Hello
I'm afraid I don't have any advice but I have plenty of identification! I'm 6 months in to my PhD and have felt so anxious and incompetent since the beginning. It hasn't helped that I came down with glandular fever 10 weeks in, my grandad died a few weeks later having been very unwell for several months and I had to move house. It feels as though my nervous system has taken such a knock that I can't fully recover, I constantly feel like a rabbit in the headlights and just can't seem to gather my thoughts.

Despite all this my supervisors say they are really pleased with where I'm at; I've designed my study and have just finished my ethics proposal ready for submission early in the new year. I've done a fair amount of reading and partially written my first chapter. However I'm not doing a systematic review as it just feels too overwhelming, I've totally given up on the idea of ever getting published (and have lost any motivation to) and am just hoping to scrape it together enough to produce a reasonable literature review.

I hadn't intended to write so much! I've just come off the phone from my Mum. She thinks I should jack it in and is worried about how ill I look/sound. I don't know what to do! I can't bear the idea of throwing the towel in but I just can't see how I'm going to get through when I'm constantly suffering from brain-fog and overwhelm.

I'm so sorry to hijack your trail kenziebob, does anybody else relate to this feeling of utter panic?