Afraid

I’m Afraid of This PhD — And I’m Doing It Anyway

I’m afraid of this PhD process.

I’m afraid I’ll fail them. I’m afraid I’ll get in my own way. I’m afraid that one day a professor will look at me and realize I’m not 25, I don’t have a trust fund, and my transcript has holes in it you could fall through — holes called jail, homelessness, grief, and years where survival was the only syllabus.

I’m 51. I should be past this kind of fear. But fear doesn’t check your age before it shows up.

Here’s what I know: I’ve been through hard circumstances that got me through worse than a dissertation. I’ve slept in cars and still showed up. I’ve written papers in shelters with no wifi and a dead phone. I’ve argued my case to judges, to landlords, to case managers, to myself at 3am when the panic said “you can’t.” I did anyway.

If I can rise from the ashes of criminalization, homelessness, and mental health crisis, I can figure out APA 7th edition.

I know that with hard work and determination, anything is possible. Not easy. Not fast. Possible. I’m not 22 with nothing to lose. I’m 51 with everything to prove — but only to myself. I don’t need to be the smartest in the room. I need to be the one who doesn’t quit the room.

I’m not in a rush. I spent decades in a hurry to survive. Now I get to move with intention. My timeline isn’t their timeline. I’m not here to compete with kids who haven’t buried a mother or been evicted. I’m here to complete.

Complete. That’s the word. Not perfect. Not first. Just done.

Some days the imposter syndrome screams. It tells me I’m too old, too broken, too “non-traditional.” On those days I remember: non-traditional means I took the long way, and the long way means I saw more. I bring lived experience into rooms that only have textbooks. I bring the YMCA, the Rent Well class, the courtroom, the cocoon into the academy. That’s not a deficit. That’s data.

I am scared I will fail them. But the “them” isn’t my committee. The “them” is the 15-year-old me who thought she was stupid. The “them” is every unhoused woman who thinks the door to education closed on her. I refuse to fail her.

So I write. I read. I revise. I ask the dumb questions. I go to office hours. I turn it in even when it shakes. Because hard work isn’t glamorous. It’s getting up after the panic attack and opening the laptop anyway.

I don’t know if I’ll be a doctor in two years or five. I don’t care. I’m not in a rush. I’m in it.

And I’ve been through enough hell to know: I don’t have to be fearless to finish. I just have to be willing.

I’m willing.

So I’ll see this PhD through — scared, determined, and done explaining why I belong here. I belong because I’m still here.