Hello,

I have less than 2 months left to finish my PhD and my supervisor is causing so many problems. She was okay for the first few years of my PhD, but in the last year I have noticed her gradually becoming more and more controlling and generally quite nasty. She constantly sends me emails trying to micromanage everything and keeps telling me I should see a therapist for stress/lack of motivation/anger/depression, which I think is crossing a line. Over the summer I had a problem with my final paper that wasn't my fault, which meant the results were wrong and I would need to redo the paper. I informed my supervisor that if the problem with the paper wasn't resolved (there was something that had to be fixed by someone else) before the end of September then I wouldn't have the time to redo the paper, and that I would have to go ahead and finish the PhD without it. She agreed to this plan. Fast forward to this week and the problem with the paper has been fixed. I told her it was too late now to redo the paper and that I would need to press on with writing the thesis or I wouldn't have everything finished in time. Bear in mind I already have 2 papers published and one submitted, so this extra paper is not necessary. She is now kicking up a huge fuss, implying that I'm being lazy for refusing to redo this paper. She is bombarding me with patronising emails and I'm struggling with having to fight against her. She has also set up a meeting with someone higher up now too, as if she is trying to get me into trouble. I feel as if she is seriously crossing a line here towards harassment/abuse with this and I can't actually believe this is happening with less than two months to go before I'm due to finish. It's really getting me down and I feel constantly anxious, which is stopping me concentrating on writing my thesis. I'm also dreading sending my thesis to her to review because I just know she is not going to be nice about it and will expect me to change it all.

I guess I just don't know what do in this situation and wondered if anyone had any advice on what to do? I'm really stuck in this situation and can't see a way out.