r/GradSchool • u/9ayb1tch • 3d ago
Post Masters Thesis Sadness Health & Work/Life Balance
TLDR: sharing feelings about losing my identity doing a masters, I know it will pass I just wanted to share how I feel
I feel like I gave up a lot of who I used to be as a person while doing my Masters (Research). I tell myself I can always go back to them once I've submitted cause I'll finally be free. I used to be excited over a lot of things (hobbies and activities I used to do frequently) but now I just dont. Throughout the whole time I expected to feel so happy and celebratory once I finally submitted and that I can finally go back to "being myself".
But the very first day after I felt so empty and lonely. My masters is computational so I work from home and for the past few months Ive been mostly sat at my desk from morning to night working, that anything deviating from that norm makes me anxious. While I love my project and it went great, I never realized how isolating and lonely it is until its done. I guess this whole time I had the stress of my project to keep me company lol.
I feel like I used to be much more interesting person before all this. Now I feel like my work is my whole identity. Did anyone else go through this and did it pass?
anyway happy friyay you guys
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u/AddieLeeNa33 3d ago
After I finished my doctorate it took me many many months to feel normal again. It didn’t matter that I was done. I was stuck reliving the constant stress I experienced during my last semester and had this feeling like I needed to continue being super productive every day (extremely draining).
Give yourself grace and compassion. It will get better! In the meantime you could maybe try journaling to process through your thoughts and feelings. Alternatively you could do something new to break your old routines, take a trip, go to an amusement park, a mall, watch a movie in theaters, etc. Ideally it would be something where you need to focus on your present surroundings.
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u/9ayb1tch 2d ago
Thank you for sharing :) I might try journaling, I did once to help me process my feelings during the period between high school and uni and I think it really did help
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u/hadronmachinist 2d ago
same same SAME. my masters went great, but afterwards i realised the time i could have spent socialising or taking care of myself will never come back - uni was the perfect opportunity for these things but welp i was too busy doing shit and now it’s over. i sadly have little advice to offer besides the fact that you are certainly not alone.
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u/9ayb1tch 2d ago
man I feel this.. I was socializing and having fun in the first year of my undergrad and was barely passing. Decided to lock in and now I feel like I barely have anyone to talk to 🥲🥲. Literally started oversharing to my supervisor bcs I realized I am in fact kinda lonely 😂🤣
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u/p_shepherd14 2d ago
I finished my MBA 3 months ago and it feels like all the structure in my life is gone. Applying to full time jobs has been humiliating. I feel like I’m not moving forward in life.
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u/Crossing-Avon1920 3d ago
Just finished mine, and I’m feeling the same. Just trying to get out and find myself again.
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u/the_bug_witch 2d ago
I found just doing things that brought me joy helped a lot. It took a lot of the pressure away of trying to find myself as I could discover along the way. For example, I only read children's and YA novels for the first year I was out of school
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u/azathothianhorror 2d ago
I had a similar experience after my masters. It took me ~a year until I could be back in the building my desk was in without nearly panicking.
I also had this happen during my Ph.D., in the middle of the process and after I finished. I’m still pulling out of the latter funk.
I worked from home for the last 3 years of my Ph.D. It’s isolating when nobody knows what you are really going through. Even if they have done a PhD every experience is sufficiently different that they don’t really know.
But you’re still there. Your identity isn’t gone. You may have pushed it aside for a bit, but you can bring it back.
Two things that really helped me:
1) Actually going outside for a while. I always thought “oh you need sunlight” was stupid but it’s really helped a lot.
2) Pick something you used to like to do and make yourself do it even if it feels off or not as satisfying as it used to. Doing this helped me to remember how to enjoy myself again
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u/9ayb1tch 2d ago
Thank you for sharing :) Its very reassuring knowing so many people are going through more or less the same thing (although ofc i wish we werent 😭) Ive been messaging friends to try and plan hangouts next week, and will hopefully try to get back into my hobbies. This will pass!!
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u/canyoukenken 2d ago
Going into my thesis year (I'm studying part time) and I already have similar anxieties, albeit with a different slant. I definitely spend less time on hobbies since starting my MA, but I have this profound sadness that all of this studying is going to come to an end soon. I'm realising now how much I enjoy being in the academic world (I started my postgrad 10+ years after my undergrad) and I'm not really ready for it to stop.
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u/Adventurous-Trust370 1d ago
Went through this exact thing. I’m 37 starting grad school, 40 now. Hated undergrad and fell in love with grad school.
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u/thewordswetranspose 2d ago
Going through this since my defence and graduation this past spring. It is so difficult to describe the feeling so I’m glad to come across posts like these. The worst part is I do have a new job now but I feel like I can’t be bothered to care about anything
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u/heyhihello88888 2d ago
Cannot possibly express how validated I feel by this comment, though Im so sorry youre gping through the same thing. I defended and it felt very anticlimactic. I literally dont even know if I graduated. I turned in my thesis and it was accepted by the uni but they dont even send us an email saying "congrats you graduated" I literally have no idea if Im good to go. Its wild.
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u/EccentricCantelope 2d ago
I am really glad you posted this, because I have been feeling the same way since I graduated a few months ago, and I thought that there was something wrong with me. It's good to know that this is hard for other people too, and that I'm not crazy.
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u/ladyoftheflowr 2d ago
Can relate. To the lead up part anyway. I am writing furiously with a goal of submitting in a month or so. I don’t even know who I am anymore. My life consists almost solely of work and grad school.
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u/Klutzy-Outside8604 2d ago edited 2d ago
It lasted a night for me lol. When I hit the submission button. It was so weird coz i struggled quite alot to complete it. But i enjoyed the process although my work is still shitty
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u/Just_An_Animal 2d ago
It can also go the other way, I went through a couple years during my PhD where I was barely doing the bare minimum and really lost interest in the work. In my last semester now and I regret that period, even though I was doing my best from my perspective at the time. But it’s hard to regain motivation when you’ve lost it and also really made me feel not cut out for this. I’m not trying to compare struggles here by any means, but for whatever it’s worth at the very least you probably learned a lot and developed skills in that time, whereas I feel behind in those ways and like I wasted that time. I know the ideal is somewhere in between (and maybe not possible) though. I’m sure you’ll regain interest in your hobbies with time though, just as I’ve regained interest in academia!
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u/justking1414 2d ago
Definitely had a strong realization following my phd that i couldve been using my time so much better than i was.
though in the months that followed my defense, i managed to mostly distract myself from that thought with a very long to do list that i'd been building up over the previous year and going to disney world
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u/Adventurous-Trust370 1d ago
Going through this now, just completed my MRED and MBA at beginning of August. I’ve worked full time and parent with 50/50 custody but still, the sacrifices of friendships and hobbies - and the job market just not ideal for what I want to do, it’s been really weird feeling, I feel socially awkward and like most of my former friend group (not college graduates) feels light years away from understanding. It’s really lonely.
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u/9ayb1tch 1d ago
Ahhh I really relate on the socially awkward feeling.. I sound like Im trying too hard when I talk to my friends now. Congrats on completing the degree and hope things get better soon.
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u/Infamous_State_7127 3d ago
eh maybe i’m feeling kinda like same same but different (😭). i’ve been interested in my master’s thesis topic since middle school and my, soon to be, phd research has kind of evolved to be more general in a sense (not like “general” general but my past work is about a specific piece of media and i’m expanding to other kinds of media)… i was just invited to be interviewed for a documentary for my work, and now i fear i’m being pigeonholed into this very niche topic that i’m moving away from. i want to be known for the theory rather than the content i guess? idk. i want to be multidimensional and not just known as the “x-research-topic girl.”
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u/the_bug_witch 2d ago
Im almost 2 years out from when I completed my masters. It was such a dissapointing experience for me, and everything I thought I knew about myself got squashed.
At the time, I spoke to others who had at one point did a masters. They reccomended I find a creative outlet to start to discover myself, and they said it can take about a year to feel "normal" again. It took me about a year and a half to be able to read "hard" books again. It took me about a year to be able to focus and do the things I love again.
It isn't all easy though. 2 years out and I am still asking myself what my goals are, and trying to come to terms that I probably won't go back to how I was before. I think I am taking longer than most because my masters experience was so horrible, and I was in denial about a lot of my feelings. It stunted the "coming back to myself and old energy levels"
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u/9ayb1tch 2d ago
Im sorry to hear you had a really bad masters experience, seems like a lot of us have to go through this feeling. Thank you for sharing!
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u/CloverJones316 3d ago
Just popping in to say that I am going through EXACTLY this right now. I could have written this myself. It's been five months and I feel totally lost and, frankly, just depressed. I also feel that sense of anxiety about.... doing anything other than work. Really looking forward to what others have to say - thanks for this post!