I'll be honest, when I first found this site.. I found it incredibly depressing and horrifying - all these stories about evil supervisors, people failing etc.. My PhD ride has been incredibly easy by a lot of posts standards... Relatively lovely (slightly unsupportive) suppervisor, easy 3 years with no issues.. My final writing up year was stressful as I was working full time and editing in my spare time.. but there were no problems with my supervision,
I had a few issues with other people in the department - Lecturers who treated PhD's like scum and who tried to make you do unpaid work for them. I simply told them to sod off..Some of my friends were worried about 'the ramifications on their career in academia', however I was more worried about being treated like crap and then it being harder to stand up for myself later on.