Hi everyone

I’m not sure where to begin but I feel so lost and alone. I’m in my third year of my PhD and I have just finished working on my second paper (my thesis will consist of three), which I was hoping to submit to a journal. As I was in the process of checking my code for the analysis I did, I realised I made a big mistake. Having corrected for it my results are now all non-significant. As ridiculous as this sounds, I haven’t been able to stop crying since, I am overwhelmed and scared of how my supervisor will react and so disappointed that after having spent a year and a half on this piece of work it means nothing.

On top of this I struggle with an anxiety disorder and since I began my PhD three years ago, I have lost almost all my friends. I am studying away from home and with the stress I struggled to keep in contact. I have no self-worth and I feel like I have nobody. I have been trying to be proactive and seek counseling, but my university only provided 3 free sessions and unfortunately, I cannot afford help otherwise. Plus with the current pandemic, things aren’t getting easier financially.

I am not posting for pity, but I don’t know what to do. I feel like a failure academically, socially and I don’t where else to go. I can feel myself deteriorating mentally and physically by the day.

Many thanks for your replies! I was just having one of those days where everything was getting too stressful!

I started my PhD around 8 months ago and I was lucky enough to get the supervisor I wanted given that his expertise and interests overlapped with my research project. The first few months went by fine as I was on top of my work and I regularly met with my supervisor to ensure I was on track, however, I have now reached the point in my project where I need to focus more on the empirical side (I'm using quantitative data). Data analysis has not been my strong suit and so I've been trying to take in a large amount of information in such a short period of time where I feel like I might not be able to succeed. I've lost all confidence in my abilities even though my supervisor assures me that we are on track. I am so scared I may not complete the analyses correctly, or that my supervisors patience will wear thin given my ignorance. The stress is making it impossible for me to focus on my work and I am not sure how I can overcome this. Has anyone gone through a similar experience or have any advice they could off?