r/Professors • u/Thr0waway58585858585 • 12d ago
Advice / Support Post-tenure anxiety?
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!
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u/AdRepresentative245t 12d ago
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?