In the early stages of my PhD, I felt like I belonged. With not just hard work and passion carrying me through, but the sense of fitting the system being like cycling with the wind in your back. I arrived as a motivated international PhD student on the other side of the world, full of ambition and excitement, eager to prove myself, contribute, and learn. 

I had grown up in The Netherlands with a keen interest in human behaviour and cognition. I completed my bachelor degree at the Radboud University Nijmegen and then went on to complete a highly competitive 2-year research master degree cum laude at the University of Amsterdam. As part of this latter program, I first ended up in Australia, interning in a university research lab. Looking back now, I would describe my young self as bright, ambitious, and adventurous. These days, being a mother to two teenage daughters, I can’t help but feel quite fond of and protective towards this young woman.  

What I didn’t imagine was becoming a mother of twins in the middle of my PhD – and how quickly that would unravel my academic identity, financial independence, and mental wellbeing. I eventually developed depression in the aftermath of my PhD, psychotic depression to be precise. The main signs were extreme tiredness, low energy levels, cynicism, feelings of excessive self-doubt, impostor feelings, and for short bursts during periods of depression, experiences of delusions and hallucinations centring around not being good enough. It all felt very confusing and overwhelming and I initially experienced intense shame over my mental health status. Especially around my psychotic symptoms. I had internalized society its strong stigma still associated with such mental health challenges and it compounded my feelings of being an outsider and failure.

The Unseen Challenges of Motherhood as a Student Academic

I was 27 when I got pregnant. A very acceptable age to aspire to motherhood generally, but quite young in academic circles where short-term contracts, relocations, and tenure pressures often push back the decision to try and become a parent. My husband and I had been together for many years. We had met as undergraduate students when he came on study exchange to The Netherlands from Turkey. And had decided to make the move to Australia after several years living together in The Netherlands. My pregnancy was smooth as far a twin pregnancies go. That said, any multiples pregnancy is automatically classified as high risk, including additional worries and check-ups. 

I did suffer a late miscarriage prior to my full-term pregnancy, which felt much more impactful than I had anticipated. Especially since it was a missed miscarriage, which basically means that your baby its heart stops beating but you don’t miscarry the baby for quite a while. Those days of still carrying a baby around, but knowing it had died, I found very stressful. Not to mention the fear that you may start to miscarry at any time, in the middle of a seminar, on the train, or during an experiment. 

Having twins during my PhD was both a personal joy and an academic earthquake. Far from family in Europe, I had no support systems to lean on. There was no roadmap for balancing research with the all-consuming task of caring for two newborns in those labour-intensive early months and years. We were reasonably well prepared for having a baby, but poorly prepared for having two. I did not fathom, how little sleep one gets when two newborns are on different sleep-wake schedules initially. I initially took 3 months paid maternity leave as provided by my scholarship. Looking back now, with two newborns and in our situation without supports that seems very short. 

The demands were overwhelming. Nights blurred into days, and the intellectual rigour of my PhD competed with the relentless needs of tiny lives who depended entirely on me and my husband. I remember vividly, feeling like a failure. No longer excelling in my PhD and feeling like falling short at home at the same time. Gradually, depression crept in. Academia provided no space to acknowledge or recover from it and in fact actively contributed to it: no staff resources, no parental return-to-work programs. As a PhD student, you were expected to figure it out on your own – or, in my opinion, quietly disappear.

Structural Vulnerabilities

The cracks widened when I lost my scholarship after extending leave and temporarily downgrading to an MPhil. It felt like a big failure to downgrade my enrolment, but at that time I just couldn’t see how I would manage to finish my PhD and support my babies. I felt an immense pressure to decide and provide clarity about my PhD enrolment and leave status. The meagre financial safety net that had afforded me independence, power, and safety vanished. Yet the need to keep working full-time remained.

At home, my husband and I prided ourselves on being accomplished, independent individuals. But that independence now worked against me. We had no shared bank account. Without income of my own, I found myself in the humiliating position of having to ask him for money. The strain on our relationship was immense. At my lowest, I feared ending up in a homeless shelter, losing access to my children, if we couldn’t figure this out.

As an international student, I was excluded from government supports. To make matters worse, my husband was simultaneously navigating tenure – denied once just months after our twins were born, then extended after an appeal. He took on more work hours, while I took on more caring responsibilities. There was no other option as my PhD scholarship on its own would not support us. I decided to extend my leave and downgrade to an MPhil enrolment.

The shift was unmistakable: I was no longer seen as promising academic material, not by myself and not by those around me. I was sidelined, invisible. My visa status only amplified that sense of entrapment.

The Long PhD and the Erosion of Belonging

My PhD with interruption was compounded by a Lab change, my advisor leaving for another university 6 hours flying away, leaving me untethered. I watched peers submit their theses and move on while I drifted between labs, with no one truly invested in me anymore. 

Extended enrolment brought not only administrative headaches but also deep shame. I felt less than, not good enough, increasingly a burden. What had once been my identity – a sense of belonging within the academic community – slipped further and further away. In the end, I finished the PhD. One thing that helped was drawing on my original supervisor, who had stayed on in an associate advisory capacity, to support and drive the submission of my thesis while it was good-enough but not perfect. 

That sense of being a burden and not good enough, lingered for quite some years, even after finishing the PhD. For me therapy, practising self-compassion, social connections, and writing and advocacy to support others have helped immensely. Furthermore, these days I reflect on these as experiences I can draw on. Whether for connecting in clinical practice with clients or supporting students or academic staff in their work and wellbeing. 

Reflections and Broader Implications

My story is not unique, though it is still rarely spoken about. Many student-parents and students with health struggles face similar traps, particularly international students. Academia continues to fail those with caring responsibilities, ill-health, disabilities, or from disadvantaged backgrounds.

What would have helped? Access to staff supports and return-to-work programs. At the time I was a PhD student, progress was being made in supporting early career staff with caring responsibilities. Through additional maternity research funds, support to attend conferences, and looking at performance in light of opportunity. These are great initiatives and extending them to PhD students would have enormously helped. Flexible funding that recognised interruptions as part of life, not disqualifications. Normalisation of leave uptake in PhD scholarships at the policy and staff levels. Mentorship and opportunities offered without prejudice. Opportunities to connect with more others in a similar situation and opportunities to draw on more senior staff experiences. A cultural shift that normalised having a life outside academia rather than punishing it. I felt looked down upon by peers and seniors for deciding to have a child and I think this was mainly driven by academia often being all-consuming with high workloads and many people who remain being childless or having little caring responsibilities.

Instead, even achievements were shadowed by suspicion. When I moved to Oxford for a postdoc—something I had fought so hard for—a fellow student remarked that “surely there must be more than academics involved” in securing such an opportunity for someone like me who took a ‘break’ from the PhD and didn’t have an endless publication record. Even in successes and opportunities, my worth was questioned. This impacted my mental health quite strongly and further fuelled my feelings of being not good enough and no longer fitting in. Comments like these directly influenced the themes of my psychotic depressive experience.

Claiming My Voice and Worth

For a long time, I internalised the idea that I had lost my value—that motherhood, lack of structural support, depression, and interrupted progress meant that I didn’t deserve my place in academia . But over the past decade, I have come to see it differently: my story doesn’t just reveal cracks in me, it reveals cracks in the system.

I share this story because I believe academia can do better. While there are now often better supports in place for PhD students navigating motherhood and early parenthood, there is still a long way to go. We must continue to build more humane, flexible, and supportive systems that allow those with caring responsibilities to be heard and to thrive. It is essential for mental health that these groups are valued and supported. And we must not overlook PhD students in this process.

Dr. Joyce Vromen is a Senior Lecturer and Undergraduate Course Director in Psychology, as well as a registered psychologist in private practice. Her career has spanned academia, government, non-profit, and healthcare, giving her a broad perspective on the intersection of research and practice. She authors the Divergent Minds blog for Psychology Today, where her articles on neurodivergence and women’s mental health reach international audiences. Passionate about empowering disadvantaged groups, Joyce integrates evidence-based science with practical supports. Beyond her professional roles, she is a mum to twin teenage daughters and an avid potter.