(no subject)
Taken from Grinnel Plans: An open letter to the student body.
As many of you may know, I have struggled with the eating disorder anorexia for the past couple of years as a student here at Grinnell. I was scheduled to graduate in half a semester this December until I was suddenly placed on medical leave this past Friday. I was never evaluated by the psychiatrist on whose word I was placed on medical leave, and my therapist with whom I actually spoke was not allowed to be part of the final decision. I had less than a day's warning that this might happen, and was not allowed to have a single word in the decision that led to being placed on medical leave. My story is filled with miscommunications and inconsistencies that no one has bothered to look into. The injustice of this situation has led me to conclude that there are deep-rooted flaws in the college's system of interacting with issues involving students' mental health. This system leaves students vulnerable to discrimination, creating a situation that threatens students’ rights. Grinnell has no official procedure regarding mental health rights.
Given Grinnell's emphasis on the importance of quality mental health care, as well as the number of students who rely on the college's provision of mental health services, I believe that every student at the college could potentially be affected by policies that are so fundamentally disconnected from the values that the College claims to uphold. Please take time to read my story and if you feel as I feel, that this process was discriminatory and unjust, e-mail this to Tom Crady to prompt re-evaluation of the system by which student affairs handles the mental health interests of students.
The following is a synopsis of what I have experienced this semester.
I returned in the fall in good condition mentally, physically, and emotionally, despite underweight. After initially losing weight in the summer, I came to be in a more stable living situation and gained back most all the weight I had lost, and it was understood that I would work on continuing to gain weight. I formed a support network of people to go to meals with, and volunteered to initially eat snacks at the Health Center with the support of the staff. However, a couple of weeks into the semester, I began receiving unsupportive, and even threatening, e-mails from the Mental Health Center. The great amount of anxiety these letters produced prompted me to go to student affairs seeking an advocate who would prevent further such phone calls and letters from being sent. However, the threatening incidences only escalated, as did my own stress level, to the degree that my academic work suffered. Despite this stress, I ate all meals and snacks regularly, with the support and often company of friends and Kim Hinds-Brush, my RLC.
These incidences came to a climax Friday, October 5 when I was called to a meeting at 8:15 am at the Mental Health Center, at which meeting the psychiatrist told me that I was "failing my treatment" because I was not gaining weight at the expected, arbitrarily-determined rate, and this was a sign of "non-compliance." The psychiatrist had not personally evaluated me or spoken with me this semester, and she forbade me from speaking with her at the meeting. The psychiatrist then informed me that further signs of "non-compliance" would result in a recommendation to student affairs to place me on medical leave and require me to seek in-patient psychiatric treatment. However, the mandates under which I was expected to operate were not outlined at the meeting, and it was only per my request that I received a copy of these guidelines the following Monday. By that time, having determined that I could not continue to function at the college under such stringent and unnecessary pressures, I sought legal help in order to procure a different caregiver who would provide support for me as I finished my last semester at the College.
On Thursday, while eating a snack at the Health Center, I was handed two letters. The first, from Jen Krohn, informed me that the college would place me on medical leave if I did not comply with the psychiatrist's regulations. (The reason Jen Krohn was put in charge of making this decision was never made clear to me.) The second letter, from the psychiatrist, informed me that I had been non-compliant because I had to go off-campus to seek legal advice, and had therefore not eaten my mandatory snacks at the student health center (although I had in fact eaten them on my own). The psychiatrist was therefore recommending to student affairs that I be placed on medical leave and required to seek in-patient psychiatric treatment, despite that I had gained the required amount of weight for the week.
I waited all day Friday for word from Student Affairs as to what my status was with the College. Late in the afternoon, I was contacted for the first time by Jen Krohn and given 5 minutes notice, within which time I was expected to arrive at the Health Center. When Jen Krohn finally arrived, I was cloistered in Karen Cochran's office with Jen Krohn and an unfamiliar therapist who happened to be at walk-in counseling. (My own therapist was not told about the decision.) Jen Krohn plainly stated that she had decided to place me on medical leave. When I asked for permission to discuss the situation with her, my right to speak was denied. With no right to speak for myself, and no advocate on my behalf, I immediately left the meeting, which had actually been a sentencing. Jen Krohn's decision was based solely on consistently flawed, inaccurate, and twisted facts, and in some cases on outright falsehoods that were carelessly embedded in the letters written to student affairs by the psychiatrist who had never even evaluated me. Throughout this process, decisions were made without my input and without an effort to find a sustainable solution, based solely on arbitrary protocol and with no consideration for my needs as an individual.
I am required to be out of my room by 5pm Monday. I have invested nearly four years and tens of thousands of dollars in an institution that claims to uphold civil liberties on the individual level, only to be denied degree within weeks of graduation. More importantly, I had invested my life philosophy in that of the College, and believed that the image of Grinnell College was more than just a facade; I believed that the College encouraged individuals to exert their rights, including their rights to adequate mental health treatment and just consideration of an individual’s situation.
My experience has shown me that the rights of those who struggle with mental health issues of any sort are in jeopardy, which is why I am asking that you forward this to all your friends and to Tom Crady by Monday morning. My hope is that collective student action will prompt a re-evaluation of the rights of students and the process by which cases involving mental health are dealt with by student affairs. I am acting on a matter of principle, and in the hope that no Grinnell student has to go through such a nightmarish experience as I did, simply for asking for help with a mental illness.
Thanks to all,
Erica Kuhlmann