u/itsameactuallyluigi

Hi all,

I know there are a lot of posts here about burnout. I’m wondering if anyone has gentle advice or encouragement for an ABD who is a few weeks shy of being done a draft. I’m at an R1 university. I don’t work in a lab. I have publications and stuff under review and they’re all solo-authored. I have a great committee but have, for the most part, probably made my PhD journey more difficult by not relying on them as much as I should have and choosing to figure things out alone a lot of the time.

I’ve heard people say the longer they’re in a PhD the “dumber they feel.” I can relate. I’ve found that the closer I get to finishing, the more I have trouble thinking. I’m so tired. I just want to be in a dark room with my eyes closed most of the time.

In the middle of the dissertation, I began using Claude when I ran into coding difficulties and even my brilliant quant colleague couldn’t help me. I didn’t think it was a huge deal. I would get the code, read up on where I was going wrong, and actually felt like I was learning something because I was seeing in real time where I was going wrong and how to fix it and why. Okay, fine.

Months on, though, I’ve found it’s easy to get AI to mull over the structure of something (a chapter, a paragraph) when I feel stuck. I’m not like, hallucinating references or putting in a sentence and asking it to construct a chapter for me or anything like that. I just have these moments where I’m trucking along and I hit a wall and I have these terribly garbled thoughts about what goes where (ie, should this section go before or after that section?) and I just plop it into Claude and feel relieved when I don’t need to puzzle angrily through a roadblock with no cognitive energy. Sometimes I look at the output and fully disagree and just go, okay, well, back to the drawing board then.

Because I’ve noticed that it’s something I’ve come to rely on, I’ve been intentional about limiting my use. But, the desire to offload cognitive tasks is strong when there’s such intense burnout. Now, I have this vague fear someone is going to “catch me” for using AI to work through hiccups in my code, or help me organize my thoughts for longer empirical chapters, or proofread passages. And, not, to rag on my colleagues but I’m also surrounded by extremely productive young adults who have no qualms about talking about how many stimulants (we’re talking pills, not lattes) they’re on. Sometimes I feel like I’m behind because I’m not on drugs. Sometimes I wonder if I could push off the burnout just a little longer by trading my dopamine for short term gain.

Does anyone have any advice? I’m sorry this is scattered. Anyone found they have had to break an “AI habit” due to burnout? Anyone ever feel like everyone around them is snorting adderall in the TA lounge while they’re just trying to make do with a coffee? Has anyone found a routine that helped burnout and cognition during the last stages of the dissertation? I feel awful :(

Edit: I’m in the Midwest and in the social sciences.

Been on Dayvigo (5mg) for about 8 months and honestly it's been life-saving. Nothing else has ever worked for me. But the last several weeks I've been hit with really intense daytime exhaustion and brain fog that feels beyond normal tiredness.

I'm yawning uncontrollably by mid-morning even after a full night's sleep, need to lie down multiple times a day, have trouble concentrating on basic tasks, and I feel incredibly disconnected. I've also stopped feeling motivated or energized by things. I don’t feel “sad.” I’m not crying all day. I just find it so difficult to think (and without saying too much about my career, I get paid to think).

I know some of this could just be life stress/burnout (stressful job + life) on its own, but the timing and severity made me wonder if it's connected to being on this for months or maybe a dose thing (I'm on 5mg. I began on 2.5mg - worked for about a month but I had to increase to a full pill because it stopped working.)

Has anyone experienced something similar after months on it? Did adjusting the dose help?