My relationship with mental health starts with my mother being diagnosed with Schizophrenia. Her experience and my viewpoint of this mental illness are what created my future goals and aspirations. Not understanding and being educated on mental health is what truly ruined relationships within my family. Destigmitization is something that must occur in all societies to truly accept mental health as an important aspect of life. Most people with delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech are written off and later become homeless or family relationships are broken. She is my inspiration in my future goals for becoming a psychiatrist. Her mental illness exposed to me what work truly needs to be done within the mental health community. Not only does her story and experience pose what is truly not being addressed, but also my brush with suicide that affected a close friend. In schools, they do not tell you as a student what to do if we have thoughts and or friends who struggle. Yet suicide is the leading cause of death in young adults. My goals are to educate the public to reduce the stigma that surrounds mental health. Patients avoid receiving treatment due to the freedom that arises in being tables as a mental health patient. They will avoid the labels and whispers that come with being diagnosed and simply live a life with struggle and fear. My next goal is to help create medications for people with schizophrenia that take away the symptoms but do not change their personalities. The side effects of these medications are so strong that patients tend to stop taking them to get some normalcy back. My relationships have been shaped in a way that understanding people's struggles and thoughts have become a priority in friendships, and to show people that they are not alone. It is perfectly normal to feel upset for a little while, but there is nothing wrong with seeking help when needed. Lastly, my understanding of the world has become clear in some aspects, but hazier in others. It is clear to me that mental health even though it seems to be more on the agenda than usual still needs help in becoming a more accepted form of help. I also came to realize that there are more people with mental challenges than we seem to know and they are simply failing to mention their struggles. People will deny their issues to avoid judgment when receiving help is not something to be ashamed of. The world is confusing in why are there stigmas related to mental health? if we can get a physical once a year why is receiving mental health checks not valued at the same level? I truly am passionate about mental health and want to spread awareness and improve those who struggle daily.

My mother struggled with schizophrenia starting when she was 32 years old. The journey she went through impacted every aspect of my life and hers. It bangs with many delusions and hallucinations that plagued her mind in a way that is a thirteen-year-old girl, I could not understand. She went through many different staged and delusions that began gradually, but later became extreme and lead to the divorce of my parents. This mental illness caused my mother to believe stories that her mind created and these stories are what ended the normality of our family bond. She lost her engineering job to then become homeless even with many family and friends wanting to help. This was an effect of the illness in that she believed that we were not wanting to help her, but instead hurt her. She eventually hit rock bottom and lost everything which lead her to pursue help in the form of checking into a mental hospital. Here is where she was diagnosed and given medication. Later on, she resorted to a relationship with her children and began to work again. This only lead to not taking medication and the cycle worsened. Now she has realized the schizophrenia is serious and will be helped by medication. She is now able to have partial custody, a career, and a life. This experience has caused me to have a passion for helping those with mental illnesses. My overall mission is to help reduce stigma against mental illnesses thus allowing those to struggle to not be ashamed for wanting help. Most people avoid being diagnosed inorder to hide from their illness and the labels that those around them would give them. Lastly, I would love to be a part of changing medications for those struggling with schizophrenia by allowing for the symptoms to be reduced without taking away the personalities of the patients; while reducing the side effects that cause people to not want to take the medications.

My role model is my own mother and has everything to do with what I want to pursue in the future. She is my role model because of her long and never-ending fight against schizophrenia. There is no cure for this mental illness and medications do reduce symptoms but take away every aspect of your personality. The medications for schizophrenia have such severe side effects that most patients end up not taking the medications. She hit rock bottom in her life and lost everything including her children. Even with the mental illness she eventually put herself into a mental institution and decided to take her medications consistently. In this time she has returned back to working as an engineer and has made herself much more present throughout our lives. Living with this mental illness can only be described as a nightmare. It causes people, at least in my mother's case, to have delusions and hallucinations that took over every part of her being. Her illness only struck her when she was in her thirties, so adjusting to this lifestyle as an immigrant in the United States was not an easy task. All of her life she worked hard to provide for me and my younger sibling, but I owe her for bringing me into the United States as a very young child. Without her, I would still be in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, and living a humbler life not knowing the blessings that were given to me. She has to fight every day for her personality and mind not to be plagued by irrational thoughts. Almost like fighting a war against your own mind. She brings those feelings of doubt and sadness that come along with struggle and turns them into beautiful poems that resemble her inner workings. Without seeing this moment in life I would not be the person I am today. She is the reason why I am stronger, understanding, kind, and intelligent. She is the reason why I now am passionate about helping those with mental illnesses. My goals for the future start with becoming a psychiatrist. From that point, my foundation stands on educating people and reducing the stigma that surrounds mental health. There are too many people who are struggling that are afraid of receiving help due to what they feel other people will think of them. One of the hard to reach accomplishments that are in my future is to be involved in research for improving medications for mental health patients. Medications need to take away symptoms of the illness but do not have a right to steal the patient's personality. Without my mother, there would be no way that I could connect to this interest in the way that I do now. Mental health needs to be more widely accepted and recognized. Granted we are further along on this goal than we ever have been before, but it is still not good enough. Who I am is what will make me the most successful in this feild of work. Not only can I address patients, but I have the ability to connect with their families in aiding those who are struggling.

The time I faced a waterfall and my inner demons all in one hike. Being a young adult in our current technologically globalized world is not an easy task. This hike to a beautiful waterfall exposed to me that even with all of the hate that we may receive being in person or on the internet is small compared to the wonderful experiences and majestic images we capture in our lifetimes. Being in a tough situation and rising above to see that the hardships do not last forever is a challenge that I conquered.

Moving to American from Mykolaiv, Ukraine was not an easy task for my family. The event that lead to change my perspective on life would be the journey my mother faced with schizophrenia. When first developing symptoms in her thirties, this did not deem as common due to the first psychotic break usually happening in people during the early twenties. Remembering the gradual process of negativity to occur with beginning of disorganized speech and thoughts. This deemed confusing for a young girl of age thirteen and just seemed odd but not concerning at first. Once disorganized speech lead to delusions and hallucinations this is when life began to be difficult. Her delusions convinced her that my father was in fact a terrible person and she must remove me and my 4 year old sister at the time from our family home. From my perspective, her actions did not make any sense due to the fact that the paranoia that was settling in was based on untrue delusions that her mental disorder created. As time went on life was not ideal, but eventually, we ewer placed back into the custody of my stepfather which was revealed to me during the year of horrors. This did not end to the experience of my mother eventually falling into certain behaviors that resulted in her being fired from her engineering job and becoming homeless. This event in her life caused the later harassments of her sitting on our porch and approaching me in public places. Her appearance declined in and her health was dwindling, but no matter the helo we offered she denied it. Ending the time with now my parents being divorced, living with my stepfather and sister, mother has now improved, but our relationship has not. For some time I felt that she ruined my life and I will never heal from the events that I have witnessed. Hearing your own mother speak of ill of you and wanting to be gone is ver difficult, but I would never change what happened to me during my middle school years. This moment in life lead to later on realizing that it has made me stronger and truly grateful for the future that I now have. This experience has created a passion for improving the mental health community and has shown me my purpose in life. I am made of my experiences and those who influence the life I live. There is no way that I could be as strong, passionate, intelligent, gentle, and understanding without the moment that changed me for the better. This will benefit my future by living in a way that I chase after my dreams and passions. This moment has shown me that tragedy can strike at any moment but does also does not mean that life will end. My future and life are now driven by the want to change the mental health community. I will be the happiest and most proud once I can be apart of the steps it takes to end the stigma surrounding mental health and changing the medications that harm personalities of patients in order to stop symptoms.

Lamar is a 90 pound pitbull that we found on the side of the road. When we got him close enough to trust us we saw just how malnurished and abused he was. Luckly whoever hurt him did not break his sweet spirit that we have now come to know and love. Lamar suffered from a fractured skull and major malnurishment,but now he is happy, helathy, and the most loyal dog you will come to meet. Lamar's personality shines and is the reason why pitbulls should not be judged by their reputations. Lamar and @anastasiya.antsyferova

The role of education in my life will lead to a profound future for the mental health community. Education is what will provide me with knowledge that could potentially reduce stigmas pertaining to mental health and thus allow patients to seek care without the guilt of society. Also with new knowledge I can be part of the steps that need to be taken in improving medications for those who are struggling with severe mental illnesses like depression or schizophrenia. The current medications take away the personality of the patient ignorer to stop the symptoms; this is not good enough for me as a student passionate about improving the mental health practices that are currently in place. Being lucky enough to live in a country where education is valued and is a provided education has changed my life for the better. The use of information has helped through life struggles like having a mother with schizophrenia, but also allowed for new interests to arise as I have aged through the education system. Being at the College of Charleston as been a blessing and will hopefully lead to a future at medical school to study the science behind psychiatry. without education there would be now future in the mental health community for improvements. Having being able to get a higher education and being one of the few in my family with this opportunity has put great honor and value in succeeding for my personal view point. Having coming from Ukraine where education is not as prioritized I am blessed to be able to receive the education that I have thus far. I would love to be apart of one of the recipients of this scholarship ignorer to continue the many blessings and opportunities I have received, and to change the future of the current mental health community.