Tag Archive for 'abusive parents'

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My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice

Published by davinci on May 23, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I had discovered, by the end of my first term in Waterloo, that while my father had maintained his negative opinion of quantum computing, it no longer seemed to enrage him consistently as it did before. This was a man who had screamed at me, beat me, locked me out of the house, and threatened to disown me for studying the components that make up quantum computing while I was in high school, but his reaction to the fact that I had resumed my studies — which he had expressly forbidden me to continue, under threat of being disowned — could only be described as mild irritation.

One of the main difficulties in coping with abusive authoritarian parents is the lack of consistency in their demands… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 3: my Master’s degree in computer science
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 10: disowned
  3. My depression in Waterloo, part 11: the biggest regret of my life
  4. My depression in Waterloo, part 13: dropping out
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 8: disguising my research
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My depression in Waterloo, part 1: the first term

Published by davinci on May 18, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

The previous series of posts, called “The causes of my depression”, established the triggers that set off my depression. Since coming to Waterloo, I have been encountering these almost every single day. I am therefore beginning a new series on (the effects of) my depression in Waterloo. As before, these posts were expanded from notes I took after my sessions with UW Counselling and a private psychiatrist.

The University of Waterloo is run on a system of three terms (or semesters) of four months each per academic year. The first term actually went very well for me, right up until near the end of the term, when I made the mistake of consenting to a visit from my parents… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 5: feeling “unworthy”
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 8: disguising my research
  3. My depression in Waterloo, part 6: meeting people
  4. My depression in Waterloo, part 9: exposed
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 13: dropping out
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The causes of my depression, part 19: the demographics of my graduate school labmates

Published by davinci on May 13, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

As I have described in several previous posts, my academic and social lives basically did not intersect while I was an undergraduate. In graduate school, these aspects of my life became somewhat re-integrated once again, because there were so many Iranians in engineering, and especially in my area of control systems.

I should perhaps go back a little and explain why the demographics of my graduate school labmates was noteworthy. Throughout my undergraduate years in Engineering Science, my father had been harassing me about my supposed inability to compete with students from mainland China… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 2: my high school predictions about the future
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice
  3. My depression in Waterloo, part 3: my Master’s degree in computer science
  4. The causes of my depression, part 17: my “frivolous” web site and how I learned Persian
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 11: the biggest regret of my life
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The causes of my depression, part 17: my “frivolous” web site and how I learned Persian

Published by davinci on May 7, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

When I entered graduate school to study discrete-event control systems, I once again put up a web site with my interests and my writings. As a part of that, I experimented with automatic translation, but the state of the technology was pretty poor at the time, and so it didn’t work out. What I ended up with was a web site with sections in four languages — English, Chinese, Klingon, and Hindi — and different content in each.

I featured a number of projects on the web site which had nothing to do with school… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 19: the demographics of my graduate school labmates
  2. My depression in Waterloo, part 2: role reversal and sacrifice
  3. The causes of my depression, part 4: the Mentorship Program
  4. The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine”
  5. The causes of my depression, part 15: the most important thing I did in undergrad
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The causes of my depression, part 13: leading a double life

Published by davinci on May 4, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I mentioned earlier that I lived essentially two separate lives in my undergraduate years. My life outside of the classroom was an attempt to continue to do the things that my parents had tried to prevent me from doing. Because I could not focus on studying theoretical computer science or physics, for the reasons explained previously, I turned my attention to what I believed would be happening in the near future in the Muslim world. I sat in on classes in history, religion, and languages, though I did not take them officially because I did not want my parents to see these courses on my transcript. There were a few people who knew that I was doing all of these things in additional to being in Engineering Science, and they always expressed amazement that I was able to pull it off. But I don’t think that this was actually all that impressive… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 11: the biggest regret of my life
  2. The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree
  3. The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine”
  4. The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates
  5. The causes of my depression, part 3: “stop wasting money on worthless books”
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The causes of my depression, part 12: my grandmother’s death

Published by davinci on May 3, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

A major blow to my ability to concentrate on my studies came when my grandmother passed away.

I was taking Stephen Cook’s course on Computational Complexity and Computability at the time. In high school, when I was studying the exact same topics covered by the course, my father had called them “worthless” and had told me that if I didn’t stop “wasting my time” on them then I would never get into graduate school. And when I had defended myself by telling him that Gödel’s theorems and the P vs. NP problem were among some of the most important ideas in computer science, he screamed at me, “Then why haven’t I heard of them?”… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates
  2. The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree
  3. The causes of my depression, part 7: my mother’s selfishness
  4. The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches
  5. The causes of my depression, part 6: how Mrs. Mallo saved my academic career
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The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates

Published by davinci on May 2, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Though I hadn’t realised this at the time, by far the most damaging part of being in the wrong program in the long term was that I had essentially nothing in common with any of my classmates. I’ve heard that it is not unusual for people to form lifelong friendships during their undergraduate years, but I barely interacted with anyone else in the program. Their goals were completely different from mine, as were their attitudes towards learning.

While there were a few guys at the top of the class who were actually passionate about some specific subject, most of the rest of the class wanted only to memorise enough equations, and for long enough, to pass their tests and do well on their assignments. More than once, I have heard, “What are you still studying that for? We don’t need to know that any more (or, until the final exam).” I suppose that this isn’t a problem specific to engineering… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree
  2. The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches
  3. The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine”
  4. The causes of my depression, part 1: a summary of the present situation
  5. The causes of my depression, part 4: the Mentorship Program
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The causes of my depression, part 10: “the Machine”

Published by davinci on May 1, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Besides my brother, I didn’t spend very much time with anyone else in the Engineering Science program, except for one other guy. He had actually joined the program late, and wasn’t very social. I had noticed him sitting by himself and invited him to join us, and the three of us ended up spending a lot of time studying together after that. Many of the other students in the program studied in large groups and socialised together in the evenings and on weekends, but we didn’t join them. I actually kept a very active social life outside of Engineering Science, which I will write about in later posts.

Our friend was the most efficient person my brother and I had ever seen. We nicknamed him “the Machine”… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 9: exposed
  2. The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches
  3. The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates
  4. The causes of my depression, part 19: the demographics of my graduate school labmates
  5. My depression in Waterloo, part 8: disguising my research
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The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches

Published by davinci on April 30, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

In high school, my life had been synthetic: my academic and social lives were blended together harmoniously, despite my parents’ attempts to disrupt that harmony. In university, I was forced to live essentially two separate lives, and had to divide my attention between them. I suffered greatly through the first two years because it wasn’t until third year that I managed to somewhat integrate the two halves of my life again.

I think that my parents chose a program with such a heavy workload because they believed that it would force me to focus on the subjects that I needed for graduate school while preventing me from having the free time to devote my attention to subjects which had “nothing to do with” a future career in academia. As always, their actions had the opposite effect… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates
  2. The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree
  3. The causes of my depression, part 2: my high school predictions about the future
  4. The causes of my depression, part 16: choosing my major
  5. The causes of my depression, part 12: my grandmother’s death
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The causes of my depression, part 8: a “prestigious” degree

Published by davinci on April 29, 2009 in autobiography and personal. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

I was very far ahead of my high school classmates, and by third year I was practically already in university, because I was spending so much time at the University of Toronto libraries. I actually could have entered university after the third year of high school, but my father forbade me from doing so because he disapproved of my academic plans. I had wanted to study computer science and physics (especially astrophysics), with a smattering of courses in religion and history, which I could have done by entering a flexible program with a small workload and then choosing my own courses. I was preparing myself to fill a niche for scientists who could communicate with both computer scientists and physicists, while being in a position to take advantage of the career and monetary opportunities created by the coming shift of the West’s attention to the Muslim world. My father claimed that this was “unfocused”… » [Expand post] [Permalink]

If you like this post, you might also like:

  1. My depression in Waterloo, part 3: my Master’s degree in computer science
  2. The causes of my depression, part 9: rolling with the punches
  3. The causes of my depression, part 11: nothing in common with classmates
  4. The causes of my depression, part 4: the Mentorship Program
  5. The causes of my depression, part 7: my mother’s selfishness
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