How to not go insane

[dcc777]

In the fall, I will be off to a clinical psychology program and will need to adjust to the following:

- Moving away from home for the first time (as in farther than 20 minutes from my parents)
- Being in a cold state, where there are actually seasons and it snows like crazy as opposed to the year-round summer I'm used to...should I get snow tires/chains?
- Being long distance with my fiance
- Transitioning from undergrad where I'm rarely stressed to a graduate program where I will apparently be stressed 9000% of the time and where everyone knows more than I do.
- Being in a strange city where I know nothing about anything
- Not knowing anyone
- The other million things that run through my head on a daily basis that will be new to me.

Do any grad students who have maybe made these same adjustments have any tips for better adjusting to all these new changes? I'm slightly terrified. Thanks

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[Pragma]

In the fall, I will be off to a clinical psychology program and will need to adjust to the following:

- Moving away from home for the first time (as in farther than 20 minutes from my parents)
- Being in a cold state, where there are actually seasons and it snows like crazy as opposed to the year-round summer I'm used to...should I get snow tires/chains?
- Being long distance with my fiance
- Transitioning from undergrad where I'm rarely stressed to a graduate program where I will apparently be stressed 9000% of the time and where everyone knows more than I do.
- Being in a strange city where I know nothing about anything
- Not knowing anyone
- The other million things that run through my head on a daily basis that will be new to me.

Do any grad students who have maybe made these same adjustments have any tips for better adjusting to all these new changes? I'm slightly terrified. Thanks

Happy hour with your cohort once a week. Take one night off of work out of the 7 at least. Also, make some friends outside of school. They help you realize not everyone is a crazy psychology graduate student. My friends outside of school helped keep me sane, and my friends in school helped me realize I was not crazy (or at least not as crazy as they were).

 

[Zebra F701]

Happy hour with your cohort once a week. Take one night off of work out of the 7 at least. Also, make some friends outside of school. They help you realize not everyone is a crazy psychology graduate student. My friends outside of school helped keep me sane, and my friends in school helped me realize I was not crazy (or at least not as crazy as they were).

Great quote!

 

[heshmonster]

Scotch. And a good fiction to read away from all the course work. Best paired together.

 

[erg923]

Scotch. And a good fiction to read away from all the course work. Best paired together.

I would go insane being 20 minutes FROM my parents.

PS: Parents become more appealing when you wife gives birth. We are not quite there yet.

 

[Ettevi05]

I moved 6 hours away from home during my undergrad career and it was a little upsetting at first, but I guess it just takes some time to get used to. If you have extra time look into the Graduate Student Association in your university and try to attend some of their socials (in my school it's a big organization that mainly provides moral support to students).

 

[wigflip]

I would go insane being 20 minutes FROM my parents.

I don't know how old you are erg, but yeah, people from my generation are more concerned with living far enough away from their parents that their parents can't "get them." The millennial gen folks really seem to dig their parents, don't they?

OP, I'd say that drinking the scotch and making friends outside the department (preferably outside academia altogether) are sound pieces of advice. That is, drink the scotch, but not the (grad school) Koolaid.

 

[Psychadelic2012]

I would go insane being 20 minutes FROM my parents.

PS: Parents become more appealing when you wife gives birth. We are not quite there yet.

I don't know how old you are erg, but yeah, people from my generation are more concerned with living far enough away from their parents that their parents can't "get them." The millennial gen folks really seem to dig their parents, don't they?

Hell, I feel so old that everyone who still has living parents somehow seems young to me. Sigh. I digress...

 

[erg923]

I don't know how old you are erg, but yeah, people from my generation are more concerned with living far enough away from their parents that their parents can't "get them." The millennial gen folks really seem to dig their parents, don't they?

OP, I'd say that drinking the scotch and making friends outside the department (preferably outside academia altogether) are sound pieces of advice. That is, drink the scotch, but not the (grad school) Koolaid.

I "dig" my parents for dinners, lunches, birthdays, holidays...as well as playing golf and attending and talking about sporting events (father). Thats really about all.

 

[cara susanna]

Haha, I'm in the younger generation (I think) and I like to have a few hour buffer zone.

 

[PsyDLICSW]

In the fall, I will be off to a clinical psychology program and will need to adjust to the following:

- Moving away from home for the first time (as in farther than 20 minutes from my parents)
- Being in a cold state, where there are actually seasons and it snows like crazy as opposed to the year-round summer I'm used to...should I get snow tires/chains?
- Being long distance with my fiance
- Transitioning from undergrad where I'm rarely stressed to a graduate program where I will apparently be stressed 9000% of the time and where everyone knows more than I do.
- Being in a strange city where I know nothing about anything
- Not knowing anyone
- The other million things that run through my head on a daily basis that will be new to me.

Do any grad students who have maybe made these same adjustments have any tips for better adjusting to all these new changes? I'm slightly terrified. Thanks

I live apart from my spouse (3 hours). We were engaged before I got into my program and got married almost one year in to my program. My situation may be different from yours, so take my post with a grain of salt. Living apart from my spouse casued a huge amount of resentment and conflict, because he dicided to do an optional post doc right in the middle of my application process without consulting with me about it. He already had his doctorate (non-psychology, health care provider) and decided to do a post doc that he did not need instead of get a job and go with me to get my doctorate. There was a clinical psychology program at his post doc school, but it is a REALLY competitive R1 PhD program and I am more practice focsued with average GREs. He assumed I could get in to this program and did not listen when I told him that it was impossible. Long story short, I decided to do a university based PsyD program about three hours drive away. We have lived apart for three years now and although our relationship is not over or horrible, the distance and circumstances caused significant damage to our relaitonship. If you can avoid living apart from your fiance, do anything you can to avoid it. If you cannot avoid it, I suggest discussing the situation with your fiance and make sure you are on the same page about living apart. If he/she is against it, it is better to know now rather than later. Be honest about what you can handle and make sure your fiance is honest about what he/she can handle. If things get really bad in your relationship (and in my case it got really bad, the D-word bad) I suggest couples therapy. There are counselors that see couples during evenings and on Saturdays to fit our schedule. We see the counselor in my husband's town because it is a larger city and more private for me. Therapy has not erased the resentment complpetely (yet), but it has helped heal some of the damage. Hope this helps! Again, this is not to scare you. It is to help avoid the mistakes that I made by not verbalizing about my feelings about my husband's post doc decision strongly enough (I was adamantly against it and he did not listen to me) and not honest with him or myself about what I could handle.

 

[dcc777]

I live apart from my spouse (3 hours). We were engaged before I got into my program and got married almost one year in to my program. My situation may be different from yours, so take my post with a grain of salt. Living apart from my spouse casued a huge amount of resentment and conflict, because he dicided to do an optional post doc right in the middle of my application process without consulting with me about it. He already had his doctorate (non-psychology, health care provider) and decided to do a post doc that he did not need instead of get a job and go with me to get my doctorate. There was a clinical psychology program at his post doc school, but it is a REALLY competitive R1 PhD program and I am more practice focsued with average GREs. He assumed I could get in to this program and did not listen when I told him that it was impossible. Long story short, I decided to do a university based PsyD program about three hours drive away. We have lived apart for three years now and although our relationship is not over or horrible, the distance and circumstances caused significant damage to our relaitonship. If you can avoid living apart from your fiance, do anything you can to avoid it. If you cannot avoid it, I suggest discussing the situation with your fiance and make sure you are on the same page about living apart. If he/she is against it, it is better to know now rather than later. Be honest about what you can handle and make sure your fiance is honest about what he/she can handle. If things get really bad in your relationship (and in my case it got really bad, the D-word bad) I suggest couples therapy. There are counselors that see couples during evenings and on Saturdays to fit our schedule. We see the counselor in my husband's town because it is a larger city and more private for me. Therapy has not erased the resentment complpetely (yet), but it has helped heal some of the damage. Hope this helps! Again, this is not to scare you. It is to help avoid the mistakes that I made by not verbalizing about my feelings about my husband's post doc decision strongly enough (I was adamantly against it and he did not listen to me) and not honest with him or myself about what I could handle.

That was extremely helpful, thank you for your input! I wish you and your husband the best of luck in getting through the rest of your schooling together.

 

[wigflip]

I live apart from my spouse (3 hours). Living apart from my spouse casued a huge amount of resentment and conflict...the distance and circumstances caused significant damage to our relaitonship. If you can avoid living apart from your fiance, do anything you can to avoid it. If you cannot avoid it, I suggest discussing the situation with your fiance and make sure you are on the same page about living apart. If he/she is against it, it is better to know now rather than later. Be honest about what you can handle and make sure your fiance is honest about what he/she can handle.

I was resisting going here, but since someone else raised the topic: Ditto. Hubby and I are back in the same city now, but living apart damaged both my relationship (which was long-standing and rock solid before grad school) and my grad school/academic career prospects. Unless OP isn't serious about the fiance (thinks of it as a "starter marriage" or fiance = we think maybe we'll get married five or so years down the road if things go well) I'd also advise against living apart, especially for more than a year. As far as knowing what we could handle in advance, for us it really was a matter of not knowing what you don't know, which was just how hard the separation would be.

If the separation is absolutely unavoidable, I'd say the best thing you can do is to have a concrete plan (we will see each other X number of times a term; you will travel to me on these dates and I will travel to you on those dates; if it gets really bad we'll do Y). The grad students I know who didn't make specific arrangements or couldn't face having these types of difficult discussions (and instead simply trusted that "things would work out") ended up splitting up with their long distance partners.

 

[dcc777]

I was resisting going here, but since someone else raised the topic: Ditto. Hubby and I are back in the same city now, but living apart damaged both my relationship (which was long-standing and rock solid before grad school) and my grad school/academic career prospects. Unless OP isn't serious about the fiance (thinks of it as a "starter marriage" or fiance = we think maybe we'll get married five or so years down the road if things go well) I'd also advise against living apart, especially for more than a year. As far as knowing what we could handle in advance, for us it really was a matter of not knowing what you don't know, which was just how hard the separation would be.

If the separation is absolutely unavoidable, I'd say the best thing you can do is to have a concrete plan (we will see each other X number of times a term; you will travel to me on these dates and I will travel to you on those dates; if it gets really bad we'll do Y). The grad students I know who didn't make specific arrangements or couldn't face having these types of difficult discussions (and instead simply trusted that "things would work out") ended up splitting up with their long distance partners.

I definitely think I am underestimating how difficult it will be. My idea is that I will be so busy the first year adjusting to all of the previous stated things that it will make the sting a little easier.

We already have weekends planned to visit each other.

We've been together 5+ years and are planning on getting married within the next 2.

We will only be apart for the first year. I am looking forward to our visits together and holidays.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

The single best recommendation I have is to make friends outside of psychology, or at least outside of clinical psychology. Not that you can't have fun hanging out with clinical psych students, of course; but ultimately, when doing so, you're going to default to talking about school at least semi-frequently, and that can wear on you very quickly if you don't have a separate group of friends with whom the specifics of psych never come up. Part of this is because, as I've noticed over the years, clinical psych grad students--if given the chance and when surrounded by other clinical psych grad students--like to complain about school. A lot. And complaining about school starts to irritate you even more quickly than just frequently talking about school.

My first couple years in my program, I mainly only got together with other people in the program. Luckily, I lived "close enough" to home that I could make the drive once every month or two and decomp. Otherwise, I have a feeling things might've been pretty rough. My last few years at school, nearly all of my friends were grad students in areas other than psych. This provided the advantage of us all being able to understand the general ins and outs of grad school, while still allowing us to escape our specific topic areas.

 

[wigflip]

I definitely think I am underestimating how difficult it will be. My idea is that I will be so busy the first year adjusting to all of the previous stated things that it will make the sting a little easier.

We already have weekends planned to visit each other.

We've been together 5+ years and are planning on getting married within the next 2.

We will only be apart for the first year. I am looking forward to our visits together and holidays.

for us it definitely got worse each year; if it had been just for one year i think we would have handled it a lot better.

good luck and congrats on starting your new program.

 

[Pragma]

I definitely think I am underestimating how difficult it will be. My idea is that I will be so busy the first year adjusting to all of the previous stated things that it will make the sting a little easier.

We already have weekends planned to visit each other.

We've been together 5+ years and are planning on getting married within the next 2.

We will only be apart for the first year. I am looking forward to our visits together and holidays.

Good luck and I have heard of folks who have been very successful. The duration of your relationship should help.

I got married right before graduate school. We never considered living apart and never did, but sacrifices were made in order to remain living together (i.e., opportunities missed). I wouldn't have done it any other way, although I know folks who did live apart and made it work.

 

[Ollie123]

Girlfriend (now fiancee as of a few weeks ago) has been living literally at the other end of the globe for 2 years. We had only been dating for 6 months when she had to move away. We've seen eachother twice in that time frame, and it took around 30 hours of travel (each way) to do it. Skype conversations occur at brutal times because of ridiculous time zone issues. Long distance isn't easy, but is possible. Wedding planning in the works and she should be back for good sometime in 2012. Just had to provide some contrast

Edit: Side note - best advice I can give is to embrace the insanity! Grad school is ridiculously stressful. I am in a particularly stressful period right now. Ride the wave and recognize that it DOES come in waves (i.e. won't keep getting worse and worse). Enjoy your free time, make friends, but recognize that it IS a ridiculously strange and stressful experience and that a little insanity is okay

 

[mla123]

I totally agree with the MAKE FRIENDS OUTSIDE YOUR PROGRAM. Seriously. Exercise helps with stress reduction (and keep you from gaining 50 lbs from all that scotch you'll be drinking ). Oh, and I found that keeping in touch with friends from undergrad/high school (especially those who were also in grad school) helped keep me grounded as well.

BTW- I got married about a year ago and my spouse and I will be living apart soon (I got an out of state practicum...long story) for 1-2 years. I'm not naiive to the fact that it'll be crazy hard, but we are completely committed to each other (e.g., we got a covenant marriage and refuse to ever use the "D word"). So although not speaking from experience, I think it's do-able. Just make each other a priority.

Good luck!

 

[Veritas86]

+1 for making friends outside the program and excercise.

My advice is to pick up a team sport or group workout like martial arts, etc. Gives you a little more motivation to do it and hey, may even make a new friend.

And out of program friends may not understand, but they're a different kind of crazy about their own things. It's good for the soul.

 

[PsyDLICSW]

Not to pick on you, but it is interesting that you say "his posdoc decision" along with your description that he didn't need it. There are two sides to the equation.

Dual careers are challenging. I think your ability to handle separation and the stresses associated with life are dependent on your individual temperaments and how well you fit together. If the couple doesn't fight well, can't resolve conflict without placing blame, kitchen-sinks, etc... you're screwed regardless of whether or not you live apart. A good relationship is a good relationship in my opinion.


my experience: I lived separately from a now ex-wife. We got along much better living apart - bad sign

You are right about dual careers being challenging. Someone I know said that "a relationship can only survive one career." Not that this is true, but two career made it diffcult. To be more specific, my husband is a dentist, not a physician, not a psychologist, or other PhD. Destists typically do not do post docs and it is not required for them to do so like in medicine or psychology nowadays. Dentists graduate from dental school and then go into private practice. My husband could have worked as a general dentist while I was in school and then go back for post doc when I was finnished with my doctorate. That was the plan. My husband decided to do this post doc behind my back and the resentment and anger that this caused was exacerbated by the distance. I was not talking about the post doc itself.

I was trying to stress to the OP that he/she needs to clarify the plan and feelings about the distance and be honest. My husband was not honest with me about his plans and I was not aware of how I would hate the distance.

 

[Buzzwordsoldier]

Take a break from SDN. Reconsider opening that little brewpub on that island you once visited. Write like you're not going into debt doing it. Shmooze with the best. At least that's what works for me...

 

[heshmonster]

I don't know how old you are erg, but yeah, people from my generation are more concerned with living far enough away from their parents that their parents can't "get them." The millennial gen folks really seem to dig their parents, don't they?

OP, I'd say that drinking the scotch and making friends outside the department (preferably outside academia altogether) are sound pieces of advice. That is, drink the scotch, but not the (grad school) Koolaid.

Indeed. School would be a little be easier if we all took the time to reflect over a good scotch. Preferably with a particularly insightful friend, who is not also a graduate student in psychology. My most edifying, sanity preserving activities consists of having coffee/scotch with my comp lit. PhD friend, who knows more about psychology and people than anyone in my psych department. Without his outside perspective on my work, and the work being done in our department, I might indeed go insane. Which would require more scotch (that I cannot afford). An infinite regress threatens.

/me

 

[deleted106747]

I was resisting going here, but since someone else raised the topic: Ditto. Hubby and I are back in the same city now, but living apart damaged both my relationship (which was long-standing and rock solid before grad school) and my grad school/academic career prospects. Unless OP isn't serious about the fiance (thinks of it as a "starter marriage" or fiance = we think maybe we'll get married five or so years down the road if things go well) I'd also advise against living apart, especially for more than a year. As far as knowing what we could handle in advance, for us it really was a matter of not knowing what you don't know, which was just how hard the separation would be.

If the separation is absolutely unavoidable, I'd say the best thing you can do is to have a concrete plan (we will see each other X number of times a term; you will travel to me on these dates and I will travel to you on those dates; if it gets really bad we'll do Y). The grad students I know who didn't make specific arrangements or couldn't face having these types of difficult discussions (and instead simply trusted that "things would work out") ended up splitting up with their long distance partners.

ditto - rock solid relationship to rocky relationship. I do think we will survive our extended separation, but it is far more difficult than I imagined it would be.

 

[Pragma]

Indeed. School would be a little be easier if we all took the time to reflect over a good scotch. Preferably with a particularly insightful friend, who is not also a graduate student in psychology. My most edifying, sanity preserving activities consists of having coffee/scotch with my comp lit. PhD friend, who knows more about psychology and people than anyone in my psych department. Without his outside perspective on my work, and the work being done in our department, I might indeed go insane. Which would require more scotch (that I cannot afford). An infinite regress threatens.

/me

My best moments were at the bar with friends who had jobs...not only did they provide a non-academic perspective, but they also picked up the tab!

 

[g0708]

Just adding my two cents regarding the relationship thing. I'm married and while my husband and I won't be apart for the duration of my PhD, we were apart very early on in our relationship... 10 months before we were married, and almost a year after we were married. (Like over-seas distance, so no weekend visits possible) Yes it was incredibly hard, but communication, honesty, and taking time out of your day to stay in touch is important. Our relationship didn't suffer from the distance, it just made us appreciate the times we were close. Although what did get hard was balancing school (I was an undergrad at the time) and the relationship due to distance. Don't let one take too much time out of the other. It is possible to talk on the phone too long and for too many hours in the day and avoid getting work done. (This was my situation specifically). The opposite is also possible. A year isn't so bad...I hope everything will go well in that regard.

Cold weather is tough, but it's nothing a really fluffy, not so glamorous down coat won't fix. The lack of sun may get to you--but it's not impossible to get through. If you're in a city, there are plenty of places to find friends outside of your cohort, and of course there are always the people IN your cohort that will likely provide a positive support system.

Keep in touch with fiance, parents, friends from back home via skype. It does wonders.

Good luck!

 

[PhDToBe]

Girlfriend (now fiancee as of a few weeks ago) has been living literally at the other end of the globe for 2 years. We had only been dating for 6 months when she had to move away. We've seen eachother twice in that time frame, and it took around 30 hours of travel (each way) to do it. Skype conversations occur at brutal times because of ridiculous time zone issues. Long distance isn't easy, but is possible. Wedding planning in the works and she should be back for good sometime in 2012. Just had to provide some contrast

Edit: Side note - best advice I can give is to embrace the insanity! Grad school is ridiculously stressful. I am in a particularly stressful period right now. Ride the wave and recognize that it DOES come in waves (i.e. won't keep getting worse and worse). Enjoy your free time, make friends, but recognize that it IS a ridiculously strange and stressful experience and that a little insanity is okay

Wow, so you were dating your girlfriend for 6 months and have seen her two times in two years and you are engaged already? I am curious as to how you know if you are compatible together. I am truly not trying to be judgmental or critical; I am seriously amazed at how strong your relationship must be! I have never encountered a situation so drastic before.

 

[cara susanna]

You guys are making me terrified to move away from my boyfriend for internship and/or post-doc, haha.

 

[Ollie123]

Wow, so you were dating your girlfriend for 6 months and have seen her two times in two years and you are engaged already? I am curious as to how you know if you are compatible together. I am truly not trying to be judgmental or critical; I am seriously amazed at how strong your relationship must be! I have never encountered a situation so drastic before.

Sorry, I may have been unclear. We started dating when she was local, moved in together after a few months (long story and very fast for both of us, but it made logistical sense and we made the leap). So we had about 3-4 months of living together. Then she had to leave (Visa expired and she "owed service" to her country because of her fellowship). Since she left a bit less than 2 years ago, I went to see her for about 3 weeks last summer, and she was just here for about a month.

As for how we know we're compatible...the scientist in me wishes I had a rational explanation for it but I don't, but we are both certain, and knew very early on in our relationship. Neither of us is a "heart on your sleeve" kind of person...my previous relationship had been 5 years long and we were just at that point starting to move towards living together when things ended...so this was quite rapid.

It certainly isn't easy and when she first left, we both had doubts whether it would last. All those doubts disappeared once I went to visit her in her country, which was an incredible experience on numerous fronts. Its not easy - Skype is a godsend, though internet connections over there are not exactly outstanding. I think our biggest source of disagreement is the amount that I work (even when I was there I spent probably 2 solid days finalizing my thesis), but she works hard too and understands. We missed a party once because we got busy talking about the math underlying multiple regression (she was working as a statistician at that point)...we were sitting around a table with stats books out and all of a sudden it was 11:30 Once we made it through that first year apart, there was never really any question about whether we'd make it, just a matter of logistics.

 

[PhDToBe]

Sorry, I may have been unclear. We started dating when she was local, moved in together after a few months (long story and very fast for both of us, but it made logistical sense and we made the leap). So we had about 3-4 months of living together. Then she had to leave (Visa expired and she "owed service" to her country because of her fellowship). Since she left a bit less than 2 years ago, I went to see her for about 3 weeks last summer, and she was just here for about a month.

As for how we know we're compatible...the scientist in me wishes I had a rational explanation for it but I don't, but we are both certain, and knew very early on in our relationship. Neither of us is a "heart on your sleeve" kind of person...my previous relationship had been 5 years long and we were just at that point starting to move towards living together when things ended...so this was quite rapid.

It certainly isn't easy and when she first left, we both had doubts whether it would last. All those doubts disappeared once I went to visit her in her country, which was an incredible experience on numerous fronts. Its not easy - Skype is a godsend, though internet connections over there are not exactly outstanding. I think our biggest source of disagreement is the amount that I work (even when I was there I spent probably 2 solid days finalizing my thesis), but she works hard too and understands. We missed a party once because we got busy talking about the math underlying multiple regression (she was working as a statistician at that point)...we were sitting around a table with stats books out and all of a sudden it was 11:30 Once we made it through that first year apart, there was never really any question about whether we'd make it, just a matter of logistics.

Ok, that seems more doable! I figured you had spent some time living together first, and that your trips were lengthly ones. I am glad it is working out for you both!

 

[Psychadelic2012]

Sorry, I may have been unclear. We started dating when she was local, moved in together after a few months (long story and very fast for both of us, but it made logistical sense and we made the leap). So we had about 3-4 months of living together. Then she had to leave (Visa expired and she "owed service" to her country because of her fellowship). Since she left a bit less than 2 years ago, I went to see her for about 3 weeks last summer, and she was just here for about a month.

Living together for 3-4 months is like a long sleepover! Oh, to be in early love!