“Universities around the world are recognizing the importance of providing more mental-health services to our students and of course, McGill is no different,” McGill principal and vice-chancellor Suzanne Fortier.

There’s an Anglophone saying that goes something along the lines of “a canary in a coal mine,” meaning a warning of things to come, a red flag that there’s danger ahead. This saying comes from something real. Until around thirty years ago, miners would bring along small birds, kept in tiny cages, down below the earth. If the birds became sick or died, it was a warning to the miners: there was toxic gas, and they needed to get out. Unlike McGill’s iconic martlets, canaries are real birds, small yellow creatures whose bright bodies became sacrifices.

This is my message to McGill University: I am not your canary. I am still alive.

Last year, McGill administrators made the decision to stop “offering” — their wording, not mine — long-term counselling. This unannounced change came after many restructurings of the fractured pieces that make up a sort-of McGill mental health system, resulting in access more difficult for students and assistance more difficult for staff members to provide. I initially found out about this most recent change when I met with a point-of-contact in what had previously been called Counselling Services. After our third meeting, and consistent pressure to switch to group workshop sessions — which had done more harm than good, a previous counsellor agreed — she handed me two pieces of paper. She told me they were no longer offering long-term counselling, and that I should use community resources instead. She told me to keep trying the Empower Me website, though I had told her that EmpowerMe had never called or e-mailed me back the many times I had contacted them in the past, and she was surprised when I told her that EmpowerMe does not offer support beyond a few sessions. She said that to be helpful, the Counselling Services office had created the two sheets of paper with contact information to aid students in finding help and she circled a few offices that she thought would be particularly helpful.

She told me good luck, and I left. I cried. The papers are still on my coffee table.

From early December 2018 to the end of May 2019, I found myself on a waitlist for a sliding-scale appointment at two different Montréal therapy centers. During that time, I changed medication — at the suggestion of my psychiatrist, due to a complex medical situation — and became increasingly suicidal, depressed, and anxious. I spent most of the months between March and June sitting on my sofa, watching YouTube videos, trying desperately to write, or grade, or do anything to distract myself from the choppy seas of suicidal ideation. I reached out again to Counselling Services, and was told I could have a one-off appointment, but would be unable to access any kind of regularized care. My partner became my de-facto support system, putting immense pressure on him. Floating, in an SSRI/SNRI-shift-inducing haze, I was consistently told there would be no long-term counselling option — though this was not and is still not noted on any McGill website. I was repeatedly encouraged to find resources in a nebulous “elsewhere.”

On days when I could get myself out of my apartment, I did everything I could to advocate for myself (even while being consistently misgendered, both by administrators and whenever I sought help through Counselling Services or the now-Health Hub). Previous experiences in my own department — my Graduate Program Director losing my disability paperwork, faculty complaining about students with mental illnesses in department meetings, and receiving pushback in regards to necessary accommodations — dissuaded me from seeking out support there. I had a meeting with Graduate and Postdoctoral Services (who asserted it would simply be “better” for students to take time off, without medical insurance and support systems), a meeting with the Office for Students with Disabilities (who said graduate student accomodation effectively ends when coursework does), a few meetings with the Deputy Provost of Student Life and Learning (who complained about students “faking” mental illnesses and “clogging” the system). I participated in a number of McGill-hosted surveys and focus groups about mental health, with those running the groups pushing back when I shared my own experiences.

“It couldn’t be that bad,” I was told, over and over again.

I am so grateful to the staff in what was formerly known as Psychiatric Services for their support — I am not the only one who has put a line dedicated to the secretaries in a thesis! — but mental illness cannot be “solved” through medication alone. Or spin bikes. Or yoga. Or TEDx talks. Or handing someone with a long history of mental illness a list of tips that border on insulting. Or yet another re-structured system, forcing those of us with chronic illnesses to exhaust ourselves as we bounce between short-term fixes. I fully support people whose wellness is improved through things like exercise or meditation, but switching long-term counselling for cheaper alternatives is yet another violent, neoliberal act parading as “care.”

We have too many administrators for it to fall on me to figure out a way forward for supporting students with disabilities. I have met with a number of administrators, including Martine Gauthier (Executive Director of Student Services) and Vera Romano (Director of the Health Hub). I have been told that McGill is “shifting to short-term, episodic care,” with few details on what is left for those of us who don’t fit that model. I have been told that McGill staff have been “referring” students out of McGill — but when I asked about specifics, or about what had happened to students who had been “referred out,” I was told that things are “in development,” with no firm date or plan. I have been directed to press releases when I questioned how this would meet any recommended standards of care. I have been given numbers of students who accessed McGill’s mental health care services when I pointed out the economic burden and privilege of accessing care, as if more students accessing free care somehow cancelled out those of us who pay thousands to access the care that keeps us living. I have been told that changes “only affect a few students,” thereby justifying violent and bureaucratically-quantified collateral damage. I have been told that “transparency is key” when this is not the first time students with mental health needs have been left without institutional support. I have been met with silence when Health Hub administrators had no idea how my “international” status shapes my experiences with health care at McGill, though almost a third of McGill students are from outside Canada.

I still do not know who made the decisions to stop students from accessing long-term mental health care. What I do know is that I calculate that I will need an additional $3,120 to cover the out-of-pocket costs for my therapy. I can reclaim a maximum of $750 from my Blue Cross insurance that I pay for as an international student, and StudentCare will pay for a maximum of $500, which means that I can hopefully get half of my projected costs eventually covered. These recouped amounts are not guaranteed, and do take time to process, but will go some distance to helping make ends meet. Still, it means that I — a disabled person, a person who suddenly needs to come up with extra money to cover medical needs — have taken on an additional job in order to pay for my medical care, while still trying to write my thesis.

In full disclosure, I am lucky. I have parents who can loan me some money to tide me over, ensuring I could still access necessary care when my medical needs suddenly spiked beyond my graduate student budget. I have an amazing partner who literally saved my life. English is my first language, I speak advanced French, and I know how to quickly rattle off my medical history and current medications. I can navigate the Montréal hospital system. But all of this does not mean what is happening to me is okay, acceptable, or even that I’m the only one. Substituting spin bikes for therapy, quietly removing access to evidence-based mental health services, and relying on printed handouts to solve complicated, long-term medical problems will have casualties. Making accessible mental health care a low priority — when there is so clearly and desperately a need for it — means that there will be preventable deaths, alongside the pain and distress that comes with fighting for medical care when just fighting to live is overwhelming enough.

I could continue to shout about how forcing students to take leaves of absence is ableist nonsense. I could quietly tell you that every time I see an article about the Health Hub’s “integrated” approach to mental health, or McGill’s rankings, my stomach drops. I could print out yet another article about mental health in academia — including how neoliberal approaches like McGill’s don’t work — and slide it over. I could send you an op-ed about how mental health shouldn’t be an issue of institutional reputation, but of care. I could pull up the Canadian Association of College and University Student Services (CACUSS) website on campus mental health, to illustrate how McGill’s mental health support pales in comparison to their recommendations. I could e-mail you the most recent NCHA/ACHA data, showing that over 20% of college students have been diagnosed with depression, and nearly 12% of students — at McGill, that would be almost 5,000 — have seriously considered suicide. I could pull up the Health Hub website, and point to the 12–13 week wait time to see a psychiatrist. I could show you how there is little data behind the very broad apps that McGill promotes, and how these apps raise serious concerns about privacy, as well as questions as to whether they are even appropriate for certain mental illnesses. But, unpaid and unasked, I have done this over and over again, and I am so, so tired.

Instead, what I will say is this: I am still here. Thanks to my partner, a close friend, and the Emergency Department at St. Mary’s, I am still here. I have not died yet. For now, I am not your canary.