Hello!
I am a PhD student finishing my third year. One year left. I am desperate because I have no data, no motivation, no idea what I want to do after I finish. I don't like the people I work with - most of the post-docs dislike me, the ones who do like me seem to struggle in this lab as well. Several quit and find new jobs elsewhere as the environment here is too toxic for them to handle.
The post-docs supervising me ignored me for the first 2 years and a half, and now suddenly realised I exist and only put pressure on me, implying I won't make it.
My supervisor is nice, but he doesn't do lab work at all, he only manages the lab and has important roles in the University, so I don't think he understands.
I am starting to write my thesis (I was told I need to write up and work in the lab simultaneously as I won't have the time to write up only in the end) but I feel sad, depressed, and been eating and sleeping irregularly (a lot.). I feel moody all the time, and don't know what to do.
Is it possible to do lots of work in the final year and get a PhD? Any thoughts? Help :(

I am really sorry to hear your story.

The good thing is that from what you say you have a nice supervisor who at the end of the day is really the only one that can turn your fortunes around by rallying the postdocs to be more helpful in your final year. I therefore suggest you write him an e-mail of your progress (i.e. what experiments you have done to date and the outcome) and your worries without going into too much detail about what brought you to this position (i.e. how the postdocs treated you) so that both of you can come up with a feasible action plan in the time you have left. Following this you will have to make sure that you follow the plan/timeline so as not to give anyone an excuse to ignore you again.

On another note forget about what you want to do afterwards for now as this is just an unnecessary distraction. If all your data is going to come from the work you do in your final year (if you mean year four) then writing as you go on will be a good idea as you need at least three months to write-up without distractions. Not looking after yourself is going to slow the work down along with thinking about who is or not your friend as this only leads to paranoia. At the end of the day, do you really want to be friends with these people?

I have been in a similar situation to you but it will all come good in the end just hang on, the year will go quickly.
Good Luck

Thank you so much for your kind reply! I spent the weekend writing my thesis. I've got the introduction and materials and methods pretty much done, and I'm working on the first results chapter. Don't have much to go in there and there are some flaws in what I have, but I think it'll be easier to decide what to do once I have everything organised.
I am more motivated though, I think I can do it if I put a lot of effort in.
Thanks again!

hi Pitseleh
don't be discouraged by the way things are now! I don't know how much data you need to write your thesis---but it looks like you are ok (from your latest post here).

Just sharing with you--my first supervisor (from my 1st degree days) for my final year project once told me that when he was doing his phd at East Anglia, he had no results for more than 2 years. He was stuck in the lab with nothing until suddenly 6 months from the finishing date, he got some results and suddenly things started speeding up for him.

You'll be ok. There are days when things are ok and when things don't seem to be ok, hang in there.

love satchi

Thank you Satchi, hopefully the final year will be better than the previous three for me!