Signup date: 13 Apr 2018 at 11:30am
Last login: 13 Apr 2018 at 9:25pm
Post count: 1
Long story short, 6 years ago I started a PhD in plant pathology and it's gone downhill. Before that I did my Master thesis in the same lab, which I barely finished. One main issue is that I was stupid and shy enough to store my cultures in a way they degenerated rapidly. I feared asking how to do it, since I was having difficulties even back then. Instead of preparing a conidial suspension and storing it at -80C without thawing I had prepared mycelial stock which I repeatedly thawed, not knowing it was a wrong thing to do. Later, I tried preparing agar plug in 25% glycerol and store in it fridge but the viability decreased rapidly after a year or so. I did that repeatedly so now I'm left with a few degenerated isolates which do not sporulate and only grow as a white mycelium.
Because of constant stress due to other issues I did constant mistakes in my work. Eventually my supervisor had to slightly change my subject as I was wasting lab consumables (enzymes, buffers etc) without any result. Now I'm a 38 year old nervous wreck, have never worked and have no idea whatsoever what to do in my life. Also, because I was (and am) so stupid and self destructive I still haven't told my supervisor about my issues thinking he would tell me to stop my PhD.
Basically I've done everything I could to waste 5-6 years (actually more) of my life doing just about nothing and make myself fail my PhD. To top it of because of my stress I've destroyed my health. I knew this would happen.
So the question is: what do I do now? I don't have any idea what to do. Heck, I don't know if I even like my profession anymore. I guess start networking, search for jobs (zero confidence, everything is down the drain). The only jobs I can think of is menial ones.
Props do anybody who read until this point.
Please advice.
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