16 days in isolation.
So it's been 16 days (approximately, I am not good at counting days) that I have been home.
This last week was kinda rough. I am working sub par (I haven't yet found the best way to concentrate), and my zurich advisor has been bored at home, I presume, so we interact a lot and discuss a lot, which means we made good progress on the paper, but also that I pretty much worked exclusively on this topic. Not being able to work very well - I make mistakes and fuckups, etc and in general just felt stupid a lot, which compounded with loneliness, started getting to me a bit, and all these thoughts of me being stupid and not deserving a PhD are resurfacing. It doesn't matter if this is indeed true or not - for a long time I was able to work despite this, and now, these thoughs evade my head when I am working, and it's hardly helpful.
Finally, most things seem to be working well, so forward with the paper!
Another thing I noticed was that initially, I was very eager to talk to people - and now, I don't really want to. I stopped responding to most texts and requests for calls, sporadic ways to hang out. Like, I don't want to talk, leave me alone. I feel annoyed and it's a weird feeling, because usually I find people very interesting.
I feel like I am regressing a bit to my 15-17 year old self. When I was living in Portugal, I wasn't allowed to leave the house much except for school and music school, so most of my social life was online. I was painfully shy and much more of a loser than I am right now. I wasn't able to articulate properly and I was very scared of social interaction (like, I would pretend to stare at my phone or look the other way when I saw people I knew and wanted to talk to). Now, I am low key concerned that the person I have been building for the past 10 years - after I left home, is getting dorment. For a good reason, mind you. The person I become is this super annoying extroverted, need attention, loud, touchy person. Maybe this is a good coping mechanism for the situation, to go back to being the misantropic, "I need nobody but videogames and online friends, the external world is anyways annoying", type of vibe. But still, it's a regression in my opinion.
Of course all this is sorta seasonal. This week was rough, I slept less than usual. I also exercise less, so yea, just fleeting thoughts that maybe don't mean much.
This last week was kinda rough. I am working sub par (I haven't yet found the best way to concentrate), and my zurich advisor has been bored at home, I presume, so we interact a lot and discuss a lot, which means we made good progress on the paper, but also that I pretty much worked exclusively on this topic. Not being able to work very well - I make mistakes and fuckups, etc and in general just felt stupid a lot, which compounded with loneliness, started getting to me a bit, and all these thoughts of me being stupid and not deserving a PhD are resurfacing. It doesn't matter if this is indeed true or not - for a long time I was able to work despite this, and now, these thoughs evade my head when I am working, and it's hardly helpful.
Finally, most things seem to be working well, so forward with the paper!
Another thing I noticed was that initially, I was very eager to talk to people - and now, I don't really want to. I stopped responding to most texts and requests for calls, sporadic ways to hang out. Like, I don't want to talk, leave me alone. I feel annoyed and it's a weird feeling, because usually I find people very interesting.
I feel like I am regressing a bit to my 15-17 year old self. When I was living in Portugal, I wasn't allowed to leave the house much except for school and music school, so most of my social life was online. I was painfully shy and much more of a loser than I am right now. I wasn't able to articulate properly and I was very scared of social interaction (like, I would pretend to stare at my phone or look the other way when I saw people I knew and wanted to talk to). Now, I am low key concerned that the person I have been building for the past 10 years - after I left home, is getting dorment. For a good reason, mind you. The person I become is this super annoying extroverted, need attention, loud, touchy person. Maybe this is a good coping mechanism for the situation, to go back to being the misantropic, "I need nobody but videogames and online friends, the external world is anyways annoying", type of vibe. But still, it's a regression in my opinion.
Of course all this is sorta seasonal. This week was rough, I slept less than usual. I also exercise less, so yea, just fleeting thoughts that maybe don't mean much.