I am new on this forum and have spent the last 3 years following my advisor as an MA student. He left the University and went off to work for another Institute which I ended up having to pretty much quit my MA and now I am enrolled in a PhD program.

I am one week in my course, and I am already receiving negative comments from him. He constantly say that I am not 'proactive' enough and that I should work my ass off on every reserach opportunity that I get.

The problem is, he is always too busy to see me, and he's the only person in the institute that knows anything of my field so any 'opportunity' it would be ones that is passed to me from no one but himself. Yet he has this unrealistic demand and belittles me saying that I am not up to standard and I should work harder. I mean for christs sake I have only been officially a student for a week.

I have been working on my proposal for 1+ year and it is never good enough. He told me it needs to be perfect. Yet, he doesn't look over my stuff and expects that I miraculously produce something totally perfect.

I am lost, my project hasn't even started, and I am already stuck with a lot of aspects of my research.

Just to let you know that you're not alone. Try to apply for an extension and hang in there.