Of course it's not morally acceptable. It is you who will put the name on the thesis, so it should naturally be YOU who is the author!

English is not my mother tongue either, and still I don't go out to find an editor. At the same time, fellow students from UK get the same comment sometimes:"you're ideas are not clear".

Work on making it clear what you are saying, it's tough for everyone.

One would believe that an MBA from University of Cambridge of your husband guarantees a salary of 60k or more? Enough to self-fund a PhD.

MBAs aren't what they used to be

good luck whatever you decide to do but I agree with bewildered.

One of my friends did. No problem at all. Surprisingly, the majority of supervisors appear to understand that it is sometimes the best thing to quit. They've been through the process and knows how it can affect health and wellbeing. Plus, they are intelligent enough to put things in perspective.

1. I'm in the unfortunate situation that I cannot read the handwriting of my supervisor. Anybody else experienced this? It may appear trivial but it is a major issue. In my case to late to do anything about. Illegible comments means no feeback!

2. How do you deal with being generally fed up with supervisor crticism? Imagine you completed a thesis, your supervisor is not in your field but very experienced. So he/she critisizes without understanding it. Is it really necessary to simplify the language to the extent a 3-year old understands it? Or will that offend examiners even more?

I think the responses are self-explanatory and I second that you need a bit of a reality check. That's because you don't appear to understand the nature and purpose of doctoral research. It's not all about methods and techniques!

Even if the OP is not having suicidal thoughts at the moment, I think all of you are too confident in your ability to help someone with such serious difficulties. Perhaps I'm being oversensitive about this issue, but the problem is that there is no guarantee that some idiot will play devil's advocate. Maybe so far your advice has been genuine, but how can you guarantee it will remain like that in an open forum? That's why I said, delete the thread. I've heard about a forum where some idiot encouraged the person who had suicidal tendencies to go ahead and do it. Dead now.

That's why there shouldn't be "suicide" threads on this forum!

Professional help is not just seeing a doctor for anti-depressants. It may also involve working with a psychologist.

But what I originally wanted to say is that we are all no professionals and, even if the OP has received professional help in the past, are not the right people to give advice. Imagine you were a lecturer. A student you barely remember from your lectures comes to see you to tell you about suicidal tendencies. What would you do? Fake understanding, tell about your own experiences as a student or send the student away to some professional who can give appropriate advice and help??

Shut up yourself.

If someone talks about suicide, then the help of this forum is simply not helpful enough and professional help required. Think about it.

I vote for this thread to be closed and deleted. The poster needs professional help to get rid of suicidal tendencies, not some forum user experiences. This appears to serious to be messed with.

Been there, seen it, experienced. Also with me as a speaker at conferences. It amuses me to see some middle-aged men and women try to rubbish the speaker, they seem to get some sort of satisfaction from this action. Just shows the weirdness of academia and some of its main players. They probably try to compensate for their rubbish lives and poor salaries.

"as I've had plenty of suicidal thoughts throughout my illness, and obviously a lab full of nasty chemicals is not the ideal place to try and stay away from those thoughts."

I think this quote shows that it is time for you to quit your PhD. Now and completely. Nobody on this forum can help or give advice when things are so bad that you develop suicidal thoughts. I think it's obvious that the phD is not doing you any good.

The fact that you lost the thread - it might be a symbol for something...

You completely contradict yourself now.

Fact is, if PhDs which are "problematic" get awarded based on questionable factors, something IS wrong with the system, big time.

Well, if what you say is true, then this is a corrupt system in the UK.

As the next generation of academics, maybe we have the obligation to ensure it will be less corrupt in the future!

Do you mean completed PhDs? Do you not think that they will put more emphasis on publications, PostDoc, supervisor? In what specific context will they differentiate? Job interviews for academic positions?

I don't think so.