Thinking of quitting PhD: long and rambling, just like my thesis

[Brodicea]

Hello all,
I'm a part-time PhD student in 4th year doing Cultural Studies (second - third equivalent to full time I guess)- no kids yet, although we've been trying to conceive for almost a year with no joy.
I interrupted in the autumn term due to a horrible bout of anxiety which was precipitated by my old part-time job. I have a new job now, and things are in the main a lot better.
When I started back on the PhD in Jan, I was feeling really enthused: completed a draft chapter pretty quickly, my supervisor thought it was great. After that I got really stuck and wrote two chapters worth of scrawly notes, unsure of what I was trying to say.
I had an end of year panel and they ripped me to shreds. Since then I am just wondering what the point is. I have a meeting later today with my second supervisor, so have been trying to go over my work and it just embarrasses and bores me. I don't think I want to be an academic in any case, I have lost faith in academia's back-biting, cliques, and total pointlessness. It seems like a load of people with an over inflated sense of their own importance and intelligence debating the smaller details of a small philosophical point with no interest in a) addressing the contemporaneous issues of the actual world around them or b) having any intellectual time for the 'mass' culture. Don't get me wrong, I think knowledge is the cornerstone of civilisation, and I do believe in it for its own sake but the way in operates in current academia is just so cannibalistic.
The only reason I'm doing it is because I am embarrassed to 'quit', and my mother has helped me each year raise the fees (not funded) and I feel I would let her down. I feel like I could have a fine life if I quit, be a lot less stressed and take time to do other creative things I enjoy (music!) but I'm worried I will always regret it....
I had a termination when I was 17 and have always promised I would make a good life for myself in exchange for doing that. If I quit I find myself facing a life of working as an administrator, and I had always wanted much 'more' whatever that means.

Any advice? Can anyone help me make sense of this?

How did your panel 'rip you to shreds'? Did they criticise your whole approach, or just a specific piece of writing? You need to think coolly and undramatically about this, if you are going to make an honest assessment of how far you are from getting it right. You are getting nearer the end now, and people will be harsher. I'm 3 year FT and my own supervisor has got much more picky. I have been finding this utterly demoralising but I know that it's because he is trying to find the holes an examiner might find.

Some other random thoughts - lots of people hate academia by the time they finish their phd. All that you say is true, but it's not in itself a reason not to finish. Phds can be an end in themselves - and may open other, non-academic doors too (you never know when it might make you stand out from a crowd of job applicants, say).

Having invested time in it is not in itself a reason not to quit - but it is something to take seriously. Will you regret it later?

But then not finishing the Phd does not mean you are stuck in admin work forever - it closes the door of an academic career, but there are lots of other things you could do.

And you can't think of yourself as having made a bargain with the world when you had your termination. That decision is made, and gone - and it doesn't commit you to anything now.

Good luck with it all, and I hope you make the decision that's right for you.

Hi Dotty, I guess 'ripped to shreds' was a tad dramatic. Plus, as you say about your own experience, they were trying to see it as an examiner would.
They said the stock things like 'but what IS your thesis' which I gather is pretty common even in a Viva, and I did answer it and they seemed satisfied with what I wanted to argue.
But other more scary things like 'carry on like this and you will not be passed', and also that my writing style was too 'straight forward' and 'realist' which means it is too journalistic I think.
Taking emotion out of it, I did leave thinking they made some sound points: that I need to ground it in a core disciplinary theory, and that I need to go deeper in my interrogation of other people's work.
I emailed my supervisor though and he said I shouldn't be 'cowed' by them and I should carry on with my original plan. This has made me despair at the whole process.
Thinking logically, I can see a way through to completion: I will take what was useful from the panel, and what is useful from what my supervisor said. BUT I still have so much hard work to do, and I don't know if I will reap the benefits I want to reap. I don't think I want an academic job: then a pesky little voice says that I don't have to be the same sort of academic as the ones I have come across at my uni....

I wonder if I'm just scared of failure, and maybe being a bit impatient with the whole process...

TTC and failing is maybe colouring my whole outlook.
I can't self-punish forever for the termination.

Well, you sound very self-aware in lots of ways, which is a good place to be starting making a decision from. I am struggling with finding a writing style that works for me and for the conventions of academia at the moment - I thought I wrote well (used to write a lot of reports, semi-journalistic stuff etc in previous roles) and am having to find a new voice, but don't want to make myself adopt a style I think is a load of academic bullshit. I want to write things people like to read!

Carry on like this and you will fail is harsh. But it doesn't mean that you can't change and improve - and it sounds as if you know some of what needs to be done.

I'm sorry about the TTC troubles. It can be so all-consuming and hard to think about anything else.

Exactly Dotty - I feel like I've lost my voice too! I hate over-complicated language for the sake of it I think it's lazy to pepper everything with jargon!
I did some reading this afternoon, and feel a bit more positive. Will discuss with my second supervisor this eve and see.
Thanks for for kind words of advice

The jargon so often seems like a shibboleth - you put it in to prove you belong, not because it helps with what you want to say. Let me know how it goes with your second supervisor!