Meeting: the challenge

I have achieved menopause, I am going through an AuDHD diagnosis, and I’m an introvert … all these yummy talents mean I have a few challenges which I know are impacting on my PhD – and will do in the future.

Today’s challenge discussion is meetings, supervision meetings to be exact (although confirmation panel and the viva run alongside).

I do not think well on my feet, I never really have, I am more comfortable when I have time to digest and reflect and the write my thoughts in response. Since menopause it has got worse, my memory is not like a sieve anymore, it is more akin to a bucket with one big hole in it. Information swirls around and drains out and trying to catch it is difficult. I forget words, which makes me embarrassed and anxious – hell I’ve even forgotten the name of a main character in a book I have read multiple times – so retaining and recalling information ‘on the fly’ from papers I’ve read maybe once is frustratingly hard.

Conversations go like –

(supervisor) “What did you read this month that you found interesting and relevant?”

(me) “mind immediately goes blank, did I read anything this week? what was that paper by whosisname and I think he said xyz, I know I wrote it down but which notebook or app? I don’t know, what can I say, I am sat here looking like a dufuss, why am I here, why are my thoughts all racing around, where’s the one I want …”

And please do not get me wrong, my supervisors are the nicest, most understanding and patient people, I know they want me to succeed, I’ve known them for ages before they were my supervisors. And I feel so sorry for them (sometimes) 🙂

I know that these meetings are important, however, PhD supervision is set up in a certain way to be a certain ‘thing’, and that ‘thing’ does not work for me very well. And then, to top all this off, I have a typically ADHD thing called Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) which I am working on, but that exacerbates the already present challenges with self-worth that was gifted as part of growing up and beyond. Given time to process I can deal with most things, but in the moment everything becomes too much.

I am working on this, my therapist once said to think of statements people make as though they were said in a court of law, and would they stand up to scrutiny. I can do this, but I need time.

Anyway, these are my thoughts for today, and while I would love something like asynchronous supervision where almost everything is done via messages rather than in-person and in-the moment, I know it’s not possible and I will suck it up and deal with it. But is a challenge.