Looking for answers on PhDs

I am in the perhaps final stages of the stations of the cross of a PhD dissertation. The toll it has taken has been enormous - much of it my own fault and due to my own weaknesses - but not all.

I am wondering if any ABDs out there could share their experience. I have decided that I do not want to do research and frankly, historians (my doctorate will be in history, if it ever arrives) seem to have drained all the joy out of history - which to me is a crime.

I am fully prepared to be one of the undocumented aliens of the academic world - the adjunct. I guess I am looking for affirmation to say that this process is crazy and there is a life (with obvious limits) without the gown.

I fully recognize that no one may read this.

ColonelJim