{"668411":{"#nid":"668411","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Graduate Student Leaders Take Action on Mental Health Support","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Miguel Campos began his ISyE graduate studies in August 2018, he expected the experience to be exciting and challenging \u2014 particularly because, as an international student from Colombia, he was coming to the U.S. for the first time.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDescribing himself as \u201ca usually happy person,\u201d he didn\u2019t anticipate one of those challenges being his mental health. When the fall semester began, Campos plunged into his studies.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs anticipated, they were demanding. Then he began noticing that he was having memory issues. He booked an appointment at Georgia Tech\u2019s Counseling Center, which offers free mental health counseling and resources to students. But before his first session, Campos began suffering from both fatigue and sleeplessness, an inability to focus and a lack of appetite. He eventually saw a counselor who recommended group therapy, meditation, and exercise. While he followed her advice, his mental state didn\u2019t improve.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch4\u003EThe First Diagnosis\u003C\/h4\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThen, a few months later, the situation became dire. \u201cI was in China working on a research project, and I had a really bad episode,\u201d Campos remembered. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d He ended up being taken to a hospital in Hong Kong, and a few days later, Campos was back in Atlanta, still struggling. That was when ISyE Director of Student Services Dawn Strickland got involved.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cBecause of what happened in China, because it was part of my studies, the incident was reported to her, and she asked me to come see her,\u201d Campos said.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EStrickland made a phone call to Stamps Health Services and was able to get Campos an appointment with the psychiatrist for two days later. \u201cThe doctor listened to me for 10 minutes, told me I was chronically depressed, and that she was prescribing an antidepressant,\u201d he said. \u201cThat was the end of November. A month later I was fine.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAs the spring semester began, Campos found himself feeling happy and appreciating life. His Ph.D. studies were going well. Everything else in his life was too. A couple of months later, Campos felt energized. Sleep was less of a necessity. He noticed a change in his spending habits, parting with money recklessly. While his girlfriend, friends, and professors all noticed Campos\u2019 increasingly bizarre behavior, they weren\u2019t sure what was going on.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch4\u003EThe Second Diagnosis\u003C\/h4\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003ECampos was in China once again for an ISyE project when he had another major mental health incident \u2014 this time, a psychotic break characterized by delusions and a partial loss of his connection with reality. He was hospitalized for 13 days in Hong Kong before his family flew him back to Bogot\u00e1, where he was hospitalized for 15 more days.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThere, a psychiatrist finally recognized an error. Campos, they said, had been misdiagnosed with depression. Instead, it was much more likely that it was bipolar disorder. The antidepressant he was on was contributing to Campos\u2019 mania, a common occurrence when bipolar disorder is incorrectly treated.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAmericans are typically familiar with depression and anxiety as common mental health issues. They may be less familiar with bipolar disorder, except for depictions in movies or TV that show a character experiencing wildly elevated moods (mania) or debilitating low moods (depression). These are indeed characteristics of the disorder, but a range of symptoms accompany it.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EAround 5.7 million Americans are affected by the condition. In 2019, the World Health Organization estimated that globally 970 million people, or 1 person out of 8, suffered from a mental health condition. This included 40 million with bipolar disorder.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIt was a relief for Campos to finally have the correct diagnosis and to be prescribed the right medication for it, although he had to pause his studies for a full year as part of the process. \u201cI have a very good specialist back home, and he got me on the right medication,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve had mild episodes since, like hypomania, but I treat them with medication.\u201d His psychiatrist also encouraged him to stop eating sugar, which can artificially heighten the highs and lows of mood swings.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EHe has a sanguine outlook on his diagnosis and everything that happened to him leading up to it. \u201cSo, it\u2019s a chronic disease,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is what happened to me.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch4\u003ESharing His Story\u003C\/h4\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThis perspective has led Campos to openly share his story with fellow Georgia Tech students.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn that crucial conversation he had with Strickland, she told him she had similarly grappled with mental health issues while studying for her ISyE doctorate. She mentioned\u0026nbsp;that she knew of numerous other ISyE students who felt isolated with their mental health challenges.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EOnce Campos\u2019 moods stabilized and he was back in school, he and several other students began considering how to share their personal mental health stories as a way of providing information to and connection for the rest of the ISyE graduate students.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cOur initial idea was to do an information session for first-year ISyE Ph.D. students,\u201d he said. \u201cThey have a mandatory seminar they have to attend every week, so we attended one of those sessions as an initial point of contact.\u201d Then they developed a broader event and invited all doctoral students and faculty.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThat created an opportunity to discuss the mental health resources provided by the Institute. \u201cWe also shared our own stories, so everyone would know mental health issues are normal, they need to be discussed, and they\u2019re nothing to be ashamed of,\u201d he said. Over 50 people attended the event.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Ch4\u003ECreating the ISyE Bee Well Group\u003C\/h4\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn addition to presenting to the ISyE Ph.D. community, Campos and some members of the School\u2019s Graduate Student Advisory Council put together the Bee Well Group in Spring 2022. Strickland and Graduate Programs Manager Amanda Ford, who had also recognized the need for such a group, serve as its advisors.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe group came about partly because of my own experience as a grad student, as well as seeing how some of our students struggle,\u201d Strickland said. In the spring, the group met occasionally for breakfast, inviting any students who needed support to attend.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EThey also organized a few walks around campus as a way of highlighting how important physical activity is for mental health. Campos and the other leaders plan to expand the Bee Well group activities in the fall.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the meantime, several students have reached out to them to affirm their interest in the group and to share their own personal struggles. Campos sees this as a success. \u201cThe idea of the group is that when they hear our stories, they will know they can make it through this,\u201d Campos said. \u201cI\u2019m in my fourth year already, and I got sick in my first semester. So, it\u2019s going to work out, but you would never believe that if it wasn\u2019t coming from someone who has been there already.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEvery time I talk to someone about this, I tell them it\u2019s an illness. It\u2019s like you have diabetes. And I ask if they would apologize for having diabetes or try to hide it.\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n\r\n\u003Cp\u003EDiabetes is a chronic disease, you will have it all your life, and you need to take your medication because if you don\u2019t, you\u0027ll get sick. It\u0027s the same exact thing with mental health.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","summary":"","format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ECampos, who has bipolar disorder, wants other graduate students who may also have mental health issues to know they are not alone. Together with several other ISyE graduate student leaders, Campos founded the ISyE Bee Well group for mental health support.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"ISyE Ph.D. student Miguel Campos shares his mental health journey "}],"uid":"36284","created_gmt":"2023-07-10 16:44:54","changed_gmt":"2023-08-03 14:25:50","author":"chenriquez8","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2023-06-30T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2023-06-30T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"671310":{"id":"671310","type":"image","title":"Campos.jpg","body":null,"created":"1691072684","gmt_created":"2023-08-03 14:24:44","changed":"1691072684","gmt_changed":"2023-08-03 14:24:44","alt":"Miguel Campos","file":{"fid":"254342","name":"Campos.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/08\/03\/Campos.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/2023\/08\/03\/Campos.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":210354,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/2023\/08\/03\/Campos.jpg?itok=Ugjzum9m"}}},"media_ids":["671310"],"related_links":[{"url":"https:\/\/www.isye.gatech.edu\/users\/miguel-campos-murcia","title":"Miguel Campos"}],"groups":[{"id":"1242","name":"School of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISYE)"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EIf you are a Georgia Tech student and need mental health support and assistance, please visit the CARE homepage. For information about the ISyE Bee Well Group, contact Dawn Strickland and Amanda Ford.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\r\n","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}