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Whispers of Loneliness, Echoes of Pride: An Estranged PhD Student’s Tale. By Max

Hello! I am Max, a PhD student in England, nearing the end of my programme. Whilst my PhD has taught me a lot about research and the subject I study, it has taught me even more about myself. A lot of the time, when people talk about how difficult their PhD was, they’ll add ‘but my family got me through it’. This blog won’t be a ‘how-to’ guide, but I can write about my own experiences and hopefully it will help someone else feel seen.

The experience of doing a PhD is already lonely on a good day. It’s a weird grey area between being a student and a member of staff, not feeling truly like a part of either group. The work itself is usually quite isolated – you set your own schedule, your own targets and deadlines, and often do your research on your own.

This can hit harder for estranged students, who may be all too familiar with loneliness or the feeling of not fitting in. Many of us will be accustomed to the experience of being sat in a room where people are discussing which family members they’ll spend the holidays with, not really knowing what to say. They say ‘are you going home?’ and I feel frozen. I have a home, but not in the way that they mean.


How do I explain that?


Then there is the financial impact. If you’re a funded student, you’re usually being paid in some way to do your research, or maybe you have other jobs to help you fund it (or both!). Whatever your situation is, without support the income is likely very tight and no match for the long, gruelling hours. It can be difficult to see peers with financial support from family when you’re just barely making ends meet and this can make us feel like we belong less. I have often felt like the material impact can make the emotional side just sting deeper, and vice versa. I encourage estranged PhD students to look for financial support beyond what their institution may advertise. Universities are often set up to treat undergraduate or taught students as the ‘default’, and in my experience this can make PhD students feel left behind. We need to be proactive in looking for money and community support. You won’t be eligible for everything, but it’s worth asking – there could be council tax relief, reduced water bills or special electricity tariffs, and so on. You can find some of this stuff and get free advice and help from Turn2Us and Citizens Advice.

One thing I found difficult was learning to feel a sense of accomplishment, or proud of myself. I think that deep down, no matter what I do, I have a sense that I am ‘missing’ something. Estrangement to me is a lot of things. It’s sadness, loneliness, it’s grieving every day in ways people often don’t want to discuss, and feeling like I don’t belong. But as I get older, I realise that estrangement also brought me freedom, liberation, and in a lot of ways, allowed me to start a life in a way that I couldn’t before. As I near the end of my PhD, I look at how different my life is compared to when I started. But some things never change, and I can’t help but feel the same deep grief, even though it does get easier to deal with over time.

As my life progresses and my career develops, I have no family to celebrate with or to lean on for support. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, a PhD is an incredible accomplishment and definitely something to feel proud of, regardless of the other characters in your life. It’s years of endurance, grit, long hours, passion, bravery, and all of that alongside building or maintaining a life that at base level is different to most other people’s. There is space for all these emotions, but giving pride and accomplishment seats at the table is important too.


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Specific to this Blog

There are several advocacy and support lines out there for care experienced and estranged students.

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