Reading eddi's post about nervous exhaustion has really put things into perspective. I'm amazed every day at how many different feelings and emotions we undergo during the PhD. How is everyone feeling about their life/PhD/whatever is most important to them right now? Use this thread to vent your thoughts and emotions, whatever they may be! Me? Well, I seem to be going through an 'automaton' phase right now, not just with the PhD, with everything! It's almost like I've switched off and am just cruising along. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I don't seem to care right now! I think it's some sort of coping mechanism. For some reason, it feels quite nice, because I've always worried about everything way too much, so it's a welcome break. How is everyone else out there feeling?

My barometer of unhappiness is my third year of my undergraduate degree when i developed an eating disorder, felt depressed, and spent three days in bed in my room refusing to talk to anyone.

I am a lot more balanced now, but still have ups and downs. The worst is feeling like I have nothing to say and feeling futile. I always dread supervisions and preparing written work. It will be a real feat to finish this PhD. I am writing prep work for a panel at the momment and have really struggle to get ideas down. At least when I force them they start to flow, suprisingly!

I have suffered from depression for a long time. I cope with it, but it really gets to me now and again. The last couple of days, I have had to force myself to go downstairs and socialize with my housemate and her fiancee. Once I got down there, though, it really did help. But it takes all my mental strength to over-ride the negative feelings sometimes.

I hear you, Chrisrolinski, about the struggle to write & the associated feelings of inadequacy. I often hate writing (not good for a humanities student) . . . it does end up flowing more often than not, but the effort to get there is sometimes too much.

Great idea for a thread. I really appreciate having a safe space to purge like this :) Feel better already just sharing.

Jan/Feb were spent in a kind of panick-come-paralysis that I am just starting to come out of (I have similar problems, bela). I just feel as though this year is a huge mountain to climb in order to submit. I also feel further isolated in having a young child and therefore being in a very different position to the other students I know. I think I am suffering from severe cognitive dissonance regarding putting my daughter in daycare while I finish. It just seems contradictory to everything else I try to do as a parent - it is entirely selfish and I'm not even earning money. And yet I do it. And so the guilt is driving me crazy and I keep it down to 3 day/week which is just not enough.

I've noticed that I tend to move between extremes of feeling in my life. I'm either too uptight or too laxed, with no in-between. When I hit an apathetic period as I have in the last couple of months, I start to worry. It's a fear that it's going to hang around and I won't be able to get myself excited about anything anymore. I wish I was one of those people who just enjoyed the ride of life and didn't worry about anything. I meet these people and feel so envious of their ability to cope with anything that's thrown in their direction. The vision I had of the PhD before I started is completely different from the reality. I sometimes wish I hadn't done a PhD, then I would still have that romantic vision in my mind forever. I have a feeling I'm going to be a completely different person by the time I finish it--anyone else get this feeling?

I'm like that Xenao - in that I am have bursts of intense activity but stretches of apathy. I sometimes wonder how much more I could get done if I were more stable but that's how it is and I don't think I'm going to change now. Sometimes I need a little change or tweak in my project to keep the motivation up - thankfully that has tended to happen as otherwise I would be pretty fed-up with it by now.

This whole process, from MPhil to submission will have taken 7 years - longer than anything else I've ever done (and I'm not young). I never saw it as taking so long. Well you know what they say - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Definitely with you, Xeno. I sometimes worry that I've lost the ability to feel anything except mild irritation.

But I went to a concert last night: it was a performance of choral music, like Handel and the Requiem, and although it was not something I'd normally go for, it has cheered me up immensely. The total change of scene has put things in perspective (at least temporarily). I'd recommend something like this when you're really wound up.

I can definitely relate to what you're saying about swinging between extremes. I move between intensity and lethargy and I've always been like that. I'm going through a similiar thing to you xeno, feeling apathetic and disinterested. I don't know which is worse! I went through a phase of really worrying about what my supervisor thought of me as a person, my work, etc. In the past few months I've not cared one bit if I was meeting his expectations and stopped caring what he thought, even though I respect him immensely. In a way, it's nice to let go, but then again it's my anxieties that have always driven my work and pushed me on. I think my major worry is that I don't have what it takes to be an academic, and I'm so concerned that the minute I realise this, my whole world is going to crumble because I've put all my attention and focus into academia and I have nothing else!