Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: The reason I have been unable to begin my petition is because I have dealt with significant health problems in the past two years following a traumatic incident that occurred to me in Kingston. Throughout the 2021 Winter and Fall I was dealing with major psychological traumas and mental illness as a result. I had been in contact with Queen's support during one of these terms. During the 2021 Winter semester I made an attempt to take my own life, and had several other instances of self-harming during this time. Furthermore, my mental health began to consume me and I developed a severe eating disorder during the 2021 Winter semester where my weight dropped to 90 pounds and I was incredibly ill. It has taken me until this summer to fully recover from my eating issues, but their persistence during my time as a student made it difficult to do every day tasks like self-care without feeling ill. Moreover, the lack of nutrition also impaired me mentally, making it incredibly difficult to deal with the demands of school. I decided to persist through school because I thoroughly enjoyed my professors, and felt an immense amount of pressure from my family and financially to continue my education. Throughout the past couple years I have struggled a lot with my mental health and neglected many things because it was difficult to accomplish even minor tasks. I started showing signs of improvement in my final full semester while still struggling quite a bit and continue to work on myself so that I can fulfill my dreams of continuing on my academic journey. I have worked extensively with staff from a clinic that specializes in eating disorders and will continue on my path to healing. Overall, I feel quite defeated that I did not realize these issues with my academics sooner and am very upset with myself over this but in my recovery I am trying to learn to forgive myself and to grow as a person as I was incredibly ill and did not understand the severity of my condition until I recovered and how it would negatively impact my academics which have always been a priority for me.