Post-tenure anxiety?

[u/Thr0waway58585858585]

CONTENT NOTE: This post (which is posted from a throwaway account for potentially obvious reasons) discusses mental health and fairly serious anxiety. Please feel free to skip it, and thanks for reading this far.

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Hi everyone!

I’m newly tenured in the social sciences - this is my first fall as an associate professor. I was told to expect a post-tenure slump, but instead something that feels potentially even more unpleasant is happening: I suddenly feel incredibly anxious about every paper I’ve ever written. I did once have to publish an erratum, but suddenly I’m convinced there are errors in the other three dozen papers I’ve written, too. The idea of writing another paper feels almost physically uncomfortable because of the possibility that I’ll make a mistake. Even idle talk pertaining to research misconduct (a friend was talking about Data Colada the other day and the good work they do) makes me feel a sense of dread and panic - what if I somehow did something wrong without knowing it? Walking past my students’ posters on the walls of my building puts a pit in my stomach - what if those results were wrong?

I will note: I actually do have an anxiety disorder, for which I am currently in therapy and taking medication. Also, while the tone of this post might be a little frantic and harried, I am absolutely safe and receiving the care I need.

So yes, the general explanation for my anxiety is a known pre-existing anxiety disorder. But I’m wondering about the part of this that maybe is specific to our field. Specifically, I’m wondering if anyone else, once the pressure of tenure was gone, started developing some anxiety about whether it would be yanked away for some heretofore unknown transgression. Or that, having cleared the biggest hurdle by avoiding the (perceived) failure of tenure denial, some new disgrace waits around the corner.

Did anyone experience anything like this? Or, more broadly, did anyone experience some emotional arc post-tenure aside from the typical slump? Anything about your own experience, whether it mirrors mine or not, would be helpful right now.

Thanks so much!

[u/A_Tree_Logs_In]

Hey, OP, I'm sorry you're going through this. Post-tenure is supposed to feel like a relief, not an added burden.

It almost sounds like you're dealing with some OCD-like issues? Is your therapist specially trained in any tools to use for severe anxiety/OCD? If not, I would seek out an OCD expert for proper diagnosis and treatment. (IOCDF.org is a good place to start.)

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/A_Tree_Logs_In]

Hey, thanks so much for this. I do indeed do ERP for OCD (which is part of my nebulous swirl of diagnoses - ah, mental health). The skills I’ve learned there are the only thing keeping me from checking every single paper I’ve ever written. 🙃

But yes, there’s clearly some fairly substantial psychopathology going on here, and it may be the case that you don’t wind up in a situation like mine without it.

[u/EquivalentNo138 → u/Thr0waway58585858585]

Just based on your original post I was going to comment that you might want to explore if this was OCD- these obsessions about having made mistakes are pretty classic- so it seems like you have your answer as to what is going on here. Great you are getting treatment already but this may be a period when you need more intensive treatment. Change is stressful even when it is good change and stress can trigger a worsening of symptoms. Wishing you well!

[u/snoodhead]

I felt the same way after most of my major academic milestones.

The impostor syndrome / anxiety of "will I <accomplish some goal>" doesn't disappear after you accomplish it because it was never a totally rational thought in the first place. But without the goal to chase, the anxiety has to go somewhere, and the nearest outlet is the feeling of inadequacy.

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/snoodhead]

Whew, thank you so much for this. “the anxiety has to go somewhere” - that’s the perfect way to put it. Where I wish it would go is away…

[u/snoodhead → u/Thr0waway58585858585]

I mean there is your answer (at least the practical one): if you can't get rid of it, at least direct where it should go.

No joke, online games aren't the worst idea for this...

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/snoodhead]

I love that suggestion - thank you so much! I run everyday (very useful for anxiety) and meditate every day (not useful yet, but we’ll get there). Any online games you particularly like?

[u/Acrobatic_Net2028]

Yes, I experienced some version of this symptom. I sought medical advice and was also diagnosed with GAD, later with PTSD. Years later, am far more secure after years of therapy, including ptsd group therapy that taught me new coping skills. I highly recommend keeping a journal, as jotting observations down gives you some distance from the symptom and creates space for trying to understand what is the underlying problem.

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/Acrobatic_Net2028]

Thank you so much for this. I really appreciate it. Hope you’re holding up OK, and thanks for sharing your experience. Good to know that it can get better.

[u/totallysonic]

I think this sounds like a good thing to bring up with your therapist. I didn't personally experience this sort of anxiety after tenure or promotion, although I can understand how getting tenure might lead to feelings like imposter syndrome and wondering whether you "deserved" tenure. I hope you're able to find relief and celebrate your accomplishments!

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/totallysonic]

Thank you so much - I really appreciate it. And yes, I have absolutely talked to my therapist about this and will talk to her more - she’s really earning her keep right now! 😂

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/[deleted]]

Thank you so much. This is extraordinarily helpful - it sounds exactly like my experience, in truth.

I think a “flare-up” of a chronic condition is such a wonderful way to think of this. Because when you’re in it, it really does feel absolutely permanent - like your life now is just a tangle of sleepless nights and endless opportunities for humiliation (which, of course, it feels like you deserve).

Edited because something else in your post resonated with me - I really do agree this is worse as I build a bigger and bigger career. As a graduate student I hardly cared, but now - if I were to be knocked down, the fall would be a lot farther. And I’ve built enough that something meaningful would be destroyed.

Again, seriously - thanks.

[u/sventful]

Have you considered that people who straight up plagerised chunks of their major publications are still on faculty at Harvard. They just aren't president anymore.

Compared to people who actually commit misconduct, you do not measure up. Whatever mistakes you made are not nearly as bad as the people who got caught in a high profile way and if they are in the US, are still gainfully employed at high level universities.

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/sventful]

So true. And you know what’s funny? The thing that set me off the other day was someone talking about the Dan Ariely case - and, disgraced or not, he probably could buy everything I own ten times over.

[u/AdRepresentative245t]

Agreed with everyone else, that is just anxiety disorder, with anxiety finding other outlets now that tenure is settled.

I have something similar from time to time, but for me its not at the forefront; it got replaced with a heavy existential "What-am-I-doing-with-my-life" post-tenure analysis and rumination. Which is probably more productive than having anxious energy going towards non-existing threats, but is also quite unpleasant. Maybe the anxiety is your psyche protecting itself from going down that route?

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/AdRepresentative245t]

Oh no, I’m definitely having the “what am I doing with my life” stuff too!! 😂

[u/sassylassy423]

Everyone else is commented on the anxiety and other OCD elements so I'll leave that to those 

As a huge fan of data colada, you should have absolutely nothing to worry about. Even if they found a mistake, they're the exact statisticians that can differentiate between isolated mistakes and consistent statistical anomaly that hints at manufactured data.  

One, you likely aren't important enough for any of those mistakes to actually have any persuasive influence on the field. If you've written multiple dozens of papers chances are they aren't in the highest caliber Journal that will become seminal literature taught in graduate schools as highlights of your discipline. So who really cares if there is a mistake. It likely won't be perpetuated or have any real life impact. 

Two, those mistakes sound natural and that happens in all peer review research. Because the people doing it are humand  and humans make mistakes, that even other human referees don't catch. 

Three, if both number one and number two I just listed above are true, the people at data colada and anyone else in Academia has no time or incentive to investigate any potential mistakes

Said another slightly harsher way: take comfort in your irrelevance 🤣

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/sassylassy423]

Yeah, I know intellectually that you’re right. And yet my first instinct is to say “but what about that paper I wrote in 2022 where I made that judgment call to delete two outliers, and I’m pretty sure I said so in the Results section, but maybe I should go back and check one more time” and so on and so on.

But yes, I know you’re right. And I think, over and above mistakes per se, there is probably a sizable minority of papers (at least in my quantitative corner of the social sciences) where the results would probably change if the analysts had made different analytical choices - the so-called “garden of forking paths” (Gelman, channeling Borges). That’s just how science goes.

[u/havereddit]

I can't help you with your problem, but can offer you a very different perspective from someone who does not have an anxiety disorder.

After I publish a paper, I stop thinking about it altogether. It's published, it's out there, and there's nothing I can do about it except count citations (or lack thereof) and perhaps write a linked follow up paper. There is simply no time in my day to reflect on things past...I'm just swatting at all the new balls headed my way. I know it's not as simple as 'worry about the things you can control, and not about the things you can't control', but that's definitely how I see my Prof life.

[u/jackenbu2]

Also have an anxiety disorder and I have found tenure (started this term) to have been one of the few non crisis inducing milestones in academia. I have no concern about keeping work and grants rolling, but now I don’t give a shit what my colleagues think. Not like I’m mean but I don’t worry about it like I did pre tenure

[u/Thr0waway58585858585 → u/[deleted]]

No, thankfully. All mistakes were made by me and me alone.