Hey, just want to start off by saying doing a PhD is the real accomplishment, not the title you get for finishing it.

That said, I relate!

I had to quit my PhD project after 1.5 years because of disagreements with my supervisors and yeah it hurt like hell. It was not my choice to quit but I was the one who decided to walk away from it in the end (as to avoid months of fighting my supervisors and struggling for 2.5 more years with mutual trust completely gone).

I made that decision in February and I’ve been feeling so much better since. I barely realised how deep of a hole I was in, or more like a vortex that keeps pulling you down. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my project (automatic speech recognition to spot oral reading errors) and did not regret putting my heart and soul into it. What I’m saying is that a PhD is so intense it’ll suck you in so deep you won’t even notice how much it controls your mind until you step out of it.

I basically cried for 2 days from just sheer grief of having to let this project (and the dream of a PhD) go. But damn if it wasn’t cathartic as hell.

I won’t assume you’re having the same experience I did but I can imagine you’re currently afraid of career perspectives in case you quit. Let me tell you: there’s a big world out there outside of academia and very few of them care if you have degrees upwards of a master’s. Prospective employers will understand that you’re intelligent regardless, and there’s much more to gain developing soft/transferable skills.

Anyway I wish you the best, not trying to encourage you to quit but please realise there are other career paths and well and quitting a PhD does not equal failure or giving up! It can be a healthy choice.