Livre d'Or

I didn't know that some of your troubles dated back to a bad PhD, but I'm unhappily not at all surprised. I think it's unlikely you'd be better off if you had actually achieved the title; you'd still have all the problems from being in an abusive situation for several years at a formative stage of your life. You might however be better off if you'd never started, or perhaps if you'd been better informed when you were choosing where to do a PhD and found a less toxic situation. That's why I made this post, really, not because I think I'll put anyone off trying for a PhD, but in the hope that they'll do some serious investigation of the research group before signing up. Or that if things go wrong they'll have a better chance of recognizing that something is wrong and not just blame themselves or respond with a Boxer-like "must work harder".