Rebecca Blaylock

What are we DOING here? We're just meant to sit and act like this insane plagiarism and climate threat that requires more money than anything has ever cost is worth it? Are we meant to pretend that ChatGPT is worth this aimless, meaningless destruction of capital and our environment? For what?

Thank you! It was so relaxing. I’ve never done it before but would definitely recommend!

Next time you’re in London let’s hope it coincides with Collage Club!!

Tonight at @lshtm.bsky.social Collage Club: reworking a beautiful Landworker’s Alliance calendar. Lovely way to decompress after a busy day and long supervision!

A row of trees against a clear autumn sky casting long shadows on the grass.

A tree still with leaves which are turning lime green.

Some nice trees between home and the library. Grateful for my corner of London.

I do! Now I’m intrigued to find this long lost relative!

I’d be really surprised if so, I’ve never met another Blaylock I’m not related to!

Mine is definitely wrong 😆

That’s so kind thank you! Ah the grief bomb… comes from nowhere swiftly followed by a grief hangover. The price we pay for love 💕

I hope these reflections help someone out there who might be going through the same thing, or navigating academia whilst grieving. Maybe I’ll add to it, let’s see!

I am forever changed by being a carer and being with Dad as they died. I might not be able to remember everything, but I think I am a kinder person, more empathetic, and more confident than ever at speaking truth to power. These are very useful skills for a PhD and the world of health equity.

And finally, MEMORY. I feel like my memory has been really impacted by the last few years. I’ve had to be really meticulous in the way I do things and have sometimes asked people if I can record meetings as I struggle to listen and take notes at the same time.

This might be because they go off less frequently, but there’s also something very surreal about someone dying. I think it only gets more bizarre and unbelievable the further you are from the event.

However, another upside! Who knew there were so many upsides… I honestly think I would still really struggle to do a “normal” job full time. I often get to Thursday night and I’m shattered. I can get through most days now, but I feel like when a grief bomb goes off it goes off big time.

However, there is something very lonely and isolating in grief. PhDs are famously lonely and isolating too. Seeking out community and supporting each other is so important but it’s not always easy. This is definitely something I’m feeling a lot atm.

ONE YEAR IN: it is too complicated to talk about how I experience grief now, because I can’t quite articulate it myself. It doesn’t fade or go away, and I’m not sure about the analogy of the jar growing around it tbh. I liken it more to a virus that mutates and affects you in different ways.

It’s important to find a balance between starting a fresh and embarking on a new stage in life (which comes with guilt of leaving your person behind), and helping people understand the journey you’ve been on to get there. Supportive supervisors really helped, as did introducing key people to Pip.

Whilst the PhD gave me more flexibility, I think the depths of grief I was experiencing really impacted my ability to make friends in my new workplace. I was feeling all the feelings and wanted to talk about this person who they had no idea existed. They hadn’t been on the journey with me.

In hindsight this is when things really fell apart. I was a wreck physically and mentally. But starting a PhD as opposed to doing a ‘normal’ job allowed me to be in charge of my own time a bit more, seek support and build my schedule around things that helped me wade through the days.

The 1st anniversary holds a lot of weight with those who are grieving. This might not be the case for everyone but it did mark a shift in my grief. Things went from me simply concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and keeping myself alive to feeling the full force of my grief.

STARTING THE PHD: I could choose from two start dates and decided to delay until a full year had passed since Dad died. There’s no way I could have started before then. I don’t remember much from that year at all, but I don’t think it was that great.

I only remember snippets from that time, as grief has a handy way of making you forget a lot of stuff.

Another surprising upside is I don’t remember anything from the interview. I think this is a good thing as NIHR interview panels are notoriously big and quite hardcore 🤣.

were incredibly kind. The person at my uni @lshtm.bsky.social who arranged my mock interview took the time to edit out the bits where I cried from the recording that was made for me to review and refine my interview techniques. I will never forget how kind that was.

INTERVIEW: the invitation for interview came about two weeks after Dad died and before we had the funeral. I considered withdrawing and applying again- although I have no idea if that would have been allowed in my circumstances. Preparing for the interview was awful even though lots of people…

Whilst I really wanted to get the fellowship, I also had something to keep the whole thing in perspective. Wouldn’t recommend manufacturing a major personal crisis to go alongside the application but in hindsight I think it weirdly helped.

APPLYING: I applied for my @nihr.bsky.social fellowship whilst caring for Dad. A surprising upside to this was it gave us both something tangible in the future to focus on. The application, whilst a beast, was far from the biggest thing going on in my life.

I’ve spoken about my Dad and their death quite a lot in other places, but for now I will just focus on the experience of navigating a PhD and the world of grief…

My dad, Pip, died in September 2022 just 12 weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumour. So I’m still in what I would describe as early-ish days of grief. That might sound surprising to someone who hasn’t been through it as two years sounds like a lot of time.

Given it is such a universal experience, I’m yet to see many people talk about the experience of doing a #PhD whilst grieving.

I’m going to start a thread of my reflections- I may or may not add to it. #Grief is so lonely and even if it helps just one person then it’s worth over sharing! 🧵