Profs won't give incompletes to my disabled friend

Parents Forum
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<p>Yes, she will have to make that choice. </p>

<p>An important thing to know, though – and I mean this as an important thing to know as a human being, not as a professor – is that it’s incredibly difficult to find out, as someone with a mental illness, what you’re supposed to do to get adequate help. (If you already have lots of experience with mental illness and know this, don’t worry, I’m not trying to tell you you don’t know. I’m just saying it for anyone who may not realize.) First of all, finding the right diagnosis and treatment can be hellish and take years, and people DO tell you you’re weak, and they DO tell you to buck up, and they do tell you that you’re taking advantage of the system if you want help. </p>

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<p>It would be much more surprising if she had chosen to register, actually, in a society where the assumption is that people asking for accommodations or help based on mental illness may well be lazy and selfish instead. The overwhelming amount of people with mental illness never register with anything like that until they do have a serious hospitalization or some equivalent. It’s not because they’re just dumb or irresponsible. It’s because they have most likely been humiliated numerous times for admitting their problems, they’ve been told their case just isn’t bad ENOUGH (which, a good bit of the time, only seems to change after they’ve nearly lost their lives to their illness), and they’ve even been told by misguided therapists that they shouldn’t register for that kind of thing. I’ve had treatment providers in the past who insisted that people who register for such programs are “choosing to live as victims” and “deciding not to get better” and that only people who like being sick sign up. It’s unreasonable to expect people who are vulnerable and who have very possibly faced discrimination all their lives to be savvy enough to know when the people who are supposed to be treating them are giving them bad advice, especially when mentally ill people who ignore the advice of their treatment providers are also in for it in the court of public opinion. It takes a while and a good amount of experience to understand that a lot of treatment providers will steer you in unhelpful directions.</p>

<p>Also, many schools and organizations (and people) work on the assumption that you should let a few people flounder so as not to give help to those who don’t deserve it. To the contrary, it’s better to cast too wide a net of help – including helping some that don’t deserve it – to make sure that those who actually need it do. Every time a college student or anyone else commits suicide, it may well be because people were too cautious in giving help, or giving help was too hard, or giving help wasn’t part of the way the procedures were set up. I’m not saying professors have to go against those procedures and get themselves in trouble. I’m talking about people who actually have the option to put the student’s health as a priority without causing any other sort of truly meaningful trouble. (For instance, I recognize that giving undeserved A’s causes meaningful trouble in its own way.)</p>

<p>younghoss, your former coworker who claimed to have bipolar – she was no doubt crazily irresponsible to be drinking like that, and she may well have said she had bipolar just to make up an excuse for the drinking, but drinking bunches while taking bipolar meds is possible. (I’m not sure if you were saying you believed you literally cannot drink and take the meds at the same time without becoming physically ill, or if you were saying you’re not supposed to.) There are lots of alcoholics on bipolar meds, which is horrible since the alcohol disguises all sorts of problems and hides others. It can also cause specific dehydration problems with lithium. </p>

<p>Regardless, I’d be willing to bet all my most prized possessions to any takers that more than one person in this thread is on a medication any pharmacist would tell you you’re never supposed to be on at the same time as drinking alcohol (and that they still have alcohol sometimes). They may not even know it since their doctor said, “Just be careful,” in relation to the topic. Drug companies themselves will say never to drink alcohol on bipolar drugs, and so will pharmacists, and so will cautious doctors, but a significant amount say, “Just be careful, limit the amount, see how your body reacts.” Drugs.com says (among other things) of my main medication, Lamictal: </p>

<p>“MANAGEMENT: Patients receiving CNS-active agents should be warned of this interaction and advised to avoid <strong><em>or limit</em></strong> consumption of alcohol.”</p>

<p>All my doctors, including doctors I’ve been to at school, have given me the go ahead to drink in moderation.</p>

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<p>As for my friend, I am no doctor. But, there are some facts I do know, things I saw myself. I saw a large variety of meds she was taking that all said no alcohol. And when I said “boozing” before, I did not mean a sip of Chambord after dinner. I mean knocking down 6 to 12 beers in a 2-3 hour span most every evening after work. And on the times she was off work, theoretically to get back in balance, she was still boozing.
What I believe is that the alcohol affected the effectiveness of her meds, hence her claim that her meds were always “messed up”. Was she really ill? Was the problem really her meds? If she was ill, was it basically self-inflicted? Were her actions fair to herself? Her doctor? Her employer? Her workmates?</p>

<p>By no means would I imply she is typical of all those diagnosed bipolar; I only report her actions. But eventually our company had had enough and that led to letting her go, and our company being less tolerant of all others’ illnesses.</p>

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<p>I’m lost on why someone would have to register an ongoing illness in order to have a hospitalization excused. Is this required of someone with a physical illness? If I have chronic asthma that’s usually manageable, but suddenly I have a crisis requiring two weeks in the hospital, I would expect the school to excuse that absence whether I told them in advance about the asthma or not. What’s the difference? If the hospitalization were for a regularly scheduled treatment, then I would understand expecting the student to prepare extra work in advance, but an emergency hospitalization is just that. No one knows when or if an emergency is going to occur.</p>

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<p>I’m no lawyer, but I suspect an “emergency hospitalization” or even a chronic illness may be treated differently than a legally recognized disability.</p>

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<p>Yes, I see what you mean. (I wasn’t sure if you thought even a glass of wine once a week would have been inappropriate.) I know somebody rather like that. She’s on significant doses of seroquel, lithium, lamictal, adderall (because she also apparently has chronic fatigue syndrome - ha - she parties until 3AM pretty much every third night), and always takes ambien to fall asleep. Anyway, whenever she goes out she gulps down shots like a huge man who’s been building up his tolerance for years. So, it’s possible, but I know it must absolutely destroy any good her meds would do, and even if she weren’t on those meds it would mess her up and slowly kill her anyway.</p>

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<p>To add to BPDGirl’s posts about discrimination, I have a friend who went to a top school. She had had depression issues in high school and dutifully registered herself with the disabilities office, went to the school counseling center, and did what everyone recommends in that situation. She completely regrets ever talking to anyone about it and feels that she was absolutely treated differently.</p>

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<p>Totally disagree. Registering offers legal protection, and in our experience, staff have been very helpful. Accommodations for psychiatric and medical conditions can include some of the same things. Aside from crisis situations, a student might be able to take a reduced courseload, get excused absences for appointments, get notes/notetaker help, a quiet place for exams and so on. Handing a letter to a professor may seem awkward, but in the end, the information prevents misunderstandings of a student’s character.</p>

<p>Reading a few of the posts here, I wonder, at this point, if medical withdrawal would be the best course of action for the original poster’s friend, with the slate wiped clean. That removes pressure to finish courses, and clears the way for focus on getting stable. It is tough to lose work, but that loss happens for many students with various conditions, sometimes several times before finishing.</p>

<p>I think getting the right meds is a priority. I know it is tougher for some than others, but I hope that the right cocktail of medications can be found. Without incompletes to worry about, and without W’s or F’s on the transcript, a true fresh start will be possible once things are more manageable.</p>

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<p>Not necessarily referring to the OP, because I haven’t read all the posts, but in general I’d be surprised if there isn’t somewhat of a gray area here that may be open to the interpretation of the school, regarding the issue of disclosure in advance. When you fall and break your arm in the middle of the semester, the disabilities office and ADA still protect you even though you didn’t disclose anything advance. While a mental illness diagnosed in advance is inherently different in a lot of ways, I’m not sure an unusually severe episode occurring mid-semester wouldn’t be treated the same way by some schools-- I know at my school it is, at least in certain circumstances-- there are a lot of people with a lot of leeway on issues like these in many places, so it’s difficult to really say. </p>

<p>I feel like there’s a distinct difference between someone with a well managed mental illness who all of the sudden has an uncharacteristic crisis, which happens more often than you think, and someone with ongoing severe medical problems. I’m struggling with the idea that someone who has a mental health crisis without previous diagnosis would probably be accommodated in some way but someone with previous diagnosis would not just because they didn’t disclose in advance when they may well have had no idea there was anything to disclose, if the condition wasn’t previously disabling how would they know? Mental health is so murky, there’s not even necessarily a way to isolate every mental health episode and attribute it to one disorder in particular, for us to know whether or not we can even attribute the crisis to what has been previously diagnosed. We read all the time here about students with no previous history of mental health problems cracking under the pressure and having some sort of mental health episode as a result, and I don’t think just because someone has a history of ANY sort of mental health issue means they are immune to having that same experience-- is it fair for them to be treated differently? Having anything at all wrong with you doesn’t give the world carte blanche to your medical information just in case it might maybe someday get worse. It could be that there’s a clear legal answer and some schools are simply just willing to go further than the laws require, I don’t know that off the top of my head.</p>

<p>I had a plethora of disabilities disclosed to my university. I did experience discrimination, in one case discrimination that was QUITE severe (in that instance the professor was from another country and not accustomed to the concept of equal access), but the benefits far outweighed the risks. At least in my case, I had recourse when I was discriminated against because I disclosed and I wouldn’t have otherwise.</p>

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Which country?</p>

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<p>Emaheevu, I think accommodations are still obtainable after the fact, for a medical or psychiatric problem that crops up, whether it is new or longstanding. Meaning, those who did not register with the disabilities office are not disqualified from accommodations, so to speak.</p>

<p>But, as you know, registering means a plan already in place, and so a crisis just triggers that plan, which makes things easier. The disabilties office, dean/administration, and professors are already informed and can respond quickly, and the student has potential accommodations already spelled out on paper.</p>

<p>Your last sentence is very important, too. Discrimination happens, and a student is in a much better position to complain or appeal if registered with the disabilities office.</p>

<p>Finally, the legal landscape at the college level is changing, but is still murky compared to high school rights for kids with disabilities, medical or psychiatric conditions. There is still a lot of variation from school to school, and still, at many schools, some discretion allowed on the part of professors. So registering gets the rights on paper, which can be discussed and even expanded before a crisis. And, at least, a student knows what will happen if a problem arises.</p>

<p>I will say that one of my kids goes on medical leave when her medical condition flares badly. Whether or not she could pursue more in the way of accommodations to allow her to stay, or to finish a semester in some cases, she has high standards for herself and her work and prefers to do academics when she can meet them- regardless of the school’s requirements or allowances. That said, for periods with less severe problems, minor accommodations like a couple of days extra for a paper make all the difference.</p>

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<p>My office is the campus disabilities office, and murky is a good way to describe the landscape. The murkiness lies in the wording “reasonable” accommodations. Because that word, “reasonable” applies to more than just what is reasonable for the student in question. It is reasonable to allow extra time, verbal tests, distraction free testing so the student with a disability can take the same test. It may not be reasonable to demand a professor write a separate test as one can argue, then, that the disabled student is being asked to (or allowed to) meet a different standard. Is it reasonable to demand a professor essentially teach the class again for one person in the event of multiple absences? And these are questions that a college has to answer. </p>

<p>A broken arm, though, probably doesn’t meet the definition of disability under the ADA.</p>

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<p>I think Ordinarylives is right on point: a broken arm is not a recognized disability. Every student is not expected to register with a school’s disability office that they might fall and break their arm in the future. I’m not sure why this is used as a comparison. The falling, and breaking an arm example is thought to be an accident, completely unexpected. This particular mental illness is a student who knows beforehand of a long history of documented problems and now wants to seek protections despite not having disclosed this information in advance like one is supposed to do. It is not an accident, and is not completely unexpected.</p>

<p>That may or may not mean the protection is retroactive, and that’s a whole different issue. I’m only showing here a broken arm is not a fair comparison.</p>

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<p>As someone with a physical disability, I can say that pretty much every time I’ve tried to work through the disability office at either my undergrad or grad institution, they haven’t helped and have, indeed, made things <em>significantly</em> worse in several cases. Luckily (I guess?), my disability is really obvious, so the minor accommodations I usually need (e.g., writing on the test instead of using a scantron) have usually been granted without question. I’m still technically registered with the office, but I would pretty much never try to work with them again, unless I was totally and completely out of options and had absolutely nothing to lose. I know that there are plenty of wonderful disability offices out there, but after having awful experiences with two different offices, several times bitten, a million times shy. YMMV.</p>

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<p>I don’t really know (but neither, I dare say, do most of the other posters on this thread), but my understanding is that the point of talking to the disabilities office is to get accomodations and support. Like a student needs extra time on exams, or a notetaker, or whatever. In other words, you want the disabilties office to actually do something, or they offer some service that the student finds useful. </p>

<p>I don’t think a student who doesn’t anticipate needing anything the disabilities office provides needs to register and disclose just as a CYA move. An unplanned hostpital stay is an unplanned hospital stay whether it is related to some sort of preexisting condition or not. It shouldn’t matter whether the preexisting condition was disclosed to the disabilities office.</p>

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<p>Friends son was ill most of freshmen year. Fevers, sore throats, etc… Ended up coming home Thanksgiving to get tonsils out. Difficult recovery. Got back to school the week before finals with poor prep, missed work while out sick during the semester. </p>

<p>Profs gave no incompletes. Lost financial aid, etc… Friend called the dean (or similar) and was told nothing they can do. Up to individual teacher. </p>

<p>Sorry to hear about your friend.</p>

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<p>We have never depended on the disabilities office. It has been a dean or other administrator who has really helped, by e-mailing professors and vouching for the legitimate need for accommodations (which my daughter resists to a ridiculous degree).</p>

<p>I read somewhere that “reasonable” means that the school should not have to alter curriculum in any way, or suffer any financial or administrative burdens. That makes sense to me. The disabilities office can serve, in that sense, as a sort of guard dog who preserves the curriculum from incursions from accommodations that change standards or content.</p>

<p>Some schools,including my daughter’s do not offer incompletes at all.</p>

<p>It’s a tough break, but sometimes the best thing is to withdraw and have the slate wiped clean, which is an accommodation in and of itself. But for a chronic condition that would mean constant withdrawals, it can help to have a plan worked out, that can be activated quickly. That is the best reason for registering, and registration with disabilities is completely confidential.</p>

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<p>I mentioned arm breaking because my friend did fall and break his arm mid semester and his professor tried to make him drop his chem lab, and this disabilities office stepped in and didn’t allow that. They told him he was protected. </p>

<p>My prof was from Spain. She told my advocate and I that she didn’t know what to do with me and that she shouldn’t have to teach me, which is an attitude she supposedly held because in Spain people with my disabilities wouldn’t have been allowed into higher education in the first place. Whether or not that is TRUE, I dont know. That’s just how it was explained to me.</p>