Realized now that I created some of my problems. Let’s be honest about my experience and the factors that were outside of my control though. Was it really that far outside of what would be expected from a Ph.D experience? (semi long post)

Hey everyone,

I'm the 5th year in Experimental Psychology that folks like to dislike on Reddit. This may be a shocker to a lot of folks, but thanks to discussions I've had with others in person and online, I've realized that created some (not all) problems. I'm putting emphasis on some because I wanted the focus of this post to be what was outside of my control. COVID was obviously one of those, but we can put that aside for now since I don't think that's controversial at all.

I enrolled in my Master's program starting Fall 2018 and graduated a semester later in December 2020 (while I was dual enrolled in my Ph.D program I just matriculated to might I add). I graduated with a 3.48 GPA (I also had a C+ in a core class, Research Methods, which still counted towards my degree). I only worked on one major project at a time (two total in fact, one of which was my original Master's thesis study until COVID shut it down). I manage to get solid references, but I quickly noticed how my peers worked on 2+ research projects outside of class and that all of them took the non-mandatory TA class so they could TA and/or become a full blown instructor their second year in the program. Since I'm a socially anxious person, I didn't TA at all even though it could've helped with my Ph.D applications.

Fast forward to my Ph.D program and I take classes that I needed for credit for my first year before it was announced that budget cuts would be taking place as soon as my second year. I was actually the last first year who got full funding in fact. Second year I'm still fully funded. However, by the third year, I'm also funded with the same tuition waiver as prior years but with my stipend cut in half. Around this time, I have a fallout due to a misunderstanding with my first Ph.D advisor. I know a lot of the stuff I put up on here is always described as "self imposed," but this one was not. Even my first advisor, when she said she would commit to no longer advising past August 2022 (her contract ended then and I had to race to pass my qualifiers under her before the August 15th, 2022 date came) explicitly said for me to not take it all as my fault. This makes me think that something else I never learned about was going on behind the scenes, but I won't get into that speculation here.

The whole situation with my first Ph.D advisor happened after I asked to go back to my hometown to receive urgent psychiatric treatment. I did not transition to a psychiatrist local to the area since it was a rural area with awful healthcare and the nearby areas would not have been much better (even my first Ph.D advisor explicitly encouraged me to go outside the area of my Ph.D program for healthcare). This was also during the height of COVID when I started my Ph.D (2020-2021 so waitlists were a year long or more). This was the second time I went to a psychiatrist after my first year of my Ph.D (which I was also transparent with my advisor about the first time).

This time though, she checks on the lab and finds the state it was in was a "mess" (in her words). Even when I rediscussed it with her at least three times after the fact and mentioned the state it was in was largely due to how her previous advisee (whom she called a "sloppy researcher… and that's why he works in industry, but not research") trained me on how to maintain the lab, she did not change her mind at all and called those procedures "common sense." At this point, I got in touch with the ombudsman, DEI office, and office of disability services. All of them mentioned an investigation could be launched since she made comments seen as discriminatory towards my disability (she went on this side rant about "how I was born" contributed to the state of the lab and that my disabilities made me "stretch myself" to fit in the program), but that it would end once my advisor's contract (which was set to expire on August 15th, 2022 and she didn't plan on renewing it because she was going to transition to a new university anyway, even before our fallout). At this point, I told the chair of the Psychology department about my situation and he eventually says it's up to him to make sure I graduate from the program. He, in his words, tells me to "not make any waves." I think what he meant by that (and what I wanted to make sure didn't happen either), was my first advisor learning that action was taken against her and she would drop working with me on my doctoral qualifier project right then and there. When I posted this story on a different account two years ago, it received a ton of upvotes and support at the time I gave updates every week or so (with good news). Eventually, the tune changed a bit with focus on others sympathizing and/or empathizing with my situation, but telling me I should "try to chill" at the same time with how much I tried to cover my bases with a "plan B" and whatnot.

My advisor's justification is that the state of the lab made it look like I was a person who didn't want to be in the program and my behavior resembled others who never made it through the program. When I spoke with her previous advisee, I learned that my first Ph.D advisor failed his dissertation proposal one hour before the meeting was set to start due to a factorial design. He had to recode his whole experiment for an academic year before he could repropose again and took 7 years to graduate with his Ph.D despite having a Master's in the same field from a different program that was accepted in full. He also suggests that I bring up what can prove that I want to be in the program (since it was true I did). When I followed the advisee's suggestion my advisor said that "nothing will" and that she's now finalized her decision to drop me as an advisee as well as two other research projects I was supposed to work on with her before she departed to a different university where she already has tenure. So, even though it was eventually one step forward (finishing my quals), it was a major step back as well (losing two projects). For those also wondering, my first advisor not only doesn't want to publish my qualifier project with me, but didn't even think it was publishable in the first place unless we did a second study that corrected the errors her previous advisee left in the programming.

Fast forward to the 2022-2023 academic year and I'm officially working with my new advisor. I considered taking a medical leave of absence due to what I would eventually learn was PTSD that I developed from the experience (a clinical psychologist re-evaluated me in August 2023 and diagnosed me with it as well as my other pre-existing conditions like generalized anxiety, social anxiety, and more), but due to the budget issues I'm about to mention, taking a break was a thing I could technically do but wasn't smart to do at all. I also have to start over from scratch on my research progress due to the dropped projects I worked on with my advisor. I continue working at an outlet store during Fall 2022 over weekends and eventually became an adjunct at a community college in Spring 2023 since my tuition waiver my third year in my program was intact, but my stipend was cut in half. I also had to keep working to keep the state Medicaid benefits as well (my university doesn't offer health insurance nor summer funding). Despite this, I proposed successfully in Spring 2023 and became a visiting full time instructor from the 2023-2024 academic year at a nearby small liberal arts college. Unfortunately, I bombed my full time instructor role due to severe inexperience on my end and how shocking the transition truly was for me at the time.

I caught a big break landing a selective internship with one of America's leading research-oriented Clinical Psychologists at a hospital 20 minutes away from my hometown. My boss/PI for this internship thought I did really well, but I didn't gain much from it at all nor was I able to secure any permanent employment quite yet. The good news is that I'm slated to be an author on two manuscripts going out for publication, albeit I'm doing that work for free now that the internship's over.

So, putting aside my own history, how awful was my experience truly? To put it in terms of other faculty I've come across, they told me that the triple whammy of health issues (e.g., untreated sleep apnea for the longest time, undiagnosed Major Depressive Disorder at the Moderate level, and more), advisor conflict, and advisor issues would've let them to drop out of the program I was in a long time ago. They also told me if they knew about the university I'm currently doing my Ph.D now, even before COVID, they would've told me to not enroll there. They've also all told me that my experience is one of the worst they've ever heard of throughout their whole experience in academia, if not the worst by far. I'm also part of a disabled academic group with dozens of members from around the world and they echoed the same sentiments.

Was it truly that far outside of what's expected of a normal Ph.D experience? I've had comments in the past who've consistently told me or implied they have no sympathy or empathy towards me because they had experiences just like mine, which apparently makes it ok for someone like me to be treated like that (shoutout to the other autistic guy on here who thought it was justified). I want a genuine answer since I was first treated like my experience was outside of the normal setbacks in a program (e.g., unsupportive first Ph.D advisor, admitting students when the budget was on the decline) to now being told I deserve what happened to me. Kind of difficult to reconcile.