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Her letter was an apology. She was sorry for not having been in touch for a while and for the delays in her project. She was suffering a depression. It all had started with a strange feeling, a kind of weight, a kind of fog. It was now a diagnosed  depression. She had lost much more than her self-esteem as a young researcher—she had lost her life’s breath. The letter was part of the first steps to assume and go over the situation.

It took me a while to write her back. I wanted to make her comfortable: do not worry, try to get well, take it easy. I wanted to teller her that she is talented and that her project is fascinating. But then I thought these are the polite things that people probably tell you all the time when you are down in the well. So I decided to share some experiences with her. I told her that I often lost confidence in my projects and in the profession as well. I told her that swimming regularly and writing down my frustrations in a notebook had worked well for me.

She wrote me back. She thought that more experienced researchers did not have these kinds of problems. She thought that it was all about sitting down and starting to write and enjoy. She told me that she was feeling better. She had started visiting the swimming pool and the notebook was a good idea.

This was a few months ago. Since then I keep on asking myself whether the training we offer to our graduate students and young researchers is adequate enough.