Today marks 4 years since I got the corrections approved for my PhD. That kinda sorta but not quite end. And that feels fitting for the feeling of the kinda sorta not quite end of academic life. And how long it takes to extract yourself.
Anniversaries are complicated. Especially in the long process of saying goodbye to academic life. Those corrections were without a doubt the worst part of an already horrendous PhD. I was called a liar by my external examiner. The person I paid to do my proofreading (because my University made me provide 'receipts' to 'prove' a professional had done it) said I didn't deserve a PhD. The whole thing amounted to some nasty Academic discrimination once the External found out I was dyslexic. And of all the bullshit in my PhD that actually hurts the most. Is it any wonder I haven't declared it on job applications?
All that aside, that day, that anniversary is a reminder of much. Of the fact that I have to face facts that an academic career is never going to be for me. A person on twitter earlier was talking about their own leaving academia. They have 3 books published, countless articles, and have been employed since their PhD (albeit precariously obviously, to be entertaining walking away). And if that person can't even get interviews for academic jobs, someone like me certainly can't.
Recently I drove back from what will likely be my last academic event. The last I was helping organise, and save for perhaps the odd event in the distant future, the last I plan on attending. Because I'm sick of peering in a window of a world I can never be part of. Because I have better things to put my time and energy into, and because there comes a point you're just done.
And that's where I am four years out, just done. I'm not sad or angry really any more, I'm just done. I've done my crying over academia. I've done my crying over my own failings. Sure I'm hurt and damaged by it. I have grieved for it. But there comes a point when you're just done.
And here's the secret: academia, academics don't like that.
Everyone wants you to hang on until you're so broken you can't carry on. It and they want you to have the 'receipts' that you tried every single avenue until you were so beaten down that you couldn't do it any more.
And once was enough. I battled through my PhD, I won that battle. That'll do pig that'll do.
I drove home from that conference via the road I took countless times driving from my Undergrad to home. And it felt like a symbolic moment. By all rights, I probably shouldn't even have got through my Undergrad. First, to do any kind of Higher Education in my family, my father died halfway through doing it, I found out I was dyslexic in my final year...and somehow I got to the end and got that mythical 2:1. I mean that was something. And to go on and do the rest, well to quote my favourite character in my PhD play 'that was fucking miraculous'
So it's ok to walk away sometimes with more than you or anyone else thought you'd ever achieve.
When asked do I regret it I say a cautious no. Because as much as I think career-wise, and sanity-wise I would be 'better off' I also wouldn't trade the experiences the PhD gave me, the things it may lead to, and most importantly the things I learned (both written in the thesis and not). As with everything PhD related it's complicated. But I know now if I'd walked away without finishing I would have regretted it. And I'm proud of myself, and the end result.
Anniversaries are funny things. On one hand, I'm glad to be free. I can celebrate the thing I did and also say that I'm free. Free of chasing the impossible dream (sing along at home). Free of the toxic environment, free of never feeling good enough by virtue of my profession (I can manage that quite well on my own thanks). Free to find other brilliant things to do with my life. And to realise before it's too late, that it was the right thing to do to walk away. Even if walking away takes time.
But equally, there's a sense of mourning, of the grief of a kind. For the life you put so much into, sacrficed so much of your life for- am still reeling from the impact of- I lost most of my 20s to my PhD. I lost friends, sacrificed that period you're supposed to have ill-advised relationships in, for an ill-advised toxic relationship with academia. And like a bad relationship it left me damaged, and angry.
It's taken four years to heal some of the worst of that. And honestly, I'm still more than a little messed up. I still have little confidence in my own work, in myself. And I still consider myself not good enough. I'm struggling to write the book that I should know I can write, because my supervisors, and academia, in general, made me feel so very much that I'm not good enough.
Not helped by four years of knockbacks. Of the rest of the world refusing to give you a chance because 'you're an academic' but dealing with the fallout of failing to do the one thing, you wanted to be. That stuff is hard, it takes time.
And it's hard, still fighting so hard for so little. When for others it just happens. I've tried kicking down so many doors for a scrap of teaching and got nothing, while others get it easily. I've tried for four years to get another 'proper' job and failed, others get it mere minutes after graduating. And it's not fair, and neither is life. But it doesn't mean I can't be angry, be hurt. It also doesn't mean I'm trying any less hard than those who 'make it'. But at least away from academia, I'm trying at new possibilities, and there's hope in that. And as Tony Kushner once said 'there is an ethical obligation to hope'
It doesn't make it any less sad to have failed at something you dreamed of, even though you know it's the right decision to chase other dreams now. But there comes a point where you just pick yourself up and say 'not anymore, you don't get to control this anymore'
There's a line in The X Files (of course there is) when Mulder tells Scully she should walk away from what they do. He says 'There's so much more you have to do with your life' and as much as Scully doesn't take that advice (of course), for once Mulder was right.
I'm not quite done mourning the loss of my academic self. Maybe there'll always be a bit of an academic in me. But on this anniversary, I strongly feel like there's a lot more to do with my life, and a lot more to hope for than the life I never led (again sing along at home).
That said, four years ago I said I was going to have a bonfire of my PhD....I still haven't done it. So if anyone fancies a sacrificial bonfire with me, for PhDs, bad relationships...anything else...there's another Bank Holiday soon...
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