Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Associate Dean,
I appeal for the drop for ECON232 enrolled in fall 2020. I am a third-year arts and science student who is currently pursuing my BAH degree in Applied Economics. This year is a challenging year for everyone, and it is also the most challenging year of my life.
I have suffered from domestic abuse for a long time. Before the fall semester began, I stayed at home. From June to August, the situation worsens, I think maybe because of the COVID, and everybody stays at home and can't vent to their destructive emotions. The mental and physical abuse are a nightmare for me. I was so scared, and I don't know how to fight back. And the last time I can't bear it anymore, and I called the police. To keep me safe, police take away, give a no-contact restriction, and lay charges to who should be responsible for that. During that time, I thought that is the end.
However, I felt I had physical pain in my back and a sleep disorder for the whole of August. I lost 15kg for only one month. To begin with, I did not know I have an illness. But later, I feel I can't move, can't focus, can't control my consciousness, and dying. My friends took me to the clinic right away on August 31, 2020. Dr. Ali diagnosed me with Post trauma stress disorder (PTSD), and he gave me the medicine to treat my illness. Also, he referred me to the phycologist Dr. Houyuan Luo for treatment. Dr. Houyuan Luo also diagnosed me with PTSD and dissociation, and he keeps giving me cognitive behavior therapy treatment.
Because of the illness, and I lay on my bed every day till the end of September. Most of my workload on my courses has already gone far away, and I should catch up harder. Luckily, with the help of Accessibility Service Advisor Caroline Teske, I was able to submit the assignment with extra time and have a long test time. The accommodation helped me deal with my focus problem and lagged workload. However, I still easily get tired and can only get up during the afternoon when I have intensive work or read something, some vocabularies or relative scenes easy to recall my memory and bring me back to the traumatic thoughts. Every time I would sob and shiver for a long time to get chill down. Then I can work. Sometimes if the scene is so real, I will feel I want to run away and not do anything. If I didn't control this feeling, I would follow the doctor's suggestion to have progressive muscle relaxation training and take a sleeping pill, and have a good sleep to reset. The illness is torture for me. Also, even when I calm down, I can't focus and can't feel the real world because of the dissociation. I want to recover as soon as possible in that case; I can be normal to deal with my academic workload. But my doctor told me that the recovery takes time, and I don't push myself too much and have a good rest every day. I hope I will feel better soon because the symptoms are tormenting, making me feel hopeless and fearful.
I thought I could hold on for a while. And I don't want to drop any course, because I don't want to take more time to graduate. However, during the mid of November, the symptoms get worse, and I can't bear any more. The body-allowed working time for me shirked a lot, and my focus and understanding ability dropped mostly. Even with the accommodation's help, I can't finish the workload, especially for lots of readings in ECON232. I talked to Caroline, and she told me that health is the most priority and suggested I drop some courses to have a better recovery. And she refers me to talk to the Academic Advisor, Kathryn Vilela. Kathryn told me to do this appeal.
I only drop the ECON232 because it has too many readings for the long research paper and the final exam. And read something long is very difficult for me now under my illness condition. For other courses, I have already finished the term work and only wait for the final exam. And I can use my accommodation to help me to succeed in the final exams. With support from the university, I have the confidence that I can achieve academic success even with this lousy illness. I hope you will understand my situation and approve my appeal. Thank you very much

Best,

Zheng Li
20234238