Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site frog.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!gamma!epsilon!zeta!sabre!petrus!bellcore!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!frog!wjr From: wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert) Newsgroups: net.suicide,net.college Subject: Re: info on depression, and helping a friend (query) Message-ID: <681@frog.UUCP> Date: Tue, 4-Mar-86 22:56:47 EST Article-I.D.: frog.681 Posted: Tue Mar 4 22:56:47 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Mar-86 08:02:32 EST References: <120@phoenix.UUCP> Reply-To: wjr@frog.UUCP (STella Calvert) Organization: The Church of the Holy Starship Lines: 68 Xref: watmath net.suicide:866 net.college:1200 In article <120@phoenix.UUCP> jevans@phoenix.UUCP (Janet Evans) writes: I regret that I can't pull the title of a book I glanced at in a mall out of my flakey memory. The author's main thesis seemed to be that people who have a history of achievement are prone to be afraid of being exposed as a faker/failure. After all, you don't really deserve to win big unless you _suffer_ for it. You can probably find the book by poking around the self-improvement/feelgood section of a slick bookstore if this doesn't provoke someone else into posting the title. (I'm sorry, but I spent less than five minutes flipping pages....) (It might have been _The Impostor _....) >He went through school at an abnormally high pace, so I suspect he's never >really had problems like this before. Exactly! When I was an overconfident undergraduate I really felt like an idiot when my average dropped the term I tried taking two languages simultaneously. If you're used to school not being a challenge, it really boggles you the first time you hit something that makes you work for a change. And by the time that happens, you can easily be so close to graduation that you're tempted to try to bruteforce a solution, rather than taking the time off you deserve. If your friend galloped through school to this point, it might be a good idea for him to _consider_ taking a term or year off, travelling, or whatever his relaxation of choice might be. To be a graduate student, he must have been doing school more or less continuously for _sixteen_ years or so. He owes himself a break! And it seems to me that his emotions are trying to tell him. It also occurs to me that he might be working up a case of separation anxiety -- for more than 16 years his world has been a series of classrooms. And now he's really close to being forced to give up student status -- how many post-grad degrees can you get? Could this be part of it? >(I doubt he's suicidal, by the way; >I think he looks down on that way out of problems.) That doesn't necessarily prevent someone from trying suicide. In fact, if you define suicide as the weakling's way out, and simultaneously find impulses toward death in your mind, this doesn't exactly help your self-image. ("Only a gutless wonder would consider suicide." "But I'm considering suicide!" "Then go ahead, the world doesn't need gutless wonders." Amazing how we use our values to tie our heads in knots, isn't it....) I'd suggest that he find some way of opting out for a few days (or longer, if he chooses -- even much longer!). I've dropped out and returned to school with considerable benefit from the non-academic learning. He might even consider working for a while (does he have any non-computer interests he could market for a more complete change of pace?) But the most important thing (I think) you can do for him is to let him know that you care, and that he's not the only person to be close to the end of his studies to be nervous about whether or not he's prepared to face what we laughingly (cryingly?) call the REAL WORLD. STella Calvert Do what thou wilt -- not just a good idea, it's the law! Guest on Account: ...!mit-eddie!frog!wjr Life: Baltimore!AnnArbor!!Taxachusetts Future: ... (!L5!TheBelt!InterstellarSpace)