borange

Thanks for the constructive advice. You are right - it will take some time for me to undo past actions. I'll have to do double the work and make sure everything I produce is excellent. I've been producing above average work lately, but I'm going to have to step it up a notch. I think the most important thing I take away from your advice is that I can't just do very good work at this point. My work is going to have to be way above average. I guess I can't blame my advisor for trying to make my life hell. Her reputation is on the line. I can only hope that, as you stated you would be willing to give someone another chance if the behavior really changed, if I continue producing the work and make it even better, she'll be willing to give me a chance again. You are right that I'll have to endure the "suck it up" period. I just didn't think it would last this long.

I already stated I was underperforming in the first two years. Did I deny that? At top-notch academic institutions, the prevalence of people who will do anything it will take to get ahead (which means put others "behind") is much higher. I was a weakling that people knew they could take advantage of. No more. Moving on back to seeking solutions. Does anyone else have tips on how I might turn this situation around? Or is this pretty much an impossible feat?

I didn't pass a couple of classes and I've only produced a few publications. I was ill one semester and another I was being sabotaged by my classmate. Now my advisor and everyone who knows her hates me (she never stops at an opportunity to say something bad about me to them). Also, she stopped the publication of my more recent papers. She continually tells me I am not producing work, yet she killed my papers, one of which got accepted into a higher-level conference. The new projects I am on are dead end projects that I would never want my name on. Whenever I start a new project, she goes out of her way to "talk" to the other members of the project and tell them how awful I am. As a result, I am treated horribly by my team members. They want to fit in with the professors so will join in with the insults and belittling behavior. I was a personal and professional disaster when I started school here. I didn't have anyone to explain to me how things work and what was really expected of me and how to handle certain situations. I was weak and nice and people found that it was easy to step on me or humiliate me. Now, I'm stronger and I really get what I am doing. But I'm worried it's too late. My advisor clearly is trying to kill my career and resents the fact that I am getting better, as it discredits all the bad things she has said about me to everyone. She refuses to acknowledge I am making progress. Can anyone give me advice on how to turn things around? I'm professional at school now and have gotten better at playing the political game. I now know when someone is acting sneaky and know how to counter any such action. If my advisor is determined that I will fail, is my career finished? She's one of the top people in our specialty and is well connected with everybody who is anybody. Any advice on how to turn my career around? BTW, having a conversation with her will not resolve anything. It will just make her more contentious. I've tried and she listed out all of my personal failures and described everything I am doing wrong. Believe me, the intent was to belittle, not to resolve any issues.