So, like so many I have been experiencing a really difficult time with my PhD for the last few months. I am part-time, and was working in a stressful job that was practically full-time that I left earlier this year. I thought it would be good to get into doing a related job so it seemed perfect to get a small number of hours working as a research assistant, but now I just feel so incompetent at everything and out of my depth, not to mention how lonely I feel.

I fell quite behind on the literature, especially where things have changed in terms of the focus of my project. I spent the last 12 months collecting data for a large number of interviews, transcribing and I am now deep in my analysis. I have collected so many research articles where my topic has been quite exploratory and not specific enough, so I have about 1700 articles in my reference manager - not all of them read!

I am doing a thematic analysis, it is my first qualitative piece of research, and I just feel so overwhelmed by it - I have over 450 pages of text and I feel trying to get these 'neat' themes that fit together into three analysis chapters to answer all of my research questions is just impossible.

I feel I have all the makings of a PhD except the confidence and belief in my abilities to actually do it! I find myself procrastinating so much recently and just overwhelmed every time I try to work, I am not progressing - I am finding it impossible to do simple things.

But when I think about quitting it also really upsets me, mostly that the project won't be finished, as I do think it has a lot of value.

I am really confused, but taking a break is not an option, I either need to carry on and finish or leave. I just wondered what people think I should do?

How long do you have left? What do your supervisors think of your progress?

I wouldn't worry too much about being behind in the literature, I definitely got to grips with this as I was writing up, and only read what I needed to shape my research in other years.

My PhD was a qualitative thematic analysis piece too and I worked part-time as a research assistant during data collection and transcription. I don't think my themes were fixed right up to the last few months before submission, so I wouldn't be overly worried. As you begin to write up, many things will change. I must have changed and rewritten my themes and structure of analysis chapters at least 40 to 50 times before submission.

However, what is important is to know your research questions and to be quite specific. And this can only occur from your lit review. Again, your research questions (and lit review) can change once you get to know your data. It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation - without a research question(s), you can't analyse your data, but without knowing your data, you can't have good research questions. If it helps, I used NVivo the first few times I coded. I coded my entire data set twice - once with NVivo just to get a feel of coding and my data, and then the second time just using Word and coloured text. You really must know your data inside out, I cannot emphasise this enough. I could practically recite what someone said and who said it after a while. Good luck and enjoy the process.