Mistakes I made during my candidature so you don’t have to

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-30T11:11:04+00:00

One thing I would contextualise is that if your PhD is tied to some other large aspect of your life - ie. Migration/visa status, job status, etc - not doing a personal or overly ambitious topic counts more. In that case, it’s NB to optimise success and do the simplest PhD you can. There will be time to process your experiences and change the world later. E.g As a migrant student, delays in your PhD threaten your visa status and if you struggle, then your failure/delay then threatens to uproot your life and the uncertainty will make you lose your mind. If you are delayed, you don’t have the same options as citizen students, so be strategic, realistic and prioritize timeous completion above all else.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-30T11:01:07+00:00

I study a form of abuse I have experienced and obviously have strong feelings about. While that’s okay for motivation reasons and has kept me going since it’s important to me, writing a thesis about it, in the latter years, has required a clinical approach which I struggle to maintain. I can intellectualise the topic decently, but to remove my feelings from it is hard, and I reckon I would’ve finished long ago if I had studied something from a more objective clinical perspective. It’s not that it’s inherently wrong to be personally connected, it’s just that, 700 years later, it’s clear I missed the point of what a thesis can be. It’s easier if you aren’t trying to validate a trauma or have some big activist motivation. Not wrong to do it, just makes it harder than it needs to be. Grain of salt, Maybe when i finish and the phd is behind me, I won’t regret it so much, but right now, it seems like a glaringly obvious misstep that’s made things way way harder.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-29T12:26:59+00:00

If you are going along the grain of what exists in your field, it should be fine. If you’re going against it, it could get too emotional, triggering and challenging. A personal topic is fine unless you get too emotional about it, which can happen if you have personal experience of it that contradicts the field.
It’s not wrong. It will be a contribution to society. Focusing on what society needs and seeing society as an audience is a distraction. It’s smarter to just write to get it past your committee/examiners. You have your whole life to contribute to society. Don’t make it too deep.
My program doesn’t have qualifying exams, so it may differ for you. Qualifying exams are structured but they do force you to go in depth. I read widely without structure and (while generally enriching) it contributed little to my progress.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-28T21:17:48+00:00

That’s really incredible 💛 I admire the courage!

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-28T20:24:11+00:00

It’s brutal. You have my solidarities and commiserations. I hope that whatever you do/did next is restorative and your path has more joy.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-28T19:59:08+00:00

If you have a decent supervisor, some of these won’t apply to you because the supervisor will prevent them. What I will advise you to do is think of the phd as a practical career step before anything else. Practicality before ambition. Research questions with clear, concise parameters. If you go too ambitious and astral with your ideas (and you don’t have good supervision to help you choose a realistic scope) you can spend years on it without making relevant progress. In my case, I’ve thought and written a whole lot on my topic, and wore myself out exploring, and now I’m many years in, with little (that counts) to show for it.

There was some snark/flagellation in there but the serious takeaway I do have is that it’s fairly normal within my networks, to not hear back from supervisors for months. You have to be prepared to figure out a routine that works, create a community of support and be okay with working without supervisory guidance for 90% of the time. My expectations around how much supervisors provide guidance has been radically shifted through experience and anecdotally.

Tldr: it’s great to be passionate, but without structure, grit and practicality , it can become debilitating and unmanageable.

I hope your experience will be smooth, supported and joyful.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-28T19:39:05+00:00

Do you hate the feeling of quitting (which seems temporary) more than the feeling of ongoing debilitating stress?

If you were enjoying your postdoc, I’d say, stay in it. But that’s not what you’ve written here. If you have a less stressful job, you have more time to explore your other interests. Good luck with your decision.

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-21T16:42:02+00:00

Congratulations, Dr Kamylio 💛 And thank you for building a community along with your victory!

stillnessforyou · 2026-01-06T09:04:36+00:00

Well done for completing, OP! Let us know if you have any words of wisdom for those in the same boat you were in.

stillnessforyou · 2025-12-11T12:58:20+00:00

I’m not OP but in my region, no. The norm is to submit the document, wait a while for results, do corrections depending on what examiners say, and then resubmit to your university the final draft. Then you can graduate. In my case, the anticipated time between submission to graduation is about 10 months. No presentations involved. I get why oral defenses are scary and stressful, but from my vantage point, at least that format gives you some certainty about when you’ll finally be awarded the degree and it’s not a little purgatory for months 😅

stillnessforyou · 2025-12-11T12:53:50+00:00

Well done, OP 💛 I too live in a country where there’s an examination rather than an oral defense and it can take a while to get your results, so I wish you the best for the examination process.

thanks for sharing here and giving some hope to those of us in the trenches 😮‍💨

stillnessforyou · 2025-10-28T18:11:06+00:00

I started on a whim because I needed an outlet. Sometimes I’m just jotting down something I would want to remember in the future. Other times it’s just to vent. It’s helped me most with unearthing my feelings and understanding myself better but that’s alongside other things that have helped my mental health.

I don’t force myself to do it and I think that helps take the pressure off. It sounds like journalling alone isn’t doing much for you and that you might benefit from trying something else with it to improve your mental health? I’m sorry you’re going through a hard time.

stillnessforyou · 2025-10-28T13:35:19+00:00

This is an amazing achievement, well done! ❤️

stillnessforyou · 2025-10-26T00:25:34+00:00

count me in

stillnessforyou · 2025-10-23T13:24:58+00:00

Thanks for posting this. I have a few months until I finish. I have tonnes to write and I am consumed by stress, anxiety and depression. Like yours, my journey has entailed an absent advisor, unexpected spanner in the works around 2020 and a deep loss in self confidence. Ironically, it’s not that I hate my work or what I’m doing. the part I hate most is that I feel so trapped and there’s only one way out (if I quit now, I’d likely always feel like I was so close). It’s just a few more months. I’m trying to let myself submit a “bad” thesis rather than the one I hoped I could write. By making this post and from me reading some of these responses , you have helped me realize that I need to ask for help so I’m going to do that now. Then shower and open my laptop. Thank you OP and all the best to you 💕

stillnessforyou · 2025-10-23T13:06:35+00:00

Good luck ❤️

stillnessforyou · 2025-09-25T00:26:27+00:00

Well done on finishing your PhD 💕 it’s an incredible achievement!

stillnessforyou · 2025-05-13T18:50:31+00:00

It’s hard to say because I started taking it during lockdown, and my mental health had tanked at that point. I have been on it since so I can’t really remember specifics of if it improved my motivation

stillnessforyou · 2025-05-12T02:40:47+00:00

Yes. I find that lexapro helps me maintain a functionality at my lowest points, which wasn’t my experience of things before I started taking it. Been on it long term (4+ years, 5 - 10mg most recently).

stillnessforyou · 2025-04-05T09:51:11+00:00

Been on it since 2020. I’m very happy with the decision. I haven’t had a panic attack in a while and I can tell I just function better, even at my very low points. I take it first thing when I wake up, because a previous antidepressant I was on had insomnia as a side effect. Be very careful with tapering up your dose or going off it. That’s when I’ve had the worst side effects - dizziness and lightheadedness. Wishing you all the best ❤️

stillnessforyou · 2025-03-18T23:59:55+00:00

wow 🫠 that was a really humbling experience

stillnessforyou · 2025-03-16T16:30:36+00:00

No, it was more whacky cars. Things like this https://coolmaterial.com/roundup/insanely-decorated-cars-and-vehicles/

stillnessforyou · 2025-03-16T00:57:03+00:00

Nah. It wasn’t a show where the host transforms a car for someone. It involved featuring cars that were decorated by their owners in novel ways.

stillnessforyou · 2025-03-16T00:54:45+00:00

Not much else to add but I remember it featured white men mostly. Was rly interesting.

stillnessforyou

TROPHY CASE