Am I Self Sabotaging after Being Triggered?

[atticusfinch]

Hello friends,

I'm reaching out because I just had a really bad experience with a professor at school and wanted to get your opinion on what went wrong. I've been so depressed that it's felt completely debilitating and really need some help! I'm not sure if I'm being triggered by my professor, since she reacted similarly to my abusive mother, and that is what shut me down? I was also wondering if self-sabotage is something any of the rest of you do, as an old, learned coping mechanism to keep your PD parent happy. In retrospect, my PD mother expected me to be perfect, but I think she also felt threatened by my success, so, in order to protect myself, I think I may have learned to cope sometimes by self-sabotaging. This gave her something to criticize me about (my  mother), but it also (maybe?) kept me safe as well, because I was playing my role as the "bad" kid so that she could feel superior/successful by comparison?

So I had a really rough semester at school and was wondering if I'm subconsciously engaging in self-sabotage or whether I'm just perceiving that I performed poorly because of my old scripts that say if I'm not perfect I'm a failure? (ie, I'm wondering if I actually failed or if I just perceived that I did?) Explantation below.

My advisor in graduate school (beginning in Jul) had a reputation for being really tough but also being one of the best teachers at my school, and I'm desperate to break into the field I'm studying, so I chose her despite my reservations because I wanted to be better. However, nothing I ever did was quite right for her. I went over and above what I was asked to do in my first month and she sent me a reply to my work that included one paragraph of positive followed by four pages of critique of my work. I have to admit, I was a bit flattened by this but had been told that the best way to get along with her is to do what she tells a person to do.

I had a lot going on my life--my (NPD, abusive) ex husband filed for sole custody earlier that year, right before I started grad school. I am a single mom to five kids, one of whom left home this year (this was much harder emotionally than I anticipated and coincided with my difficult semester. He was the target of abuse and has had depression/anxiety--I think my custody case combined with sending him off really triggered a lot of trauma and triggered my own internal messages about not being good enough, etc).

That said, I *thought* I worked hard on what my advisor asked, only to find that she seemed disappointed in my work again. I got increasingly more depressed, but I slogged through it (it felt like trying to run a 10k through knee deep molasses at times, honestly). I put in the work, but again and again she repeated to me that I hadn't done what she was asking for. She seemed annoyed when I did more than I needed to--so it was hard to know how to please her. I screwed up my final deadline, but it was also a deadline that was on paperwork she approved. So when I got an email from her asking for my final materials (one week before I thought they were due), I didn't have everything ready. Despite my explanations, she wouldn't even give me until that evening to turn everything in. Some of the stuff was ready (miraculously) and some wasn't, but I ended up miraculously sending in everything the program required by that evening. In response, she sent me a horrible, accusatory email that listed all the ways I'd supposedly failed over the semester and how my work wasn't up to the school's standards (despite, in her own words, submitting "Newberry quality" work in my first submission, which she said she'd asked for more of and I had only submitted other stuff-- I *did not get this* from her early feedback--four pages of criticism and *no word* about keeping it mostly unchanged). Then she threatened to withhold semester credit and speak to the director about me, and her accusations were so wildly untrue and distorted I was devastated. I even went back and looked at all our previous communications, because of all the times she said she'd requested a certain thing and I'd failed to deliver it, and her accusations were just 90% completely, proveably untrue (since they were *all* in writing). It's like we'd been living on different planets all semester.

So... bottom line-- I know I had a really difficult semester, emotionally, due to my personal circumstances. I knew that I was really depressed. But I put in the work that was unquestionably what she asked for and there shouldn't even been a question that I passed.

On the one hand, I guess I've been really beating myself up for what a hard slog it's been and how low my motivation was--though I still pushed through it. I felt like a failure all semester, and I can't quite figure if that's because I am actually a failure or whether my perceptions of myself are just way off because of my past history of abuse, and that I could have been so triggered by this woman that it made it more difficult to succeed (and may have actually been self-sabotaging as a coping mechanism?). I also feel that her criticisms of me were completely out of touch with reality at the same time. It was almost like she had it out for me from the beginning and that no matter what I would have done it wouldn't have been right.

I guess I'm just looking for a bit of a reality check? I spoke with a friend in the program and told her everything and she was really appalled by my advisor's behavior, but I still can't help feeling like I'm a disaster and it's just made me so down I'm having a hard time doing what I need to make things right going forward.

Love to all, and thanks for reading/listening.

[doglady]

Hi Atticus

You obviously write very well and have highly developed analytical thought processes, and your intelligence and nuanced thought speak for themselves, so I don't think your ability is the issue.

I also totally get, based on your history of your mother expecting nothing less than perfection from you, that you wonder if you could be self-sabotaging. But, you know, that's not what I'm picking up here. It doesn't seem like you're self sabotaging at all. If anything, you're possibly trying way too hard to please this person. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? And of course, you already have a high level of self awareness and you realise that.

I understand you're turning this all over in your mind and just continue to work even harder (as if you haven't got enough stress in your life being a mum to five kids, going through a divorce and studying - wow, that is a lot!!) but I think at this point you really need to break this cycle and seek a second opinion. (Short illustrative story, which is not anywhere near as full-on as your situation: While doing a post-graduate course many years ago, I received a grade on a thesis that was way below what I'd hoped for. Now, I don't presume that I should get great marks for my work but this grade she gave me wasn't even in the ball park in terms of all the other results I'd been getting. She'd failed my work, baselessly accused me of plagiarism, and to top it all wrote some bizarrely personal comments on it (which were also incorrectly spelled, but I digress). And so I sat and fumed for a few days and in the end I thought: Fuck it, I'm not taking this shit lying down (which hitherto had been the story of my life, but anyway). So I documented my concerns in a letter to her supervisor and was subsequently asked to resubmit my report to another lecturer. I'm sure you won't be surprised to hear that I felt vindicated when I received a good grade.)
So, all this is by way of saying that while your supervisor may be just riding you hard, I think it might be time that you asked a third party to take a look at your work. As you know, some students end up having to change supervisors, and while I understand even the thought of doing this is probably massively anxiety-producing, it's your future. Plus, you shouldn't have to felt this put-upon over an assignment. It sounds dire. You can't keep going on like this. It sounds like some sort of torture she's putting you through. It's obviously not sustainable for you to keep trying this hard. I hope you can see a student counsellor and talk through this some more.
Best wishes.

[D.Dan]

To me this sounds more like sabotage instead of self-sabotage. Are you able to change advisors to someone who WILL help you to succeed instead of trying to make you fail? Otherwise you may be forced to have to defend yourself by going to someone higher up for your rightfully earned grades.

I'm also not surprised you're being triggered, this sounds like abuse to me. Do not force yourself to work with an antagonistic person when you don't have to. It's okay to change your mind about choosing her. You thought she would help you. But now you can make a more educated choice, now that you know she's not in your corner.

Please take care and don't give up on yourself. 

[atticusfinch]

WOW-- thank you so much, doglady and D. Dan. What you said helped lighten my mood right away. Thank you for your kind words and for taking time out of your own lives to respond in ways that helped me feel better. Luckily, I don't have the same advisor next semester and I definitely learned my lesson about the type of advisor I can work well with (I don't get final say on my next advisor, but I am allowed to give the program a shortlist of potential advisors that they select from). Strangely, I had a bad feeling about this ex-advisor when we first met (at the beginning of the semester, she pulled a few of us--all members of the same religion, hers--aside and said we were "already her favorites" and she "expected us to be the best" . . . this struck me then as hugely inappropriate--and terrifying--but I pushed it down.

[PeanutButter]

 I agree with the others! I think you worked hard and did well despite several issues with your advisor and circumstances that hindered your efforts.
I definately noticed by what you said that your gut instinct is working well though. IME you can have faith that you will protect yourself in the future from someone like this by listening to your gut. In that way you can relax and let go of some of those anxieties.
Great luck to you for next semester!

[doglady]

Very glad to hear you don't have this advisor for much longer, atticus. What a relief for you.

[Rose1]

Sounds like a control freak. I was rather shocked as a mature age student to find university was less about learning and more about keeping your lecturer happy.

So take away from your course what you need to fill in your gaps if any and what you want to learn and less what makes your lecturer happy. And get a second opinion if necessary