Reflection

Hi Toby, I wanna try to put into words how I’m experiencing everything that has happened recently, because I feel like I haven't been able to communicate this clearly in real time, especially when being emotionally overwhelmed. I truly apologize for how I handled our conversation today, and I want to make amends by explaining things more clearly and with the respect you deserve:

I entered this PhD program doing the best I could with the capacity and tools I had at the time. I’ve always been honest about what I could give, I wasn’t surpassing the expectations but I also wasn’t failing. I showed up. I met the formal milestones of the program, I passed my exams, I attended meetings, I consistently fulfilled my teaching responsibilities, often at a very high level. For a long time, that level of engagement seemed to be implicitly accepted, and I felt safe. I really trusted that the way I was navigating the program (slowly, imperfectly, but always with honesty) was enough to keep me safe. I felt blessed to  finally find a place that understood me, my background, my health history, my life circumstances, and that was willing to invest and not give up on me because they saw me for who I really am and what I have the potential to become. Unfortunately, that sense of safety is what broke this semester.

When Sharky passed, I didn’t just lose my dog, I lost the one being in my life who anchored everything else...

I lost my family here

He was my daily companion, my emotional constant, the only presence that made living alone in this country feel survivable. He was the reason my apartment felt like a home instead of just a random place. Sharky gave me a life where I could still feel loved, no matter the mistakes I made, show up as raw and authentic as I am, and never feel judged.  He showed me the kind of love I never thought I would be given. Losing him meant losing the only bond in my life that was unconditional and authentic.

I lost my emotional regulation

Sharky wasn’t just comfort, he was how I stayed regulated. My routines, my ability to reset after hard days, my capacity to tolerate stress, all ran through him. Walking him, caring for him, being needed by him grounded me in my body and in the present. And because he left in such an unexpected way, that regulation disappeared overnight. There was no transition, no gradual adjustment. Just absence.

I lost my motivation in the most literal sense

He was the reason I got up when things felt pointless. He was the one who gave meaning to finishing my PhD, because I wasn’t just doing it for myself, I was doing it for the life we were building together.

I lost my sense of safety

As an international student, I already live without the safety nets many people take for granted: family nearby, cultural familiarity, financial backup, and legal security. Sharky was my safety net. He was the one constant that made everything else feel less unsafe. When he died, the fragility of my entire situation became impossible to ignore. 

I lost my daily structure

My days used to have rhythm: walks, feeding schedules, etc. Those weren’t small things, they were the whole structure of my current lifestyle. When he died, my days became unstructured in a way that felt disorienting and empty. Time stopped behaving normally, weeks blurred, and the basic act of getting through a day became harder.

I lost financial stability at a critical moment

His death wasn’t just emotionally devastating, it came with a sudden, massive financial hit. I spent roughly 10K trying to save him, with no safety net to absorb that shock. That financial stress compounded the grief and added another layer of vulnerability that I had to manage alone.

I lost so much. And what hurts the most is that this loss wasn’t treated as the collapse of a support system, and it was treated as an inconvenience to productivity. Losing him wasn’t a temporary setback, it was a structural loss (emotional, practical, financial, existential) that touched every aspect of my life. Expecting me to “get back to it” as quickly as possible wasn’t just unrealistic, but deeply dismissive of how much of my ability to function was built around him.

I want to be very clear about something: I did not stop caring about my PhD. I did not stop wanting to do research. But for a couple of months, while I was grieving, I simply didn't have the capacity to engage with research in a meaningful way. That doesn’t mean I disappeared.. I continued to meet my teaching responsibilities, I stayed in touch with you, and I returned to attending classes and journal club when I could. I was just trying to survive in the only way I knew how.

I continued turning in my progress reports on time, with honesty about my situation and my limited capacity during this period. Less than two months after this massive loss, the way my situation was framed by the people I believed would advocate for my well-being shifted into a narrative I never imagined I would be faced with. It felt like suddenly my grief didn’t matter to anyone anymore, because the story being told about me was no longer “someone who experienced a major loss,” but “someone who isn’t meeting expectations,” “someone who is refusing to get help,” “someone who is a problem that needs to be managed.” I felt like the conversations stopped being about how I was doing and became about consequences. Everything was framed in terms of what would happen to me if I didn’t “show progress” quickly enough. The message was clear: it didn't matter what I was going through, the clock was ticking and if I couldn’t keep up, I would have to face the consequences. And this instead of createing motivation, it created fear.

Most of the progress I’ve made recently did not come from a healthy or supported place. It came from the fear of being put on probation, fear of losing my visa, fear of being forced into decisions that would make my life even more unstable (like going on Medical leave). I don’t feel proud of that kind of progress. It doesn’t feel sustainable, and it doesn’t feel aligned with who I am. My grief was treated as a problem to be fixed so I could come back to being productive asap, rather than as a real human experience that deserved kindness and grace. My medical and healing choices were framed as resistance, or as me “refusing help,” even though I am actively in therapy, increasing my sessions per week, taking care of my body, and doing everything I can to get through this loss with integrity.

I understand that I need to do research. I understand that this program has timelines. I’m not asking for infinite grace or no expectations. I'm just trying to make everyone understand that timing, framing and context matters. And pushing someone who is grieving by threatening their stability does not feel like genuine care, it feels like pressure. The issue for me is not that expectations exist, is how they were enforced and how my grief was interpreted.

I want to be clear with something:  I do want to succeed, I have invested years of my life into this program, and there should never have been an assumption that I was indifferent to it. As more administrators and faculty got involved, things didn’t get better, they became more overwhelming. Every new person brought a different perspective, a different narrative, and different instructions. Instead of things becoming clearer, everything felt more scattered. Instead of feeling supported, I started to feel watched, and what once felt human and relational connections slowly turned into something bureaucratic and defensive. And at the core of all is this: I no longer felt safe. And without safety, it is very hard to do good science... or to just be well.

What I need in order to succeed:

What I’ve been trying to communicate through all of this (message that maybe was getting lost on my strong emotional reactions) is not an unwillingness to do research, but the need for the right structure and support to do it in a way that is actually sustainable.

If I’m expected to move forward with research now, I need clarity and consistency, not pressure driven by fear. A big part of why I’ve struggled to make progress is that I genuinely have no clue of what I’m supposed to be doing or how to approach it. Even between Yunyang and Joseph, I’ve been receiving mixed instructions about how to approach the CLASS pipeline work. I understand that Yunyang is currently away, and at this point it seems that Joseph could be the best person to provide consistent guidance on the pipeline and analysis. Having one clear point of technical mentorship, with regular and predictable guidance, would make a huge difference.

I also need expectations that are aligned with my reality, that take into account both where I am in the program and what this semester actually looked like for me. This means setting goals and timelines that are clear, realistic, and stable, so I’m not constantly operating under the fear that my place here is at risk.

I do and I’ve always wanted to succeed. I’m willing to keep moving forward and to do the work that’s required of me, but I need to do it without erasing myself in the process. I am asking for clarity, consistency, and care, because those are the conditions under which I can actually succeed.