“I am reaching out to you because I would like to tell you a story, my story to be exact. On Monday, October 30th 2023, I had my first meeting with the Student Wellbeing and Support office. Actually, it was the second one, but it was the first one after I received news of what would later become my definitive diagnosis: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

After years of pain, shame and guilt, in which I tried to handle my mind as best as I could without knowing what was happening to me, I finally seemed to have an answer. But it was an answer at the time I was afraid came too late. As my disorder overflowed beyond the dams of its usual patterns, my life became unbearable. I was not eating anymore, because I was afraid to eat too much, lose my discipline and go back to how I was before losing weight; I stopped having my period and started lacking energy throughout the day. I was isolating myself from everything and everyone, because I was counting the minutes I did not spend studying and would not sleep trying to atone for them. I stopped talking to others because I convinced myself everybody would either hate me or simply find me annoying. Frankly, I just thought everybody would be better off without me around.

On Monday, November 27th 2023, I had my first psychiatry consultation. My doctor confirmed my diagnosis right away and prescribed me what would then become my long-term medication, but started treating my depression first, which was the result of years of untreated OCD. As you can see from the timeline, I started undergoing treatment only one month after my meeting with the Student Wellbeing and Support, because my doctor did not have any available spots sooner. Until that day came, I had no idea of what would await me, the type of treatment that I would undergo, whether I would manage to stay in Geneva by myself or whether it would have been better to pause my university journey and go back home. That was also the month I first started working on my Applied Research Project (ARP), and the fear of negatively impacting my team members' work was suffocating. I did not know how to act, what to do, how to go forward.

That is why having the Student Wellbeing and Support by my side during those long and heavy 30 days was crucial: they gave me a plan, a pathway to take until November 27th arrived. They allowed me to see that there were different options for me to consider, that all was not lost still and that I could hold on a little bit more. Assignment after assignment, class after class, day by day. They offered to contact the Head of ARP Programs to ask to put the project off until the following year if I decided to do so; they explained I could ask for extensions if I needed them; they informed me that for the time being I could freeze my academic career at the Institute for medical reasons if I could not handle the pressure anymore. In a sea of darkness and uncertainty, they illuminated what my few next steps could be and provided a place for me to rest if I chose to.

Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, I now know that that month was essential: I decided to take on my ARP project, I respected all the deadlines and stayed in Geneva without freezing my academic career. But if I found the strength to do so, it was only because I knew that I could also not: I had a plan B. I realised that if I pushed through and somehow failed I would have ways to remedy it all. I would have somebody helping me to get back up if I fell down. And that small, but steadfast and tangible certainty became the backbone of hope I used to keep on walking, even if walking meant making only one step forward.

I am telling you this, because I truly mean it when I say that I probably would not be graduating right now if during those long 30 days of uncertainty, confusion, pain and fear I did not find something to hold on to to make those little steps forward towards the start of my recovery journey, which is still ongoing now.

I am sure there are countless students who are going through similar if not worse silent battles, whose pain and suffering remain unseen by others, but weigh heavy on their own eyes, through which they see a darkness they are not sure they are able to face. Having support systems such as the Student Wellbeing and Support office does not take all that pain away and it does not force you to go through it. What it does do, though, is give you a choice: amidst illness, suffering or tragedy, it allows you to have at least a part of your agency back. It makes you see that even if you do not have to, if you want, you can indeed find the strength to do that little step forward. To hold on a little bit more.

I know that negotiating budgets, allocating scarce resources and handling conflicting priorities is no easy task. But please, try to always take into consideration stories like mine: although invisible and silent most of the time, these stories represent the essence of students' experiences at the Institute, the environment in which they are building the foundations of their future lives. Services like the Student Wellbeing and Support office are what truly represent the excellence of high-livel institutions like the Graduate Institute: they provide the resources for people coming from all different backgrounds to face their struggles, to overcome the obstacles life unfairly put in their way, which too often go well beyond my diagnosis, which I still had the luck to face in a privileged position. They allow us to believe in our future and cultivate our "duty of hope", as Professor Pisano once told us during class.

Thank you for reading this rather long e-mail and for your continuous support to services such as the Student Wellbeing and Support office.

A second-year graduating MINT student”