I also wanted to ask about how your supervisor reacted to your situation and if they have been helpful or not.

Again, as you can see from my initial post, I AM getting plenty of help, both medication and talking therapy (plus day hospital stuff like art therapy). However, the people that help me with this have not done a PhD and because doing a PhD is quite different from having a normal job, I wanted to hear from people who actually have this experience. Instead of ruminating on my own, I prefer to talk about these issues openly. I know this is an open forum and would not have posted here if I didn't feel strong enough to read the replies. So far, this thread has been very helpful to me (thanks everyone!) and has made me feel considerably less alone in what I am going through.

Those of you who did go back to your PhD, did you make any major changes in your planning or project? I am doing a lot of work on what has triggered my anxiety/depression together with my psychologist. If I decide to continue with the PhD I know of a few major changes I will need to do, such as decreasing the amount of benchwork. I haven't discussed this with my supervisor yet, and I probably won't until I feel more ready to get back, but it makes me a bit more relaxed to have decided this for myself (and if my supervisor thinks it's unrealistic, I guess I'll just have to quit).

Hi everyone, thanks for your very helpful replies. As I wrote above, I am getting professional help, so it is not medical advice that I am after here, but rather to hear from other PhD students with similar experiences. Jouri – I do appreciate your concern for my well-being, but I can't help feeling that if I was suicidal at this moment (which I am not), it might be more helpful to, in a friendly tone, suggest that I go see a doctor, rather than declaring that the thread should be closed.

I'm not from the UK, but from another EU country. Goingback to live with my parents is not an option, as it would lead to social isolation in a time when I need friends and activities the most.
I haven't got a clue about what's going to happen. I'll manage somehow until winter, but what if I am not well enough by then to take on full-time PhD studies again? Of course, I could go part-time, but then I would have to work 50% elsewhere in order to survive which is likely to be even more stressful.
I'm also worried about if I will be able to carry out lab experiments, as I've had plenty of suicidal thoughts throughout my illness, and obviously a lab full of nasty chemicals is not the ideal place to try and stay away from those thoughts.
What if I have to quit? Will I be able to stay in the UK at all? Again, I know I should focus on getting better right now, but these thoughts keep spinning in my head, and I would just really, really like it if somebody had any comments.
Thanks

When I started my PhD everything was wonderful. I liked the lab, my supervisor and the topic... However, after a while things weren't that great anymore and for a number of reasons I developed severe depression. I tried to continue my PhD part-time for a rather long period of time, but in the end I didn't manage anymore and I was admitted into hospital for a couple of weeks (got discharged a couple of weeks ago, and am doing relatively ok now with support from the day hospital + medicines + therapy).
I try not to worry to much about my PhD in the middle of this, but the fact is that I am in a very difficult and stressful situation so it is difficult not to think about it.
Right now I am on intermission from my studies until the beginning of next year. While this is absolutely necessary for my mental health, it also means that I will not receive any money until then and so will have to live on a very tight budget (luckily I had some savings for other purposes so am living off them).
(continues...)

Ok, thanks for your replies.
I have been offered a university studentship, so at least it is all within the university. I suppose I'll just have to phone up my supervisor and ask if it is at all possible... Do you think he might be offended or put off by this? I mean, I really do want to do my PhD with him, but ideally I would like to finish this first.

I have funding to start my PhD in September, but would like to wait until after Christmas. Has anyone any experience with these issues? Would it be considered very rude to ask for something like this?
The reason that I want to wait is that I would like to finish off the project that I am currently doing - don't want somebody else to take over my project and possibly publishing it, when I did most of the thinking...

Hi Suresh,
If it is obvious that the same e-mail has been sent to many people, then the risk is very great that nobody will bother reading it. Pick a few places and tell them why you are the best person for that particular place and why their research is just the most fascinating stuff you've ever read (not just saying "you're brilliant" but perhaps "I got interested in X because I used to work on Y" etc).
Maybe you could also let somebody else read your letter before sending, to give input on contents, finding spelling mistakes etc.

If it shows that you made an effort when writing, it is more likely that somebody will make the effort to read it. Good luck!

I had to present at one of my interviews (biology). Had to talk of my research for 15 minutes and then the committee (three professors, none of them the potential supervisor) asked me questions for about 30 minutes. Some questions were a bit hard, but I think they did that just to test how far they could go. The important thing to remember is that nobody knows your work better than you do. (Provided of course, that you are to present one of your own projects, and not some random paper or something).

Hi Becci, how much time did you invest in each application? In my case, I chose to apply only to a few labs, but spent a lot on time on each. I read a few papers by each group and then made subtle changes in my CV to highlight things that would make me an ideal candidate. When writing about my interests, I took care to mention why I got interested in their work (in my case, it was because of a distantly related undergrad project). Also, I read their webpage info carefully and included some of it (though obviously only the stuff I actually thought interesting, and without just copying what they had written).
All in all, I tried to come across as very enthusiastic about their research, knowing a little bit about it already, but also having some unrelated experience that (ideally) could add something to the group.
Oooh, this sounds a bit pretentious perhaps. What I mean is: Pick a group that you love and then let them know how much you love them...

Obviously no one but yourself can answer this, especially as we do not know anything about your options. The way I reasoned was that I would start applying only to my favourites. Luckily I was accepted by my first choice, but if I hadn't had the opportunity to go somewhere I really wanted to, I would have taken a gap year to think about things and get more experience. Then I would decide if I wanted to do a PhD even though I couldn't go to my preferred lab. If yes, I would start applying to a broader range of positions. But of course this is the strategy that I thought would work the best for me - you will have to decide on your own. Good luck!

Oooh, got sudden craving for hetvägg (= yummy semla in hot milk with lots of cinnamon and sugar!!).
Hope you'll have a nice time at Melodifestivalen - I'll have to be content with watching it on the internet (at least it was possible to do that last year, I really hoped they haven't changed it).

And am deeply impressed by royal knowledge demonstrated.

Hi,

If you would like to go to Germany I would recommend having a look at the Max Planck Institutes, they quite often have funded PhD programmes, I believe. I would also try googling things like "biology PhD programme" etc. I found a few interesting places that way.
Personally, I found the best way was to look in PubMed for papers that I liked, and then get in touch with the people directly. Sometimes they don't have money or the space to take you on, but no harm in trying if you are genuinely interested in their work. It could also be that they can redirect you to somebody else that is looking for students (happened to me).

At an interview, how much do they usually want to know about what kind of research you would like to do in the future?
I have my first one in a couple of weeks, and I really want to work with this supervisor. During my degree project I got interested in a certain topic, and then I found a paper from last year that answered all my questions (by this supervisor). Problem is, if he asks me what the next step of this research would be, I wouldn't have a clue. How much emphasis do they put on this, in your experience?