So, story is that I started a fully research council funded, full-time PhD with built in Masters (1+3 model) at a top university way back in 2021, which I was so excited to begin and flourished in, initially.
Along the way, I experienced serious personal setbacks and troubles, mostly involving a domestic violence case in which my ex partner was arrested and almost went to court, along with my own mental health problems. These have made the journey so much more difficult, delayed and financially tricky than imagined - which my family are now beating me up over (! to clarify, they have never had to fund anything towards living or university fees costs. I have been self-sufficient. It is simply an academic status symbol for them, and without a PhD I am made to feel like the daughter who let herself and everyone down).
This is all coupled with the fact that I research a socially controversial subject, interviewing real life data subjects, who shared very emotionally sensitive and complex stories. Plus the fact there is deep institutional stigma against this subject, and I have faced sexual harassment from other academics and unexplained ethics committee decision delays.
As backstory, everything came to a standstill in 2024 when my then partner - who I already knew was emotionally and sexually abusive, and had been planning to escape - became physically violent and threatened to throw me out of the house we shared. The police were involved. He was arrested. Awful, traumatic memories to this day.
I was lucky to have understanding PhD supervisors and, as I was funded by a research council, was able to take 2 months paid sick leave to get myself back on my feet, find a new place to live, move my belongings out, process what had happened, etc. (already 2 months delay)
Fast forward to later in the year, I was diagnosed with PSTD, which was only re-triggered by my ex-partner attempting to contact me again and threatened to contact my friends, family and University department "about the real truth". I went on sick live leave once more and sought EMDR therapy (another 1 month delay).
I continued to stay unwell during the period following summer 2024-spring 2025, struggling a lot more than usual with my academic work - poor concentration in reading and writing, huge bouts of depression interspersed with manic periods where I would distract myself from everything, going for last minute weekend breaks or dating app sprees. I don't think any healing had really been achieved whatsoever. I was struggling, while beating myself up for not just 'forgetting about him' and soldiering on with PhD and teaching.
I then had another (positive) 2 month delay in which I was funded to go on an institutional research trip - really, a once in a lifetime opportunity, which took me across Europe. I made some fantastic connections, shared my research, had offers to co-write articles etc. I really was floating on air.
Fast forward to summer 2025 - everything should have been proceeding wonderfully. I had just returned from this exciting research trip, travelled, lectured, made connections etc. And I simply crashed and shut down. It was the height of summer and I couldn't even bring myself to get out of bed until 3 o' clock in the afternoon. I couldn't read. I couldn't write. My laptop remained shut for weeks on end, no emails answered. I went back to therapy, but it seemed to make little difference. I think I was too embarrassed to tell my supervisors at the time that I was out of action - I knew the quality of my work had already plummeted. (So, another few months essentially lost.)
When I went back for the autumn term, it was recommended to me that I have a diagnosis for ADHD - something that I had thought about for a long time, and perhaps - if the diagnosis was positive (which it was) - would be useful to have in terms of medication available as a 'silver bullet' to my various symptoms. Now, I recognise a lot of these symptoms as trauma-related symptoms related to my domestic violence experiences and other MH conditions.
ADHD medication turned out to be a disaster. They prescribed me an excessively high dose of methylphenidate which was promised to steer my PhD write up, organisation of study and daily life. No. It triggered a serious manic episode with psychotic traits, in which I ended up flunking out of the teaching I was doing, became nocturnal ,pacing the streets aimlessly in the middle of the night, hallucinating spiders, flies and silver children in my apartment, stopping all basic housework and personal hygiene, having a huge breakdown in front of my best friend who almost had to take me to A&E, etc. As soon as I stopped taking the medication, I fell into a major depression again - worse than the previous one - which was so severe that I barely have any recollection of the last 3 months of 2025. I was spending 18hrs in bed with an eye mask on, still hearing voices in my head, forcing myself back into sleep, only getting up to walk around in the dark for an hour or so, drink a little water, pee etc. (Basically, these 6 months of my PhD were devastated. I was placed on a temporary hardship fund, but that was only to last 3 months).
In January 2026, I was urgently referred to the CMHT in my area and rather promptly received a diagnosis for Bipolar Disorder Type I - which coexists with ADHD, PTSD and a couple of other little historic mental health gems I've managed to collect through life (yay me...). It was hard to take, but not really surprising - it did fit the high highs and the low lows I had experienced my entire life. During this period, I had been advised by department not to rush back to teaching, but was also having a hard time readjusting to PhD study anyway - which as most people here will know, is no mean feat in the final write up stages!
I am picking up the pieces this year, but it feels disastrous. (I will add, while there was only so much medical leave and hardship allowance available to carry me through all of this, I was very privileged to receive that - international and/or unfunded students are not eligible for most of this). It took me a while to adjust to the appropriate bipolar medication - which, I believe is working, just slowly - and I'm still not recovered from the trauma and grief of DV. I have felt not only like an imposter, but as though a section of my brain and intellect was forcibly removed years ago, leaving me lurching and staggering on to no end.
I am in the situation now where my research council funding (fees and stipend) expired in April, which meant that I have stretched things out by going part-time and taking up other part-time jobs to support myself while attempting to write this PhD up. That's a feat in itself, let alone the competitive portfolio of teaching and journal article publications that we seem to be expected in our department to have achieved by now, for any career prospects. It's far from the ideal situation, and leaves me feeling hopeless that I may never be able to catch up with peers and pursue my dreams in research.
I have had to accept that I need to register for another academic year as a part-time PhD and, unfortunately, somehow self-fund or loan out the tuition fees. This is financially concerning and disheartening in itself.
But what makes this worse is that my family have made me feel like a terrible, lazy, unsuccessful person, for having taken 'so long' to reach the end of my PhD and 'just get it over and done with'. They have never been expected to pay anything towards my PhD experience, only in support, yet nor have they ever supported it beyond claims of e.g. "I won't die happy unless I see you walk across the graduation stage with a doctorate. When will it be finished? All I want to know is that my daughter has a doctorate. It doesn't matter what you do with it afterwards."
It feels like I have no worth other than gaining a PhD as a status symbol, and something to make them feel like they have done their work as parents and guardians.
Let it also be known that I live 600 miles across the country from them, and they also never once offered to help or visit in any way when I was enduring a domestic violence crisis. I was told to shrug it off and get one with it. Even after I was almost sectioned and then clinically diagnosed with Bipolar, I was told to "just tell the little voices in your head to go away and get on with your work". If only it was quite as easy...
It really hurts, and leaves me feeling like an academic and financial failure, whose genuine passion for her subject, happiness and ability in many areas of life is irrelevant :(
I don't know how to address any of it with them.