Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associated Dean,
My name is Jessie Wei and I¿¿m a second year student in the Faculty of Arts and Science. My student number is 10152525. I am appealing the Faculty¿¿s decision that I must withdraw from Queen¿¿s for a minimum of three years. I believe that my academic performance was significantly affected by an extenuating circumstance.
Something has happened to my family about 2 years ago and I went through a really hard time first year because of I was dealing with this family problem. I was suffering from severe OCD and feeling depressed. The summer of 2015 I was diagnosed with situational depression. However, my conditions have gotten better during the summer holiday of 2015 because I was with my family and I was seeing a therapist in my home city. My OCD has gotten much better and I wasn¿¿t feeling as depressed anymore so I stopped seeing the therapist as I moved back to Kingston because I thought I was ok again. I continued to do decently well in the beginning of second year. At that time I thought mental illness is just like colds and flu, once you start feeling better you¿¿re completely ¿¿healed¿, and then it¿¿s over. But I was wrong. In the winter last year right before Christmas things just went downhill for no apparent reason, I started losing interest in everything and was feeling sad constantly. I thought the Christmas break would help me, but it didn¿¿t. I experienced a major depressive episode in the second semester. I could barely get out of bed and I was suicidal. For about 2 weeks I could barely perform the most basic daily tasks like getting dressed, taking a shower, or holding a conversation with people, for a while I would cry until 3am in the morning almost everyday. My housemates were getting concerned. After having learned that I had made a suicide attempt my housemate suggested that I should really go speak with a professional so I went to Frontenac Community Mental health services in February, where I spoke with a crisis worker. She arranged me to see a psychiatrist and I got diagnosed with Clinical Depression and Anxiety. He referred me to the psychiatrists at Queen¿¿s student wellness centre because they mainly deal with emergencies and couldn¿¿t provide long term consoling. That¿¿s when I started making appointments with doctors here at Queen¿¿s. I believe that my academic performance was significantly affected by an extenuating circumstance. I couldn¿¿t focus, or sleep, and I had lost interest in everything. Because I had experienced with Depression before so when it happened the second time around I was just disappointed, confused, and angry, for a while I felt like I should just give up on everything because there was no point in trying. I would feel extremely anxious and depressed in the morning, so I couldn¿¿t go outside or talk to people or basically do anything and I couldn¿¿t sleep either so I would always just hide under the bed covers with my blinks closed and I had two panic attacks during that month so I was scared to go to class.