Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: I¿¿ve written letters like this in the past, but this will be the first time that I write this letter with honesty, vulnerability, and with true clarity (concepts that I¿¿ve had trouble implementing for the pas two and a half years). I recognize that when I lost the ability to be honest and vulnerable after my mother¿¿s funeral (late September of 2016 during the start of my second year at Queen¿¿s) I forfeited any possibility of properly healing or becoming stronger after experiencing one of life¿¿s most painful lessons. After my mother¿¿s death I started to live in mental state of depression; that in itself was something I denied to be possible as I¿¿ve been through many things growing up but I had always believed I was never the type to become beaten down or sad let alone depressed. A few things stand out to me now that I¿¿ve taken the steps to heal myself and accept the events in my life. Coming back to Queen¿¿s the day after my mother¿¿s funeral in California, where my family is located, didn¿¿t allow me the right space to grieve and heal. I was away from every family member and anyone who actually knew the women I lost, in a foreign country where I was left to deal with immense emotions that I didn¿¿t believe was acceptable to show in the college atmosphere (where people are trying to work hard and play hard, I didn¿¿t understand where grief could be accepted in these conditions). Outside of a very few who where mature enough to hear me out when I mentioned my situation, even matter-of-factly bringing up my mother¿¿s passing resulted in unwanted pity and avoidance. At the time I had fully believed that it was due to the age group of my peers, I didn¿¿t think many could relate to my pain. However now, after being able to confidently bring up my mother passing away slowly due to cancer, I realized it was less about the experience of my peers, but more so the fact that when I would bring it up the details of my situation and mother¿¿s passing it wasn¿¿t coming from a person who had accepted the reality of his life and has chosen to remember the good things about his mother, but rather it was coming from a person who looked broken and hadn¿¿t been eating healthy or sleeping properly for months. I hadn¿¿t realized how much shame and guilt I had built up over the two years lying to my family back in California, telling them ¿¿I¿¿m okay and maintaining my grades and social life¿, still succeeding in the life my mother gave me, and being happy ¿¿for my mom.¿ It created a snowball affect which led to increased absences in classes (resulting in poor grades), social avoidance, lack of proper nutrition, and the worst: having an unreasonable amount of pseudo confidence that I¿¿ll be able to turn it all around ¿¿next semester¿ or ¿¿next year¿ which would lead to me taking an unreasonable amount of classes or classes that wouldn¿¿t be viable for me to take if I wanted to do well in other classes. Since my mother passed until early April 2019 I lived in dishonesty towards others as well as myself, I indulged in binge drinking on weekends, using substances such as weed (until early January of 2019), and an overall feeling of ¿¿pretending¿ in all aspects of my life. Every time I¿¿d see friends or family, I¿¿d pretend to be present, I¿¿d pretend I¿¿m moving on with my life and working on myself. I¿¿m now able to honestly say it truly was all lying. I can say that now because I can see the difference of who I am now, who I¿¿m working to become in the future, and who I was in the past. I can¿¿t really pinpoint what was the exact reason that broke the camels back (there were many), besides the obvious ones like feeling disconnected from friends and family, and lack of meaningful connection with any lovers since. I realized that I needed to work to be happy again. So, I enrolled in a group bereavement counseling program offered by the KGH (Kingston General Hospital) that ran for 7 weeks. In the group I was by far the youngest, with the rest of the group¿¿s ages raging from early 40¿¿s to late 80¿¿s. I was astounded at how quickly so many of the negative self-beliefs I gained after my mother passed away began to be washed away. The group helped me come back to reality, I wasn¿¿t an alien for feeling the way I had felt for the past two and a half years. The stories I heard from my peers in the group slowly started to relieve a pressure in me I had almost forgotten wasn¿¿t a natural part of me, the dark cloud over my head finally started to part and I remembered how to look into the future positively. I was strengthened knowing I could feel the way I felt without having to be ashamed. The woman I lost was the only other stable part of my adolescent life which involved moving around the world multiple times due to my father¿¿s involvement in the UN and other international projects that caused him to not be home for a large portion of my childhood (only really settling to take care of my mother). This was the woman who, even while slowly being eaten away by cancer for years never relented her smile or care for others, having me never doubting that the cancer would lose, and she would prevail. I hadn¿¿t realized until taking this program that I had forgotten how to remember her in her strengthens rather than the last image of her laying in the casket. One of my peers in the program, the only other one there who¿¿s mother passed away to cancer, spoke about how his mother passed away five years ago. As he spoke, I couldn¿¿t help but notice how this older man who was whimpering in pain and shame looked like and sounded like he was in more pain than myself. It made me realize how strong I was and just how much love and inner strength my mother instilled in me before passing. In a matter of almost 2 months, I had leaned how to start the process of taking my feelings of shame and weakness to strength and empowerment, I was actually encouraging a man 20 plus years my senior that he doesn¿¿t need to feel shame and that he can look everyone in the eyes and explain his pain without fear. The people in that group where people who lived my lifetime multiple times over, and they were still trying to get over either their first exposure to death or their third, or the death of someone they couldn¿¿t forgive in life The program gave me skills that I still employ every day; I journal everyday to make sure I can bring my thoughts out in a way that makes it easy to discern what I want and what I don¿¿t want, I also meditate to bring calmness and clarity to myself. I¿¿ve learnt how to reconnect with my friend and family with the beautiful tool of empathy rather then the apathy I was deploying for the past few years. I¿¿m especially happy to notice I¿¿ve regained my want, and ability, to enjoy life and my curiosity for knowledge that helped me get into Queen¿¿s in the first place. It might also be worth it to note that I¿¿ve been diagnosed with high functioning inattentive adhd which may have made my depression symptoms worse at the time (It helped in the increased amount of shame of not being able to complete assignments on time or remember important dates while I was depressed).