It must be really tough having to go through all these!! But I would suggest first thing is to talk to a counselor and get some help especially when it's taking a toll on your mental health. PhD can wait and if you really want to continue with it, there will always be a way to achieve it. You can perhaps talk to your supervisors or change the project direction if possible? Nevertheless don't hesitate to post here and get support.You can do it! :)

Thank you for the encouraging advice! I understand that mistakes do happen and what's most important is how I learn from it. I was very stressed up due to it being my first experiment at such a big scale, with techniques I have no clue about. I did many mistakes along the way, another of which is actually huge. But my professor solved it again and changed the project's direction instead. She had more or less planned my whole PhD. Although she was annoyed when I did the mistakes, she kept her calm afterwards and encouraged me. I felt really grateful and told myself that I will not do such mistakes again, although at the same time I feel pressured that I need to do well to not let others down.

Hi I hope you forgive my ranting but I just need to write this and try to get it out of my mind. I've been into my PhD some months now in a new country, and have been so far taking some courses. I started a first ever experiment for the project as required and it was big scale experiment and at the end of the process I screwed up. I felt quite ashamed and disappointed at myself, haven't really recoverd from what happened. Luckily my professor managed to find a solution and things will be going as planned, just delayed by some days.

The field I am working at for my PhD is very new to me and I have no prior experience with the lab techniques yet. I haven't even been to the lab to tryout the machines. To be honest, I felt very overwhelmed when I started my first experiment, as there were no rooms for mistakes for this which made me even more stressed. I am now expected to know how to proceed with the experiment with minimal guidance. I know that PhD has a steep learning curve but isn't this way too steep (nearly vertical)?! There are so many things happening right now that I cannot think clearly what to do for my next step :( Do you have any advice for this novice PhD?

PaperOrPerish, I totally understand how you feel. I just did a grave stupid mistake yesterday at the last procedure of my experiment. It was disastrous especially when many parties are involved in the experiment. I felt really really terrible and didn't manage to sleep. Thoughts just started bubbling through my brain whether I'm suitable to study a PhD, why I am not curious nor independent enough etc. When I went to office, everyone knows what happened so I felt really ashamed of myself. Luckily my supervisor salvaged the situation and we can proceed on with the experiment some days later. He also told me to relax because people make mistakes all the time, and he did too many times. So I do believe that things will turn out fine at the end as long as you learn from the mistakes and don't do it again. People even your supervisors can make mistakes, what we need to learn is how to salvage the situation and never give up. Goodluck!!

Thank you for all the encouraging advices! I do feel that the imposter syndrome is getting into me at the moment and it's taking a toll on my mental health. For now, I keep telling myself that as long as I learn something new everyday, it's a small progress, whether or not it will give me a PhD at the end. Also, I'm joining some sports and voluntary work to set some time away from work. To be honest I'm not sure how interested I am in my own project at the moment. It is an interesting topic but researching it for 3 years seems too overwhelming. I am rather sure that I don't want to have an academic job in the future and would very much prefer an industry job instead. What I'm thinking now is to give myself a few more months and see how this goes. Sorry about all the rant!

Hi! I've just started my phd 3 months ago in a different field from my masters, moved to another country and feeling already low and overwhelmed perhaps by the culture differences. I've finished my project outline and has kind of a plan of what to do. But the problem is, I'm not sure how to approach it, because the techniques are totally new to me. I try to read up a lot but when I seen other people starting on their project although they started the same time as me, I feel like I'm stuck. There is this constant feeling that I'm not as smart as others although I should not feeling that way. I used to be really cheerful and happy but after starting this phd I feel like I'm not myself. I'm not sure if this is a common situation or do others feel the same way as me too?