My name is Alani Marshall and I am eighteen years old. I graduated early, God willing, in December of 2025 and will walk the stage in May of 2026 a long six years. I would say hardships were mostly mental challenges that I had to overcome due to outside sources. My grandparents raised me and I spent the most time with them growing up. I have always been very empathetic, so when my brother was born and my grandparents were left with the burden of watching him too, I wanted to take the load off of them. Around the summer of sixth grade when I asked my grandparents if I could watch my brother for the summer to help out. Two months turned into about six years. Fast forward to after years of me taking on a parental role, taking on adult responsibilities that should not have been mine and expectations placed on me at a young age, I can genuinely say that I became lost. My brother has genuinely become my child. I felt left out because I grew up faster than my peers and was more mature. Games or drama never interested me. I got diagnosed with depression my ninth grade year. I got medicated and put into therapy which I am still in and working through. In tenth grade, my issues at home were becoming more apparent. I found myself out of tune with my school work and with life. My grades slipped. I had no motivation, no ambitions. As well as being depressed, me and my mom were bumping heads frequently. I am saying this to express how alone I felt. I felt at my wit's end. One note that I took from that time period that I still carry with me to this day is that they decided to punish me in a time where I needed love and community. I just needed someone to see and hear me out. That feeling will stick with me forever. But eventually, I used feeling sorry for myself as motivation and overcame the battle. Life kept moving even when I felt like I could not. All of this brings me to the present. I have realized that I am more resilient and can endure more than I thought. What once felt like my breaking point has become the foundation for my purpose. At 17 I landed my first job at an insurance agency. At 18, I am blessed with the opportunity to work in a law firm. At 19, I am just getting started. This scholarship is important to me because it gives me a chance to reclaim my life. Support is clearly not in abundance around me. I am carrying myself as far as I can get to college, but having that support takes the financial burden off and allows me to focus on my long-term goals. My experiences led me to social work. With the support of this scholarship, I will be able to pursue a degree in social work and advocate for young people who, like me, needed someone in their corner. I want to be the working piece in a broken system. I do not want my story to limit me. I am ready to turn resilience into impact and use my experiences to make a real difference.

Social media has a significant impact on mental health and self-esteem, especially among younger generations. It’s something I’ve personally struggled with—and still do to this day. In many ways, social media feels like both a blessing and a curse. It’s become deeply rooted in our society, shaping how we see ourselves and others. I was born in 2007, around the time when social media and smartphones were becoming popular. My mom had me at 18, so naturally, she was very active online too. She was one of those parents who constantly took pictures and posted them, often sharing updates or expressing her love for us in the captions. Sometimes, those posts included personal details I wasn’t comfortable with. Over time, I realized this behavior had a negative effect on my mental health. Through years of self-reflection, I’ve come to understand how it contributed to my emotional decline. I began to seek validation through social media—first from my mom and family, then gradually from complete strangers. My family would post every major accomplishment I achieved, and their friends and followers would flood the comments with praise and support. That feeling became addictive. I started checking to see what people were saying about me, almost needing it to feel good about myself. Now that I’m 17, those posts about me have stopped. No one knew how much I depended on them for reassurance. I wasn’t often told directly that my family was proud of me, and I truly believe that kind of affirmation matters. So when the posts stopped, I subconsciously began to feel like a disappointment. I felt like everything I did was going unnoticed, and I slowly pushed myself into the shadows. I no longer felt wanted or seen. What started as a positive source of validation became one of the reasons I now struggle with low self-esteem. I developed a mental connection between my worth and how much I was shared or celebrated online. I even fell into the trap of comparing myself to influencers and models, wishing I looked like them—even though I had once believed I was immune to that kind of influence. I told myself I was happy with who I was… until I wasn’t. I truly believe that years of excessive social media use and overanalyzing every little detail contributed to my mental health struggles. Today, I live with anxiety and depression. It’s something I work through daily, and while last year was especially difficult, this year I’ve made progress. I’ve been learning how to ground myself again. I know that God has me, always. If we want to address the impact of social media on mental health, we need to start taking mental health more seriously—especially the older generation. Mental health itself isn’t new, but talking about it openly still is. We need to create more mental health resources for youth and provide better education on social media safety. I was, and still am, one of those kids. You always think it won’t happen to you… until it does. Protect our future generations and prevent them from going through the same things we went through.