Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: My name is Poorvi Tiwari, and I am writing to share my situation and ask for your understanding regarding my performance in fall and winter term courses during my second year of university(2023/2024). I value my education and the opportunities I have here but the past year of 2023 brought in its own challenges for me on a personal level.
My family has been going through a difficult time due to some personal conflict between my parents. It made me feel like everything was falling apart, and the issues between them created a lot of emotional stress for me. On top of that being far away from home, got even harder. Being away, added onto the worries that I can’t help or support them in any way possible which left me overwhelmed.
All these things happening, resulted in me, struggling with anxiety and stressing about the situation back home. This indeed affected my ability to focus on school and classes. The pressure to manage my course while dealing with everything else was exhausting. I was lost, unable to keep the track of what was happening. I couldn’t even realize that it was short term depression as back home no one talks about anxiety or depression, and hence I suffered in silence. At any stage in my life, I would still be reluctant to tell my parents about suffering due to such issues as for them and the people there’s nothing like that. A few months ago, I experienced an anxiety attack again and that’s when I decided to go meet the counselor. She then told me that the symptoms were of short-term depression.
Until then, I didn’t know what was exactly going on. All I remember is I was physically present but mentally unaware of my surroundings. I loved calling my parents almost every other day gradually it became something I dreaded as every conversation was the same: their frustration at each other, complaints and me being unable to do anything. I really wanted to fix things between them, but every other conversation with them over the phone drained me out unable to focus on things.
I even started ignoring their calls. I couldn’t take it anymore, there was no motivation left to do anything. Being unable to talk to anyone about the situation as depression or anxiety doesn’t exist (back home) I struggled to keep up with my courses.

When the counsellor told me about the symptoms of short-term depression, everything started making sense. I realized why I was pulling myself away from the people I loved and why I felt that my emotions were frozen. It wasn’t just sadness rather watching everything and not being able to do anything to change it resulted in what I went through.
I feel it was important to explain the reason behind my performance in all these subjects. I’ve been doing my best and was super happy with my grades last semester and I’m sure that I can achieve even better in the coming year.
I am working on my mental health and I’m determined to overcome these challenges so that I can fully focus on my studies. It was indeed a good decision to finally speak to a counsellor and I look forward to continue doing it.
I ask for your understanding of my situation. Thank you for taking the time to read my note and being patient with me.
Regards,