Hi Beasley and Pjlu, thank you for replying. I have written over half of my dissertation now and seeing as it is by articles, the rest (results and discussion) shouldn't take too long..I hope. I'm starting to feel like I will make it by the end of the month and my supervisor said that he will only need a day or two to make corrections. My supervisor is wonderful, I think I'd be a mess if it wasn't for his support. I'm still not sleeping well and still experience chest pain almost daily from unconsciously holding my breath and anxiety. It feels like I've been swimming deep under water for the past almost year and am only now about to reach the surface. I am an anxious person in general, and I'm very competitive, so I bring a lot of the stress on myself. Beasley, I think it is quite normal, I have read a lot about anxiety among grad students, the pressure to publish and apply for grants etc affects us now too, no longer just those in full-time positions, with limited post doc positions and a thesis to write at the end of it all, is it any wonder there are higher rates of mental health struggles among grads. Pjlu, I downloaded the app CBT-i Coach and it has helped a lot actually - especially the muscle relaxation exercises, and tea has always been a good friend of mine. Hope you are both doing well and best of luck with your submission!

Hey all,
I am due to hand my thesis in by August 31st. I'm starting to get a lot of anxiety and am having trouble sleeping which is really not helping the writing process. Any tips? Anyone else in the same boat atm? Thanks!

Of course when I am in the middle of what is an already tough data collection, the survey system breaks down. It has been down for about 6hrs now and the company support are not giving me any info. Anyone else have this problem? Did you lose many participants? I was in a state of panic, now - 6hrs later i am feeling pretty down.

Yes, I def recommend it. My PhD was pre-specified meaning all the collaborating institutions and patient recruitment organisations were already on-board. Meant I could get right into the research and plan to finish in 3 years.

I have just had my second article accepted for publication and I am 1 year and 3 months in. I had a lot of help from my co-supervisor but very little from my main. Don't think that is normal though, appears I am just unlucky with my primary and very lucky with my secondary. I guess it also depends on your discipline. Both mine were literature reviews in accordance with the two main questions of my PhD research- one article was average quality, the second was quite good, expect to get much better as your PhD progresses. I am working on the third now and can feel my writing is constantly improving.
Edit: The support I received involved simultaneously conducting the search and article quality assessment to form an agreement statistic and minor edits and suggestions to improve the written layout.

Oh that must have delayed the process a bit, hope it was worth it. Once I saw someone had been assigned to the article I sent them the corrected figure via email and they were nice enough to simply replace the old one.

I got a reply. They were super nice about it and amended my figure. Won't make that mistake again but good to know it won't be rejected, I stupidly googled it and saw others saying their paper was rejected for minor errors etc. Thank you!

Just submitted the revisions for the first article of my PhD studies and realised after I pressed submit that I uploaded the old figure instead of the updated one, which now does not match the text. Have tried contacting the editor 6+ times but have received no reply and now the status has changed to "in review". Will it be rejected for this? I am both frustrated at myself for not noticing and the editor for not replying to any of my emails in the past week before sending it back to the reviewers. Any experience with this?

I have had a similar experience. There are two of us in our research group who are doing a PhD - we are at the same stage. We share an office space. I have always had good grades, good practical and research experience, I have 3 publications already - I know I deserve to be here, but she is fantastic! She thinks of everything and is so meticulous. At the start everyone saw her as exceptional, but now her standard is what is expected. Sometimes I feel I am suffocating in her shadow. The constant comparison by myself and others has caused my self-confidence and self-esteem to take a nose dive. I've learned a lot from her and for that I am really grateful, I know I am also ahead of other PhD students, and I can see from other groups that the extra special treatment she gets is not typical for PhD students, but I have to deal with this for 2 more years. Anyone else experience this? How did it play out? How to shake the constant feeling of being inferior?