Hi KB, thank you so much for your response - I am sorry to hear about your similar situation and I do hope you are ok and work is going as well as it can atm.

You ask how much work I have done - I feel like I have done nothing and don't understand what I am doing or where I am going with the research. I have a lit review and first year continuation report, only 20% of which I would use in actual thesis and have been working on an article for 8 months now which has totally been taken out of my hands.

I really need advice - to cut a long story short I cannot stand to work with my PhD supervisor any more - I know lots of people have moments during which they could strangle their supervisor but I have really come to the end of the line. Basically I have spent 8 months working on an article which she has now taken off me, re-written and told me oh now she knows why it would never have worked - surely she should have told me that month 1-2 - not let me waste lots of time after my first year during which she made me write and re-write useless documents, continually change the goal posts and tell me all the time that I wasn't listening - when in reality I was but she was always changing goal posts. This is in addition to having to put up with things like receiving texts telling me that what I have produced for her - for her presentation at a conference I was not even attending - at 11pm on saturday evening is not good enough, followed by phone calls with her screaming at me. Anyway I could moan about this woman forever but that's not the point.

Basically I had a chat with another academic in my department this week and he told me I could possibly change departments (the department I am in now is not where I did my undergrad/masters). This would mean that I would have to totally start over again - he suggested that I could go part time for a while but work full time (a financial burden I could just about cope with for about 4 months) to make up time - but am I mad to think I stand a chance of completing a PhD from scratch in about 20 months? I could just carry on but I am already on meds for depression and anxiety and I just feel that this person is totally unreasonable.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Ok, so here goes. I am a first year PhD student and for the past 3 weeks I have done very little work (although I don't think anyone else has caught onto that quite yet). This is mainly because I thought I was pregnant, I'm not, and although I should be relieved that I can carry on with my PhD without having to think about having a baby at the same time I am actually quite disappointed, which has left me wondering if the disappointment is more to do with me facing the fact that I am not that happy doing this PhD rather than wanting a baby.
I have spent 7 months of my first year putting together a literature review (compulsory in the faculty I am in) which has had to change several times subject to my supervisor just changing her mind constantly about what is in it and have been very severely criticised several times by her (although another two members of staff in the department told me early drafts were excellent). The literature review will undoubtedly change substantially as my research evolves (I am a deductive, qualitative researcher) so I don't feel I can comfort myself with the fact I have done something that will eventually contribute to my thesis either. I am now writing a continuation report about the research I have done, but feel I have done very very little, that I am just re-hashing what I have already done and hoping no-one notices, which is not why I wanted to do a PhD. All this has left me feeling totally hopeless, I don't feel I can talk to my supervisor at all. I realise I must sound like I am just moaning on and that all the other students in my faculty have had to do the same, so I should suck it up so to speak, but I just feel like I can't carry on - if anyone else has been in a similar position any advice as to what you did to help yourself feel better would be massively appreciated!

Ahh so its not just me who likes to punctuate the day with a bit of timewasting! :-)