And don't rule out your university's counselling service. They are there for you to talk to. They can't produce money to solve the financial problem, but they can help you feel a little less isolated. And everything you say is in confidence. It may also help you work out some more solutions.

I really think you should talk to your supervisor. Why not try? And by that I mean don't be knocked back if he responds as before. You need to lay this on the line.

I've had to talk to both sets of my supervisors (through both PhDs) about really difficult things going on with me. It was necessary to get their help, especially in the second case where I managed to complete the PhD. Yes it was awkward, I'm sure they'd rather we hadn't had this discussion, but they were professional enough to want to help, so we got on with it.

Your supervisor is supposed to be there for you. If you can't talk to them properly about this sort of thing then something is very seriously wrong.

That sounds a little like my thesis, except that mine was history, 18th century, and rather than interviews I was relying on snippets found in old documents. I had a little quantitative analysis, but the bulk of my research and thesis was qualitative, involving hunting for needles in haystacks!

The bulk of my thesis was 5 main chapters, each exploring a different thematic subset of my research topic. Initially when I wrote each chapter it was like lots of interesting snippets, one after the other. But my supervisor encouraged me to try to impose a higher-level structure, a story/narrative running through, so I'd say what I'd found/concluded, and then give examples, rather than let the examples (sort of) speak for themselves.

I needed a final conclusions chapter as well to discuss the overall results, including the case for change over time that I studied, and what the nature of that change was. But each earlier thematic chapter worked very well.

Does this help at all? Could you try summarising what you have found for each chapter at a higher-level, and then write it that way, with the "he said" and "she said" playing a supporting role, rather than the other way around?

It doesn't look very bad. This sort of mistake happens all the time with theses. The main thing is you've spotted it. Add it to a list of errors that you will correct, and take that list into the viva. Don't make a big thing of it on the day. Just pass over the list of errors that you've spotted. I did this at the very start of my viva, and took 3 copies of the error list in, one for each examiner, and one for the convenor of my viva. All were grateful. No big deal.

Should have said that most universities (in the UK anyway) have a free counselling service for staff and students. So that would be there for you to use. Counselling is in confidence, so anything you say stays in the room, so you can have a good moan 8-)

But I do think you may need to see your GP as well. I developed anxiety issues part-way through my part-time PhD. My GP blames the neurological disease. I think one of the chemo drugs I'm on might be to blame. Doesn't matter what the cause is, there was the problem, and it was impacting on my PhD. We decided to try anti-anxiety medication. That has worked very well for me.

Not sleeping and being so upset sounds very serious to me, and, to be honest, I think you need to look at getting professional help. Whether that be a GP or a counsellor I can't advise which would be best (or even both?), but you need to speak to someone who can help you cope better with the current situation. And that's a professional trained in this area. We can offer advice, but we're all anonymous people on the forum. You need to see someone face to face. It sounds as though you have a very severe form of anxiety at the moment. Counselling can help with that, as can medication. But it's not getting better on its own, so you need to get proper help now.

Yes it is scary that you may fail. I thought I might fail as well (even with confident supervisors someone in my department - a brilliant student - had recently failed outright, filling the department with terror), but I took a very "que sera sera" attitude after submission. Getting so upset is not going to help you prepare properly for your viva, and isn't going to improve the result at all, in fact it might make it worse. You need to cope better. And to do that you might need professional help to help you do so.

If you're in your first year then yes it is too early to worry about this sort of thing unduly. It will work out ok. You have a long way ahead of you. Don't worry if the odd experiment doesn't work well. A PhD is a marathon not a sprint. And you will get there in the end :p

Ground breaking results are very unlikely, but normally a PhD would have to make some contribution to knowledge. That can be at a small level. You could have tested a methodology on a different data set. Or established some new facts. Or worked out a new hypothesis.

I finished my PhD last year. I doubt that many people will ever read my thesis, beyond my supervisors, my immediate family (i.e. parents and hubby), and a post-doc who worked on a closely related PhD. But I am turning my thesis into more journal papers, and those will reach a wider readership. I published 2 peer-reviewed papers during my part-time PhD and I'm now generating more. And I continue to do fun research, albeit in an independent researcher way.

I'd put "viva DD/MM/YYYY, result pass with major corrections"

If you get an interview you will be asked to expand on this.

Oh and try not to worry about the "big issues" as you said it. Whatever sup2 and sup3 will come up you will deal with in due course. No point worrying about it before then. You can worry yourself into a right state that way. Not productive.

Have that rest!

It's quite normal to feel like this. I was in a similar position just over a year ago. I sent my final draft to my main supervisor by email, just before Christmas. He read it fast, and posted the results back to me (with handwritten scribbles all over) just before New Year. My second supervisor took much longer to read, and then emailed me some useful comments in late January.

I felt in limbo at that point. And I had an absolute (6-year) university deadline that March.

I would wait a couple of weeks, and if you haven't heard back from sup2 and sup3 by then you should email them and ask when they think they will have comments for you by. Well that's what I'd do anyway.

But have a bit of a rest now. There's nothing useful you can do until you hear back from sup2 and sup3. You've earned the rest, so take it. And don't worry about vivas until you actually submit. Even then you don't need to worry about it until about a month before the actual viva.

Fast progress can be a good thing, but I think your supervisor's advice to slow down and expand on what you have now is good too. It's easy to leave things to later, but things don't always get done that way. Also if you do the expansion now while the ideas are fresh in your mind you are likely to make a better job of it than you would do later. And it's more important to have depth than breadth, another advantage of slowing down a little bit and expanding on things now.

My main advice would be to stop comparing yourself with other people. It isn't helpful, and doesn't get you towards the end result, which is to get your PhD. Yes they may have more energy, yes they may seem to be in better places, but everyone is different. It's not a competition. And it's very easy to look at other people and come away with negative views. Stop it!

Also if you have 7 funded months to go and 3 chapters written already (even if in very rough draft) you are in a good place. You have lots of time as a full-time student to finish your thesis.

I'd be a bit more concerned about your supervisor's comments, which I think many supervisors will honestly think about their students, but aren't helpful to express! However you should push ahead. Write up, and go for the end goal.

But please stop comparing yourself to other people. It's your own achievements that count, and it sounds as though you are in a good place. Sheesh lots of other people here would love to be in your position in 3rd year. Lots over run and over run and over run.

The last few months are the hardest though (I remember this well - my viva was only last March), and you can go through more crises of confidence than at any other time. But the key thing is to keep going.

Good luck!