By: Kevin Hillman,
Fourth Year PhD Student in Urban Education Studies
I am not ashamed to say that I am someone who lives with Anxiety. I was diagnosed in 2016 and have been off and on with therapy and medication since. With my diagnosis I came to understand that my anxiety fluctuates between moderate and severe, meaning I have some really bad days sprinkled into most of my good days.
Since starting my PhD program in fall of 2017, it has been a journey with self-care and self-worth. According to PsychCentral blog, “self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health.” Self-worth, according to Merriam-Webster dictionary is “a sense of one’s own value as a human being.”
When I started this journey, I thought self-care and self-worth were all about distancing myself from people and things that were negative and caused me stress. I thought planning weekly activities such as going to the movies, intentionally making time to spend with friends and loved ones and regular exercise would be a great self-care routine. Though these were great activities and a good beginning routine, I failed to recognize and acknowledge one major area. I didn’t realize that I needed to truly examine how I cared for and valued myself. It wasn’t until recently, in light of the pandemic and racial unrest, that I came to this realization.
Pursuing a PhD is one of the hardest, if not the hardest thing I have ever done. I have been challenged, stretched, and taken out of my comfort zone- ultimately changing and reshaping how I view and move throughout the world. Through these changed eyes, I decided to look inward and saw that I had not been good to myself. I didn’t give myself grace when I didn’t understand something, at times I had unrealistic expectations for myself, negative self-talk, and pushing myself- at times resulting in no sleep and contributing to my own anxiety. I had to have a hard conversation with myself, recognizing my own self-sabotage and burn-out. If I continued, I knew that I wouldn’t finish my PhD.
How could I value my knowledge and research, hoping it would have a great impact on the world but I couldn’t value myself-the person behind all the work?
Currently, I am going into my fourth session with my new therapist and I wish I had done this sooner. I can see how much this could have benefitted me in my first 3 years of my PhD program and even though I didn’t start 3 years ago, I started now and that’s what matters.
Resources for students:
https://studentaffairs.iupui.edu/health/counseling-psychological/index.html