There are a few thoughts I must unburden. I have always found it difficult to talk about severe depression and suicide because it means risking being forcibly committed to a psychiatric facility, being cut off against your will from everything you know. It’s a horrific experience. This creates a significant barrier that requires trust to overcome. Trust in both the person and system you find yourself in to react compassionately. A hostile one, like the ...continue

This section will need more work but there’s something I want to get outthere. The workload and resulting “distance” this places between students/faculty/administration contributes to the isolation of each. In December of 2019, ~3 months before my suicide attempt, I tried to reach out to the professor who had agreed to supervise my thesis. I had come across something which I knew to be related to his own research. Not only that but it was ...continue

Bullying was another problem I encountered as a graduate student at Carleton University. In addition to struggling to receive support through Carleton University’s mental health support resources. On top of professors and fellow graduate students openly discriminating against Quebec, accusing Quebecers of being racist for protecting their language from English’ cultural hegemony in North America and the apathetic responses I received when I expressed my frustration.   Beyond these specific experiences, the accepted exploitation of ...continue

There are two in class incidents at Carleton University that were significant in contributing to my attempted suicide. Both happened in two separate graduate classes I parcipated in. The first class was by Jacqueline Kennelly where she invited Jayne Malenfant and Dr. Naomi Nichols to speak about their experiences conducting field research on November 12th, 2018. Both were working with an organization in Montreal who worked with homeless populations. Both PhD speakers were anglophone, one ...continue

Carleton University’s response to my situation is, and was, terrible.I’ll concede that the opportunity to respond was limited, when I reached out to the administration about my situation I was already in crisis. It was a critical moment. When I asked what processes were in place that handled issues between students I was asked if the problem was of a personal nature or a workplace issue. I’m not sure how you can disentangle one from ...continue