Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Bénard:

I am respectfully submitting this appeal that my winter and fall 2013 grades be expunged from my transcript. I understand that some time has passed beyond those semesters, and I will outline below the reasons why I have been unable to submit this application until now, and ask that you consider waiving the 21-day deadline for the submission of academic appeals.

I have always struggled with my mental health. I grew up in Thunder Bay without any financial means, and so my depression and my obsessive compulsive disorder remained undiagnosed throughout my childhood and youth.

I exerted the best effort that I could for a long time. In hindsight, I realize that I was leaning into my OCD to combat the abject sadness and distress of my depression. But when my grandmother died in October 2011 ¿¿ my grandmother, who primarily raised me, and was a mother to me in all but title ¿¿ I experienced a rapid and significant decline in my mental health. I felt completely alone in Kingston, with the knowledge that even back in Thunder Bay (a 24-hour drive from Kingston) I had little to no family. I fell down emotionally. Getting out of bed became a burdensome task rather than a daily normality.

Between October 2011 and October 2014, I frequently considered ending my own life. I was entirely incapacitated and couldn't care for myself. I engaged with multiple medical practitioners, and was prescribed countless different courses of medication in my search for reprieve from my devastating struggle with depression. This was a difficult and frustrating process, particularly in consideration of the immense suffering that I was enduring while I sought treatment. Needless to say, during this time, attempting to repair my broken mental health was my full-time job, and I simply did not have the personal resources to do anything else. I regret deeply that I could not be committed to my studies during this time, but it remains true that I needed to direct my entire focus towards my own wellness.

In the fall of 2012, I engaged with Student Health Services. I was in contact with a physician therein who prescribed a course of treatment to which I unfortunately did not respond favourably. She suggested that I meet with the Mental Health Nurse, which I did in the winter of 2012, which was also unfortunately unsuccessful. I have since learned that treatments for depression are often hit or miss, and require a number of different strategies before the final discovery of a successful route. I was referred to an onsite psychologist in spring 2013, who finally referred me to Dr. O'Brien at Providence Care in spring 2013. I met with Dr. O'Brien through the summer and fall of 2013. He ultimately put me on a strong course of antidepressants, and I see him periodically through this day as I remain on this course of antidepressants. This medication aided me indescribably in developing a new lease on life, and I owe this course of treatment my life. They also have side effects including short term memory loss, difficulty in focus and concentration, sleep and waking difficulties, as well as a litany of physical side effects which have affected my life outside of my academic career. I continue to engage with Dr. O'Brien in order to adjust my consumption of these medications with a focus upon facilitating my return to full-time academic status, and I feel confident in my ability to do so. The changes resulting from these adjustments, and how they have affected my capacity for academic participation, have largely motivated and facilitated this application.

Even after overcoming the worst part of my depression, I lived in a daily glum that found me presuming that any attempts that I would make at improving my lot in life would be found in vain. I had come, over the course of years, to presume that every effort I made to be successful would wind up in failure. I would have submitted this application earlier, but until very recently, I was not capable of anticipating that I would have any sort of future. Even after overcoming daily suicidal compulsions, the capacity to anticipate any sort of future took some time to develop. I trudged through years in which I didn't expect that the next year would come; in many of those years, I hoped that it wouldn't.

I endured a period of incredible difficulty, and I am indescribably grateful that I am now ¿¿ seemingly ¿¿ on the other side of it. I now look at how incapacitated I was during that time, and I feel profound regret over opportunities that may have been lost. I came to Queen's from a single-parent household in an economically depressed region, hoping that I may make opportunities for myself here. My struggles with my mental health have made that dream infeasible to this point, but I desperately hope that I will find goodwill and that I will again have the opportunity to realize my dream to graduate from Queen's.

I've been struggling for awhile now. It's only recently that I've been able to get myself out of bed, and beyond that, it took some time to recognize again my hope to complete my degree from Queen's, and some more time beyond that to gain the strength to even submit this application.
I've worked very hard, and I've come much further than I ever thought that I would have to. I just want to be a Queen's graduate, and I wish that I could have graduated from Queen's far earlier. I've come this far so far, and I hope that I will be able to complete my Queen's degree.
I thank you so much for considering my application, and reading about the circumstances that gave rise to it.

With Regards,

Craig Draeger