Hi there... Since we have had such a backlash against 'Negative Posting'... Is there anyone out there staying sane (i.e. not going mad because of their PhD)???

There have quite a number of posts over the last week about health problems (mental and otherwise) due to PhD-related stress. I, for one, am extremely fond of my mental health and plan on keeping it!!!

Maybe people will say I don't care enough, and they could be right... But to me, getting a PhD (while very important to me) is just not worth messing my health up!

I think I am trying to see the big picture... that down the line, the things that matter to me are likely to be family rather than whether I got that PhD/job/promotion or whatever else there was to stress about along the way!

Would like to hear other people's thoughts and opinions!!!

i try to keep the bigger picture, too. just sometimes, the bigger picture is a bit depressing (why am I doing the PhD at my age? because i want to try for a career in academia. so i can't lose any more time. so i need to be very fast and efficient now and do everything at once!)
but i am staying sane, i believe, most of the time anyway. in some sense the PhD helps me to keep my sanity. in my last 8-5 job i had quite some trouble with sleeping, which didn't help with my mental health. now, when i can't sleep, i stay at home longer in the morning. i get the same amount of work done but at different times and am not over-tired all the time.
i also had a job at some time, with a lot of responsability, for a company, for people. that was very stressful. now, doing the PhD, i am responsible to myself and my research, that is a lot more manageable and indeed helps to keep me sane!

I'm sane- at least I think I am!!

I'm liking my PhD. I think I spend too much time doing not enough, hence spend a lot of time feeling guilty but I still enjoy the learning.

deciding to do PhD was the best decision I have made. I love it. I'm stressed juggling day job with PhD though, not PhD itself.

wibble

yes, i can see the point. however i think that things are not black or white. you can enjoy something and at the same time moan about it. it comes down to personal experiences. i for one have always been a very anxious person so it comes as no surprise that it affected the PhD as well.

I think I am staying sane. I have the every day aggravations that just come with life, like a very slow computer on a very slow network but other than that right now I do not have any major complaints. The PhD has its moments that are enjoyable, others that are boring, few that are highly stress ridden.

Yep staying sane too. I agree with ROsy - the PhD is important but not worth losing my mental health over. I manage to do a lot of non PhD things with my time (tho perhaps this won't happen so much in my second year... we wil see)

To be honest, I find this a bit offensive.

I think I meant "insensitive" rather than offensive.

Oh right, trying to find the positive in things is so insensitive of me... trying to be upbeat about things and not give into depression... you're right, I'm such a cow.

No, I don't think you're a cow - not in the least. And it's obviously good to find positive things to say.

I just meant that the way the original post was phrased sounded a little like a bit of a veiled criticism of people who were feeling negative (the word "backlash", I think). This could be quite upsetting if you are feeling negative, as many of us are.

I thought perhaps just saying "let's have a positive thread" might have been a bit more tactful. Just a thought, really.

When I said 'backlash against negative posting' I was referring to the other thread (which has now disappeared) in which people criticised Badhaircut for being negative about postdoc work.

I was not trying to belittle anyone who is suffering from health problems, mental or otherwise, PhD-related or otherwise...

I was simply trying to start a positive thread to say "I am trying not to get too stressed out about things".