Petition Letter
The reason for the petition to waive the 1-year suspension is because I believe that the long-term extenuating circumstances for my academic under-performance was finally addressed in the past term. I have bipolar disorder, which I thought was being properly treated (with vyvanse and Latuda) until a freak accident in which I broke my collarbone in the winter of 2022. The injury caused me to isolate socially, something I was not mentally, or medically equipped for. As a result, I often got sick during periods of high stress, missing deadlines, quizzes, and had little to no time to study for exams. In the following, I will run down what happened from Fall of 2022 until now.
I broke my collarbone on December 5th, 2022, right before exams. This greatly hindered my ability to do basic things, which sent me into a period of depression in which I missed final assignments and exams. At the time I had planned to finish the missed assignments and exams over the Winter term, I had contacted the professors letting them know of my injury. However, because of my injury I was less able to cope with the symptoms of my bipolar disorder, which only made the depressive episodes more paralyzing and the manic states more emotional, both of which hindered my productivity greatly.
Over the Winter of 2023, I had many talks with my psychiatrist and we had come to the conclusion that the medication I was on was clearly not enough. However, I was reluctant to take more medication (vraylar) for something I believed at the time could be solved with discipline and willpower (grandiose). I would try a medication for a week, notice the side effects, and stop taking it. This went on until late April, in which I again fell ill during exam season, and only passed one of the three courses I took that term.
Fall 2023 and Winter of 2024 was spent largely in the same vicious cycle. I would notice symptoms of bipolar disorder, talk to my psychiatrist, take the recommended medication for a week, feel good enough and stop. As one would expect, I did very poorly academically, failing all of my courses (3 in the fall, 2 in the winter).
Eventually, during late May of 2024, my psychiatrist told me the exact medications (vyvanse, latuda, and vraylar) that I needed to take and to not contact her until I started taking them. Over the summer, because I had landed a job in a chemistry lab and was keeping a good sleep schedule and good working habits, I noticed my bipolar disorder less, and so did not take the prescribed medication.
However, as soon as school started (Fall 2024), the depressive episodes caused me to miss assignments, and the grandiose episodes let me think that I could just do well enough in the last month of the term to rectify my grades. As a result, I fell sick again during exam season, and failed my courses.
Winter of 2024 started similarly with manic and depressive episodes, but I think I finally noticed noticing the pattern, and realized something needed to change. I found the prescribed medication(Vraylar), took it and sent my psychiatrist and email asking her to meet a week after. The side effects were much less than I had thought, perhaps avoiding it all this time caused me to fear it on some level. On the medication, I was able to salvage two of my three then-failing courses, getting a B- on a 4th-year course I was taking for the first time, and a C- on the other. I have been steadily taking the medication daily since.
Having outlined the past 3 years, we can see that having repeatedly made the mistakes of going off medication numerous times and learned the hard way, I will not make that mistake ever again. I have been taking vyvanse, latuda, and vraylar daily and I don’t see myself stopping the medication and I know I will regularly contact my psychiatrist if bipolar symptoms do show up again. This is also evident in my grades, having passed two courses in a term for the first time since the collarbone break. Given that I was able to pass two courses while being treated half-way into the semester, I believe that on the medication I can more than handle the two courses I plan on re-taking in the fall, and the one course in the winter.
I broke my collarbone on December 5th, 2022, right before exams. This greatly hindered my ability to do basic things, which sent me into a period of depression in which I missed final assignments and exams. At the time I had planned to finish the missed assignments and exams over the Winter term, I had contacted the professors letting them know of my injury. However, because of my injury I was less able to cope with the symptoms of my bipolar disorder, which only made the depressive episodes more paralyzing and the manic states more emotional, both of which hindered my productivity greatly.
Over the Winter of 2023, I had many talks with my psychiatrist and we had come to the conclusion that the medication I was on was clearly not enough. However, I was reluctant to take more medication (vraylar) for something I believed at the time could be solved with discipline and willpower (grandiose). I would try a medication for a week, notice the side effects, and stop taking it. This went on until late April, in which I again fell ill during exam season, and only passed one of the three courses I took that term.
Fall 2023 and Winter of 2024 was spent largely in the same vicious cycle. I would notice symptoms of bipolar disorder, talk to my psychiatrist, take the recommended medication for a week, feel good enough and stop. As one would expect, I did very poorly academically, failing all of my courses (3 in the fall, 2 in the winter).
Eventually, during late May of 2024, my psychiatrist told me the exact medications (vyvanse, latuda, and vraylar) that I needed to take and to not contact her until I started taking them. Over the summer, because I had landed a job in a chemistry lab and was keeping a good sleep schedule and good working habits, I noticed my bipolar disorder less, and so did not take the prescribed medication.
However, as soon as school started (Fall 2024), the depressive episodes caused me to miss assignments, and the grandiose episodes let me think that I could just do well enough in the last month of the term to rectify my grades. As a result, I fell sick again during exam season, and failed my courses.
Winter of 2024 started similarly with manic and depressive episodes, but I think I finally noticed noticing the pattern, and realized something needed to change. I found the prescribed medication(Vraylar), took it and sent my psychiatrist and email asking her to meet a week after. The side effects were much less than I had thought, perhaps avoiding it all this time caused me to fear it on some level. On the medication, I was able to salvage two of my three then-failing courses, getting a B- on a 4th-year course I was taking for the first time, and a C- on the other. I have been steadily taking the medication daily since.
Having outlined the past 3 years, we can see that having repeatedly made the mistakes of going off medication numerous times and learned the hard way, I will not make that mistake ever again. I have been taking vyvanse, latuda, and vraylar daily and I don’t see myself stopping the medication and I know I will regularly contact my psychiatrist if bipolar symptoms do show up again. This is also evident in my grades, having passed two courses in a term for the first time since the collarbone break. Given that I was able to pass two courses while being treated half-way into the semester, I believe that on the medication I can more than handle the two courses I plan on re-taking in the fall, and the one course in the winter.