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.

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.

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 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.

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.