Hacker News Reader

Comment by bowsamic | Hacker News Reader

I’m just waiting for my depressing postdoc to end so I can take the money and then im out of here. Have hated every moment of it, considered suicide multiple times, etc. Very bad

View on HN

You considered suicide but not quitting? You're still waiting for your contract to end? I don't understand.

It’s guaranteed money for the next year and a half and I’m basically totally isolated with no expectations of me actually doing anything. In addition, I will be forced to leave the country if I quit. Therefore it makes no sense to quit. Also there is not anything else I want to do. I would not be less suicidal if I quit

I know it never seems like the right time to do anything else than moving forward, but please seek help.

I am on the waiting list for therapy for a year. They told me it would be a year. I rang a couple weeks ago and they told me it would be another year. Help is not available. God knows I’ve tried

EDIT: Why downvote? What am I supposed to do?...I'm so tired

let me guess - it's in Germany.

Correct

Not sure if it would help, but if you're around the Berlin area and want to grab a beer or coffee with another guy that left academia for the industry (and still has delusions that someday will submit his thesis), hit me up.

Isolation is a real problem in this country. Did you also make the mistake of moving to a small city? I spent my last four years at a TU in a small city and it was horrible here. Just one more general problem with this country.

I do understand how do you feel. I quit my PhD, it was crazy.

Then the life was better, having normal jobs. Now I have another very difficult situation in life and there is no chance to get professional help. At least some friends are helping.

If you are from south Germany, let me know, we can grab a beer and talk. The life will be better again!

Ignore the downvotes, I'm not sure which country you are in but there are other suicide prevention services in most of them, phone helplines, charities and other options.

And while I know that you don't feel like you have energy to seek for help, please consider do a Google search and reach out to one of the helplines, they will help you find a way out and figure out how you can get some form of help on a shorter notice. Also you have done the first step which is usually the hardest, realised you need help.

Upvoted you to counter the down votes, if it does indeed work that way. Please connect with the guy who has offered to met you.

To the mods: Agreed that making a system that satisfies everybody is difficult, but one cannot in good conscience have a system where a mob might have it's way.

But suicide being your only other perceived alternative means something isn't right. Please get some help - your life is worth more than that.

Man, I'm sorry to break it to you in this way, but it's up to you to make your life and research interesting. Don't waste time with the bullshit. Try to solve real problems and work towards concretising them.

I’m simply not interested anymore

I feel you. And you know what, it's really ok. It's difficult to accept because sometimes our disciplines have become parts of our identity. But the moment I accepted that I didn't need to love it, and I could move on and do many exciting things with my good education, life became so much better.

Enjoy the rest of your postdoc. Do what you need to do without stressing too much. Also look at the other things in it that you may like: perhaps working with students, perhaps writing an open source software, perhaps volunteering for some extra teaching duty if you hate research, etc. A postdoc can be many things. This is what I'm doing now.

And if you can't wait, start looking for jobs and then quit. Looking for jobs can in itself be uplifting.

Sorry for the preachy tone -- I don't know your situation and I'm more telling you about mine. In the end that's how I managed and it went ok.

> Try to solve real problems

All the engineers working on AdTech and surveillance capitalism solving real problems with billion dollar budgets

All the PhDs researching new physics and fighting for scraps of funding be losers /s

Because when you find a new law of physics you can't patent it.

But if you make a newfangled device thanks to that new physics law you can put a nice patent on it and earn millions

Reply on news.ycombinator.com