Oh and I am also going to see my doc next week to tackle the depression and anxiety that I have developed since that wretched day in 2014 when I decided to do a doctorate.

Honestly, I do not want to sound dramatic but my life has gone downhill since.

I blame my doctorate even for Trump and Brexit. ;)

I have found my people! Another one who has been steamrolled by their PhD. My supervisor was really harsh and offered no praise. I published like a lunatic whilst writing, I passed with only a handful of typos .... and the whole experience has completely broken me! I have applied to a couple of post-docs and not got anywhere (I am in a really competitive field) and now working an industry job but seriously thinking about quitting and applying for admin jobs so at least I will get my life back, myself back. Honestly I had a better paid job before my PhD - Thought a doctorate would be the push towards career advancement but has been anything but. Frankly I wish I had not bothered with it.

I would say before the viva if you are convinced that your thesis's content is good and stands to scrutiny. If you are in doubt about the content then after.

Another person with a PHD in "humanities" who is rather irked by the comment " other fields (cough*** Humanities) no one ever publishes during the PhD." - ROARRRRR ;)

I am telling you my story as an older human being to let you know that 28 is just the beginning.

What is really important is to get well mentally - I would not have been able to go through the PhD without the support of my family, my o/h and the kids.

They helped me the most by making me STOP writing STOP obsessing STOP sitting in front of the screen with diminishing returns (I can do 18 hours days for quite a bit before sleeping for a week). STOP STOP STOP.

I just want to say something else about medications and being diagnosed.

I spent a good part of my early 20s on meds and dozed off my face thanks to cheap psychiatry. I had to interrupt my degree course because of that.

As soon as I to better I had the luck to be referred to an excellent psych who got me out of the meds and helped me with a combination of talking therapy and exercise. I know it's a bit of a cliche but it really helps. You need to get to a point where you are semi-well to be able to do it though. When I am in the deep depression I cannot do it.

These days I hardly need to medicate and my suggestion would be, try to get the best care you can and be somehow wary of medication: if you are highly functional, like me, medications take the "edge" away but take also away something that makes you you.

I wish you all the best of luck. Bon courage!

Hi Monkia how are you? Fellow bipolar here (hence my name).

I have been following your posts with recognition, not at the practical circumstances but at the way you respond to what life throws you.that obsessive circular though... well hello twin! :)

Gosh that could have been me at 28. Not so much the circumstances, as I said, but the circularity the feeling of being on the wrong path, being no-one, being trapped!

I started a PhD with a top prof in top institution in my field and just could not cope with it.

Don't get me wrong, I was good, but I realised that it was truly damaging for my mental health.

At 28 I said "EFF YOU" to academia :) . So, I was lucky enough to find a job I liked and move out of academia. I even met somebody and we are happy ever after (well... within reason)

Now, fast forward a decade or two, and with a family and I went back to PhD studies. Not the same topic as by then I had developed a research interest in another field.

And, boy, wasn't it hard. Again, not the work per se but the effect it has on my mental health. This time I was better at controlling it, and I managed not to be sectioned and finish my PhD in 3 yrs on the dot. I passed with a handful of typos only and I am now working at my first monograph and a collection of essays and I have an interesting research-related industry job whilst applying for a grant with a top institution in my field.

I am almost the stereotypical bipolar, I have so many ideas and have highly functional mania so I can just get on and do it... I have published five articles whilst writing my thesis plus shorter news type pieces, blogs, the flipping lot. You sound like you are like me, incredibly talented in some ways but a complete IDIOT in other ways (TBC)

why should you disclose if there is no difference to the post? Your nationality is your own business, like your sexuality.

My advice would be, unless there are any reasons why you should have a baby NOW, do your PhD and then think about a baby. Having a baby changes your head too, sometimes things that were important before are not important anymore - the old you will come back but for a year or two you may just wasn't to have a different life after having a baby. It is also a special time and, even if our children at times were making me and my partner absolutely mental, we were very happy to spend time with them, if you just ship them off your mum you'll lose special time that will never come back. You do not need to do everything at once. This is just my opinion of course.

pm133 there is, in fact, a huge body of literature on gender equality and difference (google Luce Irigaray and This Sex Which is Not One); because you do not frequent circles where it is debated it does not mean the the debate does not exist.

Maybe I am throwing a curveball here but why not organise a "real" international conference? I did so when I was a PhD student, with support of my institution(s), and it was one of the best things I have done, real experience and made a lot of useful contacts, and was, together with a session I organised with a more senior colleague at another international conference, the "seed" for a collection of essays I am now editing for Bloomsbury.

this is not good; does she respond to emails? Have you tried to email to her an agenda and discuss the main points through email?

I am a EU citizen and have been fully funded by the AHRC for my PhD which I have recently completed successfully - but I have been living in the UK for many years and paid taxes here. I think to get funding you must be resident here for 3 years.

I would suggest your friends gives a good look around, though, because I know of studentships and grants open also for EU citizens, like the Marie Curie bursaries.

On the other hand - and this is a huge issue - do not know what is going to happen with the Brexit uncertainty. The UK is not a great place in which to be a EU citizen at the moment.

And congratulations to Drhannahb of course.

That, pm133, was possibly one of my favourite post on this forum.I agree wholeheartedly.

Hi Mony! Go for it if you still have the passion to study. What would your visa situation be, though?