Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean (Studies),

I am appealing to have all Winter courses in 2017 to have a credit standing.

As you are aware from my previous appeal to drop Psych 100 for the 2016/2017 year, I have been unwell since November of 2016. At that time, I believed that lowering my course load by one course would help focus and work efficiently on my other four courses. Unfortunately, my situation in the winter did not improve even with the lower course load, in fact it worsened. I continued to have increased troubles with focus, exhaustion and managing the work load. The medications I was on were not working, suggesting a misdiagnosis by the Queen's Health Centre however, the doctor whom I saw almost weekly continued to try changing dosage of the same medications to see if it would help. I was unable to receive a psych consult due to unavailability of psychiatrists to see me. My mom finally called the doctor asking to make an urgent psych consult because my condition was worse. I did not receive a psych consult until after my final winter exam. I was unable to attend all of my classes as I could not get out of bed and when I did attend, I was unable to focus. I could not manage the stress. I deferred all exams and midterms as I could not handle having them so close together due to my anxiety. I spoke to my Microbiology professor about reweighing a midterm I wrote and did poorly on and was told that although I had medical documentation, he could not treat students differently. I then asked the same professor to defer the final exam due to my illness and was told that if I am convinced I will recover by the proposed deferral date, that was okay but if not, to write at the end of the summer because if I did poorly on the exam, there was nothing he could do about it. I chose to write before the summer began because my condition was worsening. I felt extremely high levels of anxiety due to the professor's email saying that once it was written, there was nothing he'd do about it. I felt quite misunderstood and unsupported. When studying for this exam, I had to return home because I did not feel I was safe to be alone in my house due to my depression and anxiety. My final marks (C+, C, C-, D+) are not a reflection of my abilities in comparison to my first year and therefore shows the degree of illness.

As my illness got worse, I ended up in the ICU on life support due to a lethal overdose at the end of June. I then spent time in a psychiatric ward and was diagnosed with anxiety, depression, major depressive disorder, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder (BPD). I was not responsive to medications at during the 2016/2017 school year because I received the wrong diagnosis from the health care centre at Queen's. There is no medication to help manage and stabilize BPD. Patients require cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectic behavioural therapy (DBT). After my discharge from the psychiatric ward, I was referred to a partial hospitalization program at Credit Valley Hospital where I do CBT and DBT from 9:30 to 2pm every day.

I have met with the accommodations office, academic advisors, counselling services and health services to plan for the upcoming school year. In the 2017/2018 year, I will be followed on a regular basis by a psychologist, psychiatrist and doctor, I will continue doing CBT and DBT, I have accommodations in place, and I will be considering a lighter course load consisting of 3 or 4 courses. I have registered for 5 currently but plan to choose which to drop after attending some classes, based on the work load.

I hope that my 2017 winter marks can all have CR's as they are not a reflection of me but rather my illness. Thank you for your consideration and support.

Sincerely,
Dilina LallanI
10173218