-checking) since then.

 “The low self-esteem beast bit me today,

That too on a fine sunny day...”

Funny how that happens... One moment things seem to be going okay. Another time it feels like things, i.e. you, are going nowhere. 

Today it was at a networking event. I went to try to get tips to turn my tutoring into a business and get more tutees.  We all had to introduce ourselves. I let my vulnerability be shown: that I had not succeeded in the job market. Another man, trying to sell his business, said that he could tap the unadvertised job market and get people jobs. People, like me. He did that sales pitch, specifically naming me, in so-called alliance, and saying that I could disagree with him at any time.  

He knew how to target my vulnerability, the mark of a good sales man.

When the self-esteem beast bites, it feels like the bottom has fallen out of your whole world. That there is no place for you in it. What is the point of you existing, if you’re of no use to anyone.

The problem is, is that other people telling you there is a place for you, and that you have skills, and are of value, just doesn’t seem to solve the problem. In the end, self-esteem, is just that... *self* esteem... 

The whole process of picking yourself has to begin, all over again. “Again”, because you have had this problem several times over and you have had to do it before. You hope it gets easier. But you never really know.

Low self-esteem has been a personality trait of mine for as long as I can remember. It's got to the point where I wish I could exorcise the demon, and be rid of it forever. It stops me trying new things that I might not be good at, meeting confident people, and even applying for jobs.