Hi forum!

I'm feeling a bit down in the dumps at the mo, and I was wondering if any of you have had similar thoughts. I started a PhD in sept, I receive nearly 15k from the ESRC and am getting used to PhD life. But, Im wondering whether Im academically good enough for this course and as a result, feel unworthy of this position. My PhD is in a different yet related field to my undergrad and MSc degrees, and it has taken a while to get used to the field. My boyfriend is very supportive and has more faith in me than I have in completing this project!Does anyone have any tips to get out of this slump? I'm hoping this is a phase!

That sounds just like me! Just keep going, it's got to get better or much worse and then you will know the right thing to do

I am not sure if this will make you feel better or not, but I recently passed my viva and I am still not sure if I am good enough either! I have decided it is much more about tenacity though.

You are not alone!!! But I guess "this too shall pass"!!! We have to soldier on...You have high's and you have lows. Chin up. I am very pissed myself about my PhD but there is no way I can give up now..(I tell myself)

You have the 6 month blues!

A friend of mine diagnosed mine for me, and I have since seen others with them. You get to about 6-9 months in, there is still ages to go until you finish so you can't comfort yourself with the thought of finishing, but you are still so new that you don't know what you are doing most days (you make mistakes, your subject still feels foreign, every time you turn around there is another paper you should be familiar with). But, to make matters worse, you are now so familiar to everyone around you (colleagues, supervisors) that they all assume you know what you are doing and forget about you.

Don't worry - you just have to soldier on and in a couple of months, it all falls into place. I had the 6 month blues for about 3 months, but then they just went away...until the 2 year panic starts, but they are completely different again. No need to stress and get depressed, what you have is perfectly normal...well, I had them too anyway.

This has come up a number of times before. We all go through the "I'm not worthy/I'm a fake/they must have made a mistake" phase. It happened to me in November but I'm fine now. I think it's because I got my head down and got to grips with the literature so that I can talk fairly authoritatively on my field. It gives you alot of confidence - especially when you know more than your sups on your topic. It's probably also because I set out a number of milestones which I have been working through one by one. So I do feel I'm getting somewhere.

I'd say your first port of call is to draft a Lit review. ALright it will change later, but it will boost your confidence.

hi there..
sounds exactly like the things I am thinking... I am also doing something that is not very related to my previous studies, and I too have a boyfriend saying he believes in me. Self-doubt is very normal. I don't want to dissapoint you, but it gets worse in the second year (and probably the third year as well). Research is like that, because you can pretty much only count on yourself and it makes sense that you'll be scared you won't make it. I still did not get over my self doubt.. The only thing I can say to you that I keep trying to remind myself, is that pretty much all people that I know that have a PhD also had this feeling of doubt and worry. So, keep saying that it's normal and it will pass eventually!

Adding on.. I will be finishing my second year in near future and the feelings of self-doubt and blues keep coming on and off. To me it was so bad during the first year, I kept repeating this "I'm not good enough" thing to myself. But life goes on and now I see a much more wider picture thats not too bleak. So, its all about how you keep motivating yourself and doing the work even when it feels like the last thing you want to do. There are phases in this PhD marathon as I understand and different tactics are used, some run slow in the beginning, some in the middle etc.. so cheer up and start doing little bits and pieces of work then you will get to point when you realise you have actually done something good.