I did, too. And although, much like other replies to your post say, it was not in the US, I know many "happy graduates" from there. My impression is that the a

I did, too. And although, much like other replies to your post say, it was not in the US, I know many "happy graduates" from there. My impression is that the amount of PhD stress is different in different fields, with higher-competition fields resulting in more tragic overall experience. For example, my own subject was relatively un-populated and even a bit out of fashion, so I was able to publish papers on openly available data taken almost 10 years ago, and even open source some of my code. That being said, I also got very lucky to have a flexible and supporting supervisor, and to have a proper working contract with my institute with all the social benefits included (yay, Germany!). Edit: just realized that the above looks too rosy - I had also burned out in the middle of my PhD from overworking, got increasingly cynical attitude towards science and have left science altogether after graduating due to lack of career prospects. However, challenging as it was, I still consider it a great experience.