Petition Letter
I am writing this petition to request that the selected courses be dropped from my academic record as my poor performance in those courses was a direct result of my ongoing mental health struggles with clinical depression and anxiety. You may recall that you were very helpful in facilitating a similar request for me in June 2023.
In the summer of 2023, I felt that I had made sufficient progress both in managing my medicine and in receiving psychological support that enrolled back at Queens that September. However, unfortunately, I was not able to maintain my mental health.
By way of background, I was initially diagnosed in April 2021, towards the end of my grade 12 year in high school. At that time, Dr. Lauren Riggin from the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) officially diagnosed me with (i) Generalized Anxiety Disorder, (ii) Social Anxiety Disorder, and (iii) Major Depressive Disorder. At that time, I had been working regularly with a social worker, Maria Carinelli, and with medical doctors (both Dr. Riggin and my family doctor, Dr. Hartley Garfield) to address my issues.
My mental health has been an ongoing struggle for me for a long time, having been managing Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder since I was in grade 4. While I have gotten prescriptions to treat my mental health issues, there have been a lot of difficulties in finding the right medication to treat them and I have had to move to different medications and dosages from the originals for both ADHD medication and anti-depressants. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a perfect solution for either my ADHD or other mental health issues, and while the medication is helpful its effectiveness can vary.
Having thought that I had found the right combination of medicine and seeing improvement, I enrolled in Queens in September 2022. In the fall term, I took only 3 courses, to help me get started on the right foot and rebuild my confidence. Although moving to a new city and not knowing many people challenged my social anxiety, in particular, academically I did reasonably well in the term getting a C+ in both my half year courses, which would have been more if not for the impact of said social anxiety on my tutorial participation.
However, things took a turn for the worse when I returned to campus in January 2023 for the winter term. Unfortunately, I lost my anti-depressant medication. While I was eventually able to get a new prescription, being off the medicine resulted in a severe depressive episode that made it difficult to get out of bed much less navigate the medical and pharmaceutical system to fill the new prescription.
This negative spiral would continue as I was unable or unwilling to reach out for help as my depression and anxiety grew worse. To further complicate matters, the prescribing physician, Dr. Riggin, left CAMH in February. Until reading week I was unable to gather the energy to attend either lectures or tutorials, and I was struggling to complete assignments resulting in almost all of them being incomplete and unsubmitted. To exacerbate the stress, I had decided to increase my course load to 4 based on the confidence I had gained in the fall term. Further, the colder weather in January often kept me from taking long walks outside – something I had found quite therapeutic in the fall.
During reading week, I was able to reach out to my parents, go back on my prescription, and start to create a plan to complete what remained of the term. At this point I was still holding out hope that I would be able to salvage a passing grade out of my remaining courses and it seemed at least somewhat possible at the time. Part of the plan was to reach out to professors and teaching assistants for the courses to see what could be done to make up for the lost marks and turn the term around. However, the resulting stress of communicating with all of them, the prescription’s effects not yet fully being in effect, and the pressure and worry about my academic future resulting in me becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed with anxiety. This resulted in me shutting down mentally and essentially entering another depressive episode which lasted until late March.
After I returned home for a second time and had a second meeting with my family, we decided it would be best to try and focus as much as possible on the politics course, as it was the only one in which I still had a chance of passing, and to try and get the other courses dropped from my record. However, while there was some success in salvaging politics (POLS 110B), the efforts to drop the other courses were not as successful. I attempted to communicate and meet with the proper academic services but they were incredibly busy which, combined with my general social anxiety and difficulty with communication through email, phone, or otherwise, prevented me from making any progress until mid-May.
On an encouraging note, I was able to continue on with POLS 110B and achieved a grade of 83 on the final exam. However, with your help, I dropped the other courses.
Through the summer of 2023, my depressive symptoms and anxiety improved while I was at home. I got a job at a games store & café which provided me with some structure for my daily routine and a sense of contribution.
Unfortunately, my therapist, Maria Carinelli, was away for much of the summer, so I didn’t make progress in developing tools for managing my depression and anxiety. While I hadn’t been in therapy, I continued to take medication and I was still keen and reasonably confident in my ability to return to Queens in September 2023.
I moved into a house with three of my close friends. I thought this would be better for me, but I found the experience very stressful and overwhelming. The responsibility of figuring out food, contributing to household tasks and getting to class was too much. After a couple of weeks, I was barely leaving my room but I was embarrassed to ask for help again. When I went home at Christmas, I decided that I needed to stay at home.
In the summer of 2023, I felt that I had made sufficient progress both in managing my medicine and in receiving psychological support that enrolled back at Queens that September. However, unfortunately, I was not able to maintain my mental health.
By way of background, I was initially diagnosed in April 2021, towards the end of my grade 12 year in high school. At that time, Dr. Lauren Riggin from the Centre for Addiction & Mental Health (CAMH) officially diagnosed me with (i) Generalized Anxiety Disorder, (ii) Social Anxiety Disorder, and (iii) Major Depressive Disorder. At that time, I had been working regularly with a social worker, Maria Carinelli, and with medical doctors (both Dr. Riggin and my family doctor, Dr. Hartley Garfield) to address my issues.
My mental health has been an ongoing struggle for me for a long time, having been managing Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder since I was in grade 4. While I have gotten prescriptions to treat my mental health issues, there have been a lot of difficulties in finding the right medication to treat them and I have had to move to different medications and dosages from the originals for both ADHD medication and anti-depressants. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a perfect solution for either my ADHD or other mental health issues, and while the medication is helpful its effectiveness can vary.
Having thought that I had found the right combination of medicine and seeing improvement, I enrolled in Queens in September 2022. In the fall term, I took only 3 courses, to help me get started on the right foot and rebuild my confidence. Although moving to a new city and not knowing many people challenged my social anxiety, in particular, academically I did reasonably well in the term getting a C+ in both my half year courses, which would have been more if not for the impact of said social anxiety on my tutorial participation.
However, things took a turn for the worse when I returned to campus in January 2023 for the winter term. Unfortunately, I lost my anti-depressant medication. While I was eventually able to get a new prescription, being off the medicine resulted in a severe depressive episode that made it difficult to get out of bed much less navigate the medical and pharmaceutical system to fill the new prescription.
This negative spiral would continue as I was unable or unwilling to reach out for help as my depression and anxiety grew worse. To further complicate matters, the prescribing physician, Dr. Riggin, left CAMH in February. Until reading week I was unable to gather the energy to attend either lectures or tutorials, and I was struggling to complete assignments resulting in almost all of them being incomplete and unsubmitted. To exacerbate the stress, I had decided to increase my course load to 4 based on the confidence I had gained in the fall term. Further, the colder weather in January often kept me from taking long walks outside – something I had found quite therapeutic in the fall.
During reading week, I was able to reach out to my parents, go back on my prescription, and start to create a plan to complete what remained of the term. At this point I was still holding out hope that I would be able to salvage a passing grade out of my remaining courses and it seemed at least somewhat possible at the time. Part of the plan was to reach out to professors and teaching assistants for the courses to see what could be done to make up for the lost marks and turn the term around. However, the resulting stress of communicating with all of them, the prescription’s effects not yet fully being in effect, and the pressure and worry about my academic future resulting in me becoming overwhelmed and paralyzed with anxiety. This resulted in me shutting down mentally and essentially entering another depressive episode which lasted until late March.
After I returned home for a second time and had a second meeting with my family, we decided it would be best to try and focus as much as possible on the politics course, as it was the only one in which I still had a chance of passing, and to try and get the other courses dropped from my record. However, while there was some success in salvaging politics (POLS 110B), the efforts to drop the other courses were not as successful. I attempted to communicate and meet with the proper academic services but they were incredibly busy which, combined with my general social anxiety and difficulty with communication through email, phone, or otherwise, prevented me from making any progress until mid-May.
On an encouraging note, I was able to continue on with POLS 110B and achieved a grade of 83 on the final exam. However, with your help, I dropped the other courses.
Through the summer of 2023, my depressive symptoms and anxiety improved while I was at home. I got a job at a games store & café which provided me with some structure for my daily routine and a sense of contribution.
Unfortunately, my therapist, Maria Carinelli, was away for much of the summer, so I didn’t make progress in developing tools for managing my depression and anxiety. While I hadn’t been in therapy, I continued to take medication and I was still keen and reasonably confident in my ability to return to Queens in September 2023.
I moved into a house with three of my close friends. I thought this would be better for me, but I found the experience very stressful and overwhelming. The responsibility of figuring out food, contributing to household tasks and getting to class was too much. After a couple of weeks, I was barely leaving my room but I was embarrassed to ask for help again. When I went home at Christmas, I decided that I needed to stay at home.