At the end of the day it depends on your own happiness and mental health. If you are truly unhappy and cant cope it is best to leave. Especially if you are in your first year. A PhD isn't necessarily the holy grail. Unless youre the best of the best it seems pactically imposiable to continue in academic research anyway, most first time application grants fail.. The future sounds bleak.....

unless of course I secure my ideal PhD'ship or get a different change my career path all together. Time is running out I am fastly approaching my thirties!

I wish you could preview messages before you post them

Hi theanniversary21, I couldn't agree more to what your saying.
However it is the case that we need to look deep inside ourselves and ask why are we doing this and where does it head to.
It seems that we are both stuck in a situation that is quite unpleasant and we are trying to find an escape route. Yet our enviroment imposes certain standardised concepts that put a break on any effort to escape.

I have been trully unhappy and depressed for 9 months and counting. I know that the best way to stop being depressed is to leave. Yet what stops me from doing it is the fear of the unknown. The fear of what others(future employers or other supervisors) might say about me quiting. I know there is a perfectly good reason for leaving yet the idea of quiting and not finishing (and overcome any obstacles) what i started, worries me. And since i feel like this, i assume others might react in the same way,wondering whether or not i am a looser and a quitter.
Having said that,i have to admit that even the idea of continuing with what i am doing at the moment with the same supervisor drives me crazy.

The point here is not about being a 'loser' or a 'winner'. The point is being able to assess what you really want and fight for it. You should consider that the problems that we experince with our supervisors are likely to happen in other contexts and with other people. You cannot run away every time. You must do your possible best to make things working and think constantly about your objectives. You must be motivated, no doubt. Do you enjoy doing research? What is the outcome of what you have done so far? What sort of feed-back do you get from other people in your field? These are the important questions. If you don't enjoy what you are doing and this affects your quality of life of course you should leave. It seems to me that you are giving too much importance to the roles of the 'others' (supervisor, potential boss, etc.). Concentrate on yourself, what you need, want and can do.

MichaelA I am in the same situation I have done almost a year of PhD however I have been unsure since day 1 (it was the only project I had offered). I really believed I could motive myself and that it would be worth sticking it out for the qualification, however in reality this was not the case. I feel like a complete looser and like I am letting everyone down including myself. I am begining to have lots of self doubts, like "what if I am not capable of obtaining a PhD?" and "would I have the same problems regardless of the PhD project?" "Maybe its just me, I feel useless?" I am now applying for new projects, problem is there are no projects in the field I am interested in close to where I live and my wife dosn't want to relocate. I feel like I am loosing everything. I don't think dropping out should be seen as a negative thing afterall I got accepted on my last PhD. Hope it all works out! Wish me luck! And MichaelA I'll keep you posted as to what happens.

What is not normal is to have a supervisor who ignores every "achievement" and remembers only negative thinks, who pays no attention whatsoever to what your saying,

I'm a little confused (trying to help). Is your supervisor actually saying you are not doing very well, is it just what he does not says, or is he making comments about how your work is not accurate?

I think what sixkitten said was spot on about the difference between being independent and getting support. My supervisor has a leave you completely to it approach which means I've not had the support I've needed. I've not felt able to ask for the help I need as he is generally too busy, and my personality as well.

If you leave it would be better if it was an informed decision. Make sure there is nothing you can do to improve things and get as many opinions as you can to answer you questions, e.g. what would an employer think...is there a way of finding out? A lot of people do struggle for varying times during the PhD, it doesn't mean you're bad at it.

Work independently is not an issue for me. I have no experience on my research subject at all, since anything i learned at the past is not applicable, at least not directly.
It is the case of being asked to do something that is not possible to do it yourself. You are trying, searching here and there but at the end you go to your supervisor saying i couldn't do it. Now the supervisor might be helpfull and suggest a solution or like in my case starting blaming you for being incapable of doing anything.

it seems that i am not alone after reading your messages. i agree that relationship of PhD candidate and supervisor is very important.
i really hate my supervisor since he let me do a lot of work out of my project. He likes people who every day stay in office or lab including x'mas and new year. in fact, most of them just play computor or others in office. i dont like this kind of research style but He will feel that i am useless and lazy. i have tried to 'not' contact him for 2 months but he feel nothing. i believe that he has forgotten that i am living now. So s***!!!!!!
this is a good web site to communite each other. After typing this message, i feel beter. How much unfortunate PhD candidates in the world????

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ1Gmv3JzRQ&mode=related&search=

ive had the exact same problem. 6 months into my phd. i was told by my supervisor , that im not cut out for university x , im not going to pass first year. all of this coming from a guy who has shown no interest in my phd project. in my case a confrontation would have done no good. a postdoc in my group nearly lost her job because of confronting him