Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associated Deans,

I am petitioning to waive the faculty’s decision that I must withdraw from Queen’s for the following 1-year period.

I am writing this request in the hopes that I may explain the extenuating circumstances and events which drastically affected my academic performance over the last year. As well as the actions I have taken in order to remedy and prevent these circumstances from influencing my performance again in the future.

During my first semester, I had begun struggling with my ADHD due to the medication I rely on having begun to lose its effectiveness, as a result of my body building a tolerance to it. This resulted in me finding it increasingly difficult to gather the motivation to begin on assignments and attend classes, or to retain focus during lectures and while studying. It is also likely that this only further worsened my anxiety as well, which my ADHD medication significantly aids in controlling alongside my anxiety specific medication.

The majority of the time, I would speak with my doctor about increasing my dosage when I recognise a decrease in effect such as this. However, at the time I had already been at the max dosage that could be prescribed. Thus, the only other solution would have been to switch medications entirely. Doing this would have potentially taken up to several weeks, during which I would be largely without the effects of my medication. At the time, I had reasoned that doing this would likely have a greater negative impact on my studies, so I had decided against it.

These issues with my medication, paired with my anxiety, and adapting to living away from home, resulted in me performing far worse than I know I am otherwise capable of achieving during my first semester. Following this, I had been determined to learn from and improve during my second semester to make up for my shortcomings.

However, upon returning home for the winter break, I was informed of my sister's hospitalization after her heart rate reached nearly lethally low levels, and her subsequent diagnosis. The following two weeks were incredibly heavy, both from the emotional toll from learning of my sister's medical situation and tension within my family as a result of accumulating stress. Due to this, I ended up returning from the break in a far worse mental state than I had going in. In addition, with the onset of the winter season, I quickly ended up falling into a depression.

The onset of this depressive-episode was likely the result of a few additional factors as well. The first being the hormonal effects and mood swings I had been experiencing as an effect of beginning HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) earlier in the fall. The second being the diminished effects of my ADHD medication, which also aid in regulating and managing the heightened susceptibility to depressive-episodes caused by ADHD. The third being the feelings of not belonging and isolation I had been experiencing due to being transgender. Having struggled to fit in socially amongst my friends and peers, as well as managing my own dysphoria which tends to grow worse during the cold months.

This depressive-episode would end up lasting the majority of the second semester, and in tandem with my struggles with my ADHD, made focusing on classes a near impossible task.