I am still feeling the shock so everything feel unreal to me. I don't even know what to do with myself. My therapist scheduled a brief extra session today to help me and another full session tomorrow as well as our usual Friday session. So I'll see him everyday this week.

When I saw him, I felt more real again. Our relationship is so deep and affectionate that I feel understood and cared about. It helped a lot, although the reality that this happened has yet to register and I'm still not sure how it will happen. What sorts of emotions I might feel when I'm able to take this in.

I was able to show the letter of dismissal to my therapist and asked him to respond, without my making a comment. He said it was very "heavy-handed." We talked about how they had only considered a single email and blamed me for it though they admit that it is the only one and my record is excellent. They make no mention of the medication at all.

I also showed my therapist an email I wrote to a lawyer. My husband has legal benefits so I called and got the names of two attorneys. I called one and wrote the other one. In the email I lay out all the facts of the case and what I want done, which is simply to have my records sealed so I can apply to other schools.

I make a pretty good case not only about them not taking into consideration the medication, but also they did not even follow their own "due process" rules, which state that if a student is found in "violation" of rules, they may be placed on "probation" with some sort of plan. If the supposed "violation" turns out to be unintentional, as is the case here, then all they can do is issue a warning to the student and perhaps also include a plan to make sure nothing else happens. The rules do not state that a student can be dismissed in this manner. In fact you have to go through the probation process several times before you are allowed to be dismissed. So obviously what they did was wrong and a lawyer wouldn't have too much difficulty raising enough questions to get the University to agree to simply sealing my file to avoid a long legal hassle or my reporting them to the American Psychological Association, which is responsible for giving accreditation to schools. They want to avoid things like that or legal actions that might involve me asking for a great sum of money since there have been successful suits for asking places like this to pay out all of the wages I would have earned if I had become a psychologist. If a lawyer just hints that that is possible, they may be eager to resolve it quickly by just sealing the record.