Hello everyone.

I am new to this forum. I'm currently having some issues and I felt I needed to speak to people who've been in the same situation as I feel I'm really struggling.

I am currently a PhD student, started in November, so I'm in my 5th month. Much of my background has been in anatomy and I've worked as anatomy and research technicians on short term contracts for the last few years. I moved to Aberdeen for a job but unfortunately it wasn't the right fit. I previously worked with my current PhD supervisor as a technician and he offered me a short term contract in July last year to come back and tide me over until I found something which was great as I was so unhappy in that job I was going to leave with nothing to go to. While working, I had expressed to them I wanted to continue in research and do a PhD - which all through uni, this was my goal, I wanted to continue in academia, do a masters, a phd, get a job as a researcher.

At the end of October a funded PhD became available in the same department as the original student couldn't get his visa and it was offered to me as everything was already in place for it to start. At the time I thought this was great, everything was working out, it was always what I wanted to do, I was justified in leaving my old job and everything was going to turn out okay. It wasn’t in my subject area but I could learn the new skills in the first few months and the more difficult stuff later on I’d work with my supervisors etc.

I think that should have been the first sign for me that it was a lot of new skills for me, very ultrasound based. I can use US, turn it on and point and click for what I needed to do in my previous work but now it’s all the physics and learning completely from scratch to use new modes etc.

I feel so overwhelmed in my work. I’m trying to do my literature review and my plans, while doing all this training. Since the project is drastically changing from what it was originally, I feel like I have no idea what I am doing or where I am going. I have 5 supervisors who all have input and just when I think I’ve narrowed it down to something I can understand, they pull it in another direction and it gets so big and uncontrollable again. Each has a different area of expertise and keep trying to pull it in that direction. Supervisor time is also a struggle. My name supervisor is the head of the department and is always busy, the other works clinically and is even more busy and hard to get time with (who is meant to be the one training me), the other two are at another institute and the last is the industry partner who is funding half of it and wants to see results they can use (which is fine, I understand).

At the same time I’m still having to help out on the work I was doing as a technician before, though now I’ve moved office to try and focus but I’m still getting dragged into it. It’s damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’m expected to help, but when I do help they say no shouldn’t be doing that, focus on your phd work, and then complain if I don’t help.

When I try to arrange training and do work, it feels like I am a massive inconvenience to everyone involved. They want me to train but when I try it’s like they really don’t want to help me, it’s a nightmare to schedule as everyone is so busy and because they are clinicians things get rescheduled all the time and things keep getting pushed back and back, so my progress is not where it should be and everyone is unhappy. And when they tell me to basically get on with work, I try that and then they say I should be focussing on my literature review and going back to basics because I don’t understand enough yet to be going on with the work. I just feel I am going round and round in circles.

I am unhappy. I have no desire to get up in the morning and go, I don’t eat when I’m at work because I have so much I should be doing. I feel guilty when I go to the gym at home in the evenings (I commute) because I should be using the time to do work. I still barely understand what I’m meant to be doing even though I keep producing a plan of what I want to achieve. The project itself has the potential to generate some novel data and be really interesting, but I’m really struggling to care. I don’t feel productive when I’m trying to work and what I’m producing isn’t good enough, even I know it.

I’ve been considering leaving for a few months now. I’ve applied for a few other jobs and have an interview in 2 weeks for what I think would be a great opportunity for me away from this research field. Which should be sign enough that I should leave.
I currently have no desire to continue in the research field or the subject area my PhD is in if I finish it, so is there any point in me continuing?

The girl who sits at the desk next to me had a breakdown in her final year and isn’t likely to come back. I’m feeling like this in my first year, how am I meant to complete three? Because I feel like I’m there and the tiniest thing could push me over the edge.

But I’d be going to nothing. But I can’t keep going on as soon I think there will be a point of no return and I’ll have to see the PhD to the end. I’ve always worried about the future. How can I afford to quit. What is the likelihood of me finding another job, if I leave with nothing it’s going to be so much harder for me to find something. It is also not helped as my fiancé and I are getting married next year and have a wedding to pay for. We have no house or mortgage or other big out goings other than the wedding. I could pay for my half but it would wipe out my savings. He has offered to support me while I find something else but I feel like I’m being a huge selfish burden, but I don’t see any other way. I’d be continuing to carry on with research I hate, work I hate going to, feeling physically and mentally awful everyday to keep having some sort of income which is going to cause problems when I’ve not produced any substantial research and wasted everyone’s money.

I want to leave but it will just be another example of me being a failure. Even reading what I’ve wrote makes me think I don’t have what it takes to go the distance, but I’ve not got anything else I can go to.

I’m at the stage where I’m a total mess. I don’t know if I can carry on and come through this and flourish? Has anyone been where I’m feeling and manage to come out the other side and finish? Even then is there much point if it’s not a field I want to stay in. Has anyone left and managed to get jobs again? I'll have burnt all my bridges.

I've told my supervisors I am struggling but not to the full extent, but they just seem to expect me to get on with it and I don't know how I can.

My account is new and I may not be able to reply to this today as my account is still young and I can only post 5 times, but you can PM me. I would love to hear from someone....anyone.

Hi Stormtrooper,

First things - hugs. You are not alone, you are not a failure. There is a few things that I'd recommend in your position but as a Arts PhD my experience is a little different to yours. First of all you need to try and get as close to a definite question and boundaries of your topic. When I started my PhD covered 30+ texts once I'd decided to whittle it down to 9 my stress levels went way down. Ask yourself what you want your thesis to achieve (it is YOUR thesis not your supervisors' or the industry partners) then schedule a meeting with as many of your supervisors as soon as possible to define and clarify this question (if you don't know what your ultimate aim is of course you feel overwhelmed). The question you define at that meeting isn't necessarily the hypothesis that will be in your final thesis but they should be reasonably similar. As for writing I remember the first thing I ever submitted to my supervisor and it was cringeworthy to me even then. Now at 2 years 6 months yes some of the stuff I wrote in the first year needs rewriting but it doesn't all need binning. You don't have to write perfectly you just have to write. With your training all I can suggest is that you keep asking. I would suggest trying to see your uni's counselling service as it can be incredibly helpful to talk to someone independent and the uni counsellors will have seen lots of PhD students before. Going to the gym is a good thing - a PhD isn't like working at a checkout you can't just keep doing it mindlessly over and over - your brain needs space to breathe and keeping fit can only be a good thing. Finally I'd suggest you think about all the things which you have achieved - a degree, a masters, paid employment, a funded PhD. You have got so much further than many other people. You can do this!

Hi Stormtrooper, definitely a really difficult situation to be in and I would echo RenaissanceBunnie's comment to perhaps seek out someone who is there to listen to you for a decent period of time more than 15 minutes on the run and help clarify your thinking and what it is you want. I also echo RB's comments reassuring you that you are not a 'failure' and that the confusion regarding direction and your output is common to many of us.

It reads to me that you are saying that if you go for this interview and get this job in two weeks, you will leave (or at least take a break) and try this new path. But if you don't get it, then you will still feel stuck and you need to establish some direction to take in the event that you go for interview, don't get the job, and, in two weeks time still feel as if you are in the same place and nothing has been resolved. (is that right?).

I don't think anyone can make this decision for you. However, it is unfair that your panel team of supervisors/advisers are so busy and not particularly helpful. The thing is, half the time they will be saying just what comes into their brains and out of their mouths...the experience they have, doesn't always mean that the advice they give is accurate, or is based on a thoughtful reflection of your specific situation or what you need at the time. If there are five of them all saying different things-wow-that would be hard.

If...if you had some cohesive direction from your panel, and were not being stretched all the time with regard to your work responsibilities, if this was the case, would you still want to be doing your PhD?

Do you want to leave it at the moment mainly because of the lack of or rather not lack of, but ineffective and confusing support from your panel or anxiety about failure? If you can establish your real feelings about completing the PhD- e.g.-if all was going okay or that you felt confident with at least one or two of your advisors, and that you felt that you could prioritise their directions, then that might help with your decision.

PS: The PhD is really tough at times, there will be challenges and it is really common to have a lot of confusion and despair at specific times and stages, stages that you just sort of have to wait out. However, you deserve to have confidence in some of your panel and you don't need to be being pulled in five different directions at once by a busy panel who are giving ad hoc support on the run. Is it possible to bring this up with one of your advisors so that they can help clarify your next step, and step in to help you manage some of the conflicting communications from the others?

"I currently have no desire to continue in the research field or the subject area my PhD is in if I finish it, so is there any point in me continuing? "

If after just 5 months in, you have already decided this is not for you then there is no point continuing. Nothing else matters.

You have a few life lessons to learn very quickly here so I won't beat around the bush. I am not having a go at you here - I am trying to help you :-)

1) You need to learn to say No to people starting today.
You have become overwhelmed by work piling in but you haven't learned to say No to people and so they will pile more on you. This will not change until you learn to control what other people are allowed to pile on your desk.

2) You also need to learn to prioritise. It should be obvious that your top priority is to learn the background theory so why on earth are you allowing other people to distract you with technician responsibilities? What your industrial sponsor wants is irrelevant. They have no control over you. Don't allow them to push you for results. Give them what you discover, when you discover it. Don't let them set the pace. Same for your supervisors. Get the theory learned and then make your own decisions about the dirction you want to take. Don't let anyone else bully you.

3) The wedding. This can be as difficult or as easy as you want. I am not going to advise you here. I will merely tell you what I did with my wife because we were busy and had no money to waste on one single day. We eloped. We found a registry office where she was born and got married there with a couple of witnesses and a meal afterwards followed by a couple of nights in a B&B. We knew we would have probably 50 years to be "romantic" when we had more time and money. In our view there was nothing romantic about spending £5k to £10k on what was essentially a party that we wouldn't be able to enjoy anyway because we would be stressing over how perfect the bloody cake was. Best and most relaxing, fun and stress-free days of our lives. I will leave it at that.

4) "I want to leave but it will just be another example of me being a failure". On this note I am not good with self pity :-D
You need to stop this. It's destructive.

Personally I think if you have genuinely lost interest in the PhD then you should bail now.
Staying with it because you have "nothing else" is a terrible idea because the damage caused to your mental state by staying in a job which has made you post the above set of posts might become irreparable. Not everyone is cut out for a PhD. Stop beating yourself up and concentrate on understanding who you really are and finding a career which suits you better. There are no failures in life. There are only bad choices and bad matches. Almost all of which can be fixed simply be making better choices which match who you are.

I think it's quite evident that this is all not like you expected it to be and doesn't make you too happy. Being just 5 months in, quitting isn't so dramatic. If you quit after 5 months you can just say you realized the topic is not for you bla bla bla. In most cases this is not seen as a failed attempt and won't hurt your career. You wanted to change something, took initiative, it wasn't for you, so you are changing again. Perfectly fine. This gets of course more difficult the longer you are pursuing the PhD. I am now 1.5 years into my PhD and have to say that if it is not overall a positive experience, it is not worth it. Too often you read about the PhD journey of people and it reads like a period of suffering and anxiety that you somehow survive and that's the value you can draw from it. If there would be great job opportunities afterwards, I would accept that as some sort of necessary evil, but there aren't. It is highly competitive and most people don't end up in research careers but in jobs you don't need a PhD for (and even having a harder time to get those jobs compared to non-PhDs). I am not saying that a PhD is always fun, but if you don't like to go to work and feel anxious during long periods then there is something wrong, even though many people seem to think that this is normal and kind of like you have to feel during a PhD.

Do some thinking if this is really what you want. Doing it just to avoid that "fail-stamp" is not a good reason to continue ;) Good luck!

Stormtrooper,
Please let us know how you got along with your situation in the end. Did you end up leaving your PhD?
Best, Leia