Burn Out

I’ve hit the wall with my thesis. For the last 6 months I have been chasing down leads to gain access to an archive that I recently learned had become defunct after the public corporation became a private corporation and split into two new companies. The archives, which house this corporations documents from its inception in the early 1900’s until the recent millennium, were shut down and transported to a third party storage facility. After numerous phone calls and emails to the two separate companies each has squarely pointed to the other company as the one which transported and is now holding the documents in a third party location. Fantastic.

While corporation 1 has been extremely unhelpful a PR person from corporation 2 was a lot more prompt and solicitous towards my efforts and thesis. However, C2 was the bearer of bad news. Apparently I have to apply to gain access to the documents within C1’s possession through the Freedom of Information Act. I shudder to think how long that will take since it involves both the government and lawyers and I’m sure a lot of bureaucratic nonsense. Again- fantastic!

Even more troublesome than my serious lack of available sources to write my thesis is the fact that I don’t really have a viable plan B. I really didn’t want to think of how to approach my thesis without these materials and never attempted to map out an alternative outline. While I should be freaking out, I’ve reached the point of burn out where I’m so exhausted from worrying about it that it is hard to muster the energy necessary to care. Instead I’ve started having day-long panic attacks, linked partially to the PTSD and partially to the thesis crisis.

Tomorrow I plan to put into effect a plan B for researching a slightly alternative thesis idea. This degree and thesis is really a stepping-stone for the degree and thesis I really want to be working on. It has become the thorn in my side and the barrier to the research I really want to be doing. The only solution right now is to just grind it out and hope for the best. September brings a new University in a new town, a new degree and hopefully a renewed passion for my academic pursuits. When it comes to my career path there really is no plan B, just the Ph.D and a lifetime of academia.