How Can I Academia When My Brain Can't Even? Mental Health in Grad School and Beyond
summary
Personal account of a bipolar diagnosis, internship at MSR and a transition to industry at Galois, and concrete coping strategies: therapy and psychiatric medication trials, executive dysfunction as the real failure mode, and practical tactics like asking for flexible deadlines, timeboxing work sessions, frequent advisor check‑ins, mindfulness and rest. Cites surprising prevalence (about 47% depressed among grad students), explains how academic structures worsen symptoms, and gives examples that did and didn’t work.
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chapters (13)
- 0:00Intro
- 2:23Timeline
- 4:25Story Time
- 8:21What Happened Next
- 13:24Why I Left
- 16:54Correlations
- 21:31Executive Dysfunction
- 22:58Lazy
- 26:53Creating Shame
- 28:30Rest is not laziness
- 30:06Imposter syndrome
- 33:06Fears
- 35:59Hope is sustainable
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