I watched my older brother grow up with a unique and constant burden. While I was free to cry, play pretend, and dress up however I chose, he was reminded constantly of the obligation to be a strong and stoic man. He once broke down completely while we drove home together, and I forever regret sitting next to him silently and without any idea how to create a space for those emotions he had shrunk away as a child. Machismo culture is ingrained so deeply in Latino lifestyle that it is largely accepted and expected of both men and women. This culture is one of toxic masculinity in terms of idealized household leadership by men, as well as the idealized picture of a resilient man. In English terms, it can simply be boiled down to “patriarchy,” but this term lacks a deep cultural affiliation with this ideal. As I grew older, I began to understand that the toxicity of this mindset was harmful to even the men so often empowered through it. I watched my brother struggle to ask for help, even when his mental health was at its most unstable point. His panic attacks were met by his own anger rather than relief or comfort, and he would never tell a soul they had happened at all. In an effort to protect his ego, I often walked past his room as though no sobs had slipped through the walls. I soon realized that these roles we as a culture were putting ourselves into could cause the loss of our own loved ones; I had long since lost the boy who cried, played, and imagined as much as I did. In junior high, I began studying Korean language and culture. This experience enlightened me in terms of seeing beautiful traditional affinities, and also made me realize that Latin America is not the only home to stigmatization of mental illness and treatment. This observation is not made with ill intent, but rather as an astonishing similarity between a personal and foreign culture. My eyes had been opened to the beauty of a global connectedness. In continuing to study Korean language and culture for six years, I became more interested in delving into other cultures and countries that were foreign to me. More than anything, I wanted to understand what mental health stigma and treatment looked like across countries and cultures. By the time I graduated high school, I knew for certain that I wanted to pursue a career in the field of mental wellness. Moreover, I now had an understanding that “mental health” itself is a loaded term in such varying ways cross-culturally; I knew that to be an impactful mental health professional, I would have to acknowledge and understand these cross-cultural implications carefully. For example, anyone looking to help my brother through his own mental health challenges could not do so without understanding the barriers that prevented him from emotional vulnerability. In the same way, patients from other ethnic or cultural backgrounds would need a support system which acknowledges that background in order to support them effectively. Thus, I am blessed and humbled by the opportunity to attend a higher education institution at all, and even more so by the fact that I am surrounded by peers and professors of so many varied backgrounds and cultures. I understand a future career as a social worker to be my chance at giving back to the world that has raised me and instilled a passion for helping others, like my brother, overcome mental health challenges.

"Quiere llorar! She's about to cry!" Over time, the chanting from my aunts, uncles and cousins became normal, expected even. Although I felt the weight of the world on my eight-year-old shoulders and the power of the ocean's waves behind my eyes, this was nothing but a spectacle to those around me. I know, because I too was guilty of taunting my cousins when it was their turn. I hope to be the last generation to have to unlearn this. When my brother was eighteen, I watched as he slumped into the bottom bunk of our beds, his back muscles heaving up and down rapidly. He seemed to be fighting his own tears, pushing his brow far into a blue pillow as if to soak up each drop before I could catch a glimpse of one. A muffled sob or grunt occasionally escaped his figure. For his sake, I was so glad that this wasn't happening in front of anyone but me. Our cousins would laugh and point while our uncles would tell him to "man up." I recognized as he sat there defeated and confused that I was very privileged to know this was a panic attack. When I convinced my mother to have me evaluated for mental health issues at age eighteen, she was struck with frustration. "I just don't understand why," she would say over and over again. I tried to explain panic attacks in a way that sounded as urgent as they felt, how I had been left in states of physical illness and anxious unrest, but she could not figure out what about her parenting had failed me in this way. The roof above my head and warm coats in my closet should have been enough to make me normal. "Mami, you have done everything for me, but nobody ever taught us how to cradle ourselves." I was eventually diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and, more recently, depression. At this point, my brother was too consumed by the "machismo" mentality to care for mental wellness practices, much less therapy. My mother cautiously asked what I had done in therapy today, seemingly always put off by the answer. Still, I wanted to be the one to hold my family in a way they had not yet been held; to show them that we can be strong men and women while valuing mindfulness and boundaries. Since my brother's passing, I have thought excessively about what it means to be a strong Latino man. I wonder why he was so held back from sentimentality even with the golden heart he had. I wonder why my mother refused to share her pain with me, even as I sat across the table with twenty years of life and pain etched across my body. My family comes with a prideful Latino identity. They do not ask for help, do not cry openly, and certainly do not talk about their large feelings. I have watched generations of loved ones not know what to do with grief, stress, and depression. The few cousins who found courage in seeking help often became discouraged by its inaccessibility financially or due to familial ignorance. Thus, with the weight of my brother's pain, fear, and pressures, I am committed to creating a space where families of color can be properly educated about mental health; replacing stigma with understanding could save hundreds of brown and Black lives. In becoming a social worker, I can give back to a community that has not had the privilege of learning to give back to itself. Y si quieren llorar, esta bien.

A child in a Mexican household, I never lacked food, warmth, or love. For as long as I can remember conscious thoughts, I knew that my family was always trying their best for my brother and I. I grew up not only a Mexican child, but a child with previously undiagnosed mental illness. My mom would never miss a beat to scold me for asking too many questions about what was right or wrong, and many tias and tios wondered whether I disliked them, because I seemed to go silent when too many eyes were on me. When I got older and decided it was time to ask for help, I began to understand the real impact of stigmatization towards mental illness. My parents could not understand why more vitamins would not cure me, why a walk around the block would not help, or why I could not simply put away my hypersensitive, anxious thoughts. I was lucky enough to convince them that this was really a dilemma, and was diagnosed. Now, as I seek the method of treatment that will best benefit me personally, I can not help but think about the people whose parents are never swayed. I wonder how much worse my own state would have gotten if I never found the confidence or comfort to speak up about my weaknesses, and it pains me to know there are people living that out. Aside from anything professional, my biggest goal in life is to understand people. I believe that establishing a clear understanding of another person's boundaries, worries, and sources of joy are what create a healthy relationship for both sides. Professionally, I want to be a social worker. I believe that becoming a social worker who does their job well will involve being capable of understanding others both through who they deeply are and the ways they present themselves. Furthermore, this line of work opens the door for me to access and create resources such as programs specifically to assist children in difficult living situations with high risk of undiagnosed or under-treated mental health issues. Ultimately, my goal is to work towards destigmatizing mental health as a whole, and particularly mental illness through all of its forms -- high functioning to self destructive. Children deserve to grow up in safe spaces, and parents deserve access to the materials they need to educate themselves on looking for signs of mental illness, along with appropriately approaching these situations as parents. Because I was more blessed in my situations than others may be, I am determined to be a pioneer in the movement to destigmatize mental illnesses in my community.

My disorder is an undying flame, never finding itself lacking fuel and always throwing around its ashes. I am not sure when I struck flint against steel - or if it was me at all - only that this fire is mine to maintain. At a young age, I learned that my family liked when I succeeded. I began to seek success in any form I could find it. I loved the validation, so I urged myself into big situations that scared me. Unfortunately, like everyone else, I had a breaking point. And then another. And another. The cold sweats, nausea, unyielding fatigue all weighed me down as I continued feeding their flame without thought. Somewhere along the line, I finally witnessed, understood, and then mimicked self-respect, because it looked more comfortable than the anxiety attacks I had unknowingly self-induced all this time. Looking back at who I was before I could understand that fire, I realize just how much I could have benefitted from simply having someone to talk to. Someone I could trust to understand, at the very least. Once I was formally diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, I wondered why it had to be me bearing the weight of my own flames. What purpose could it serve other than to hold me down? As I began planning for a fast approaching future, I slowly understood how this blaze could become a source of comforting warmth for others. I became drawn to professionals who deal regularly with clients like me; after lots of research over the years and even some internship experience, I came to a realization that I want to be a social worker. I know the journey will not be even close to easy, but I also know that it will be eternally rewarding if I can positively impact even one life. Along with thinking about how I could serve others, I started thinking about how to push past feelings of just "self-respect" and more towards self-love. I reflected greatly on why I was often left empty even after being validated by another person. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I lacked knowledge of my own boundaries. More specifically, I could respect other people's, but had no idea how to set my own without feeling like a burden. Thus, I understood finally what I believe to be the essence of any healthy relationship: boundaries, set and respected by all parties. Having established sensible and honest boundaries, a relationship would have a foundation of trust and utmost respect rather than uncertainty and discomfort. Now, I practice setting boundaries and using the word "no," because I want healthy relationships with everyone I meet. Also, by loving myself enough to do so, I can keep that blaze down just a little bit longer, until it is time to empathize with another person and allow some of those ashes to be strewn around myself.

I was twelve years old when I first experienced and self-identified a panic attack. Having been thrust into a new school which prioritized academic numbers over the mental stability of its students, I had no idea what to do with myself. My friends had no idea how to help me through these debilitating feelings, and I don't blame them. We were only children. I remember feeling the need to cry, because all at once, the weight of my faults and actions - and others' actions which affected me - came crashing down onto those twelve-year-old shoulders. It happened at lunch time, so I left the table as fast as I could to sit behind the furthest building and be vulnerable. Vulnerable and oh so alone. I tried to communicate the amount of stress I was feeling to my parents, but those twelve-year old words couldn't even begin to convey the feeling of suffocating, burning alive, and freezing in time all at once. And so, with the knowledge that I had no knowledge about what was happening to me, I went on. "I need to work hard. I need to make my family proud." At twelve years old, I learned that nobody knew what to do with a child who was afraid of things which hadn't yet happened. For six years of my life, I got by trying to utilize coping mechanisms I picked up from Instagram and Twitter. "Got by" means that I survived each panic attack while appearing to be a normally functioning kid. "It would only trouble them more if they knew." In the summer of 2020, I hit way beyond a breaking point. A panic attack so debilitating that I couldn't speak, couldn't even produce a tear; all I could do was lay down and accept that I wouldn't wake up the next morning. Thoughts of how to say goodbye to my loved ones flooded my aching mind for four hours of my life until it was four in the morning and I wanted so, so badly to just be twelve again. "They weren't so bad when I was twelve," I thought, greedy and aged. I woke up late the next morning, thanking God that I had made it, that my mom wouldn't have a reason to cry today. Still, every morning, I am beyond thankful to have opened my eyes and to be breathing whatever this familiar California air will offer. Since that horrible, horrible climax, I decided this wasn't a battle I could fight on my own anymore. I reached out for support from my parents, and confused as they were, they did their best for me. I was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder in late August, and am slowly gaining access to support like therapy and medications. If I could speak to a twelve year old me, I would tell her the truth. That she's going to struggle a lot, and it will be hard, but after some time she won't be so alone. Her friends are more willing to help than she thinks, she just needs to learn to set boundaries and not to isolate as a coping mechanism. I think about a twelve-year-old me when I consider where I want to be when I'm older. I want desperately to take care of kids like me, kids whose parents and friends don't know much about how to help them. It's my dream to go into a social work field, and even to be a school-site counselor for children who may not even know where to start in their healing process. I'd love to become the kind of person who I needed when I was twelve years old.

Over time, I have learned that there is no definitive "end game" to the process of loving oneself. From a young age, little girls are shown depictions of what happiness and love should look like, and how the two are meant to coincide. Fairytales assert beautifully that romantic love between a man and woman are what makes the world spin; that this is what we should work towards if we want to some day feel accomplished. I think that's why, at such an early age, to discover that not everyone liked me (much less loved me) was so damaging. Girls who have yet to become teenagers wonder why nobody has decided to "dish out" their fair share of love, and it becomes an issue of allowing this to define ones worth. At a young age, I saw love as something meant to be shared with others to make them feel good. As a result, I struggled with people-pleasing tendencies and often found that I wasn't doing much to healthily maintain myself. Having grown up believing love would come quickly and make my life amazing, I rushed into situations I wasn't ready for and struggled to understand why I was left unfulfilled and deflated. Later, I discovered online communities that promoted body positivity and self care, and I began to understand the importance of tending to myself. Instead of nitpicking at my physical and behavioral patterns, I embraced who I was and worked to be physically and mentally healthier for my OWN sake, not to appeal to another person's aesthetic ideals. I was at a point where I felt ready to become a safe space for other people who felt the same way I did for so long, and I found a really great group of friends in which we loved ourselves enough to share a vast amount with one another. My big takeaway is this: love is not a meal meant to be passed around to whomever; rather, it is a meal that you need to get full from BEFORE deciding to offer a plate to another person. It's impossible to sustainably and healthily love another person (romantically or otherwise) if you harbor self-hatred or doubt. Admittedly, sometimes I can't get full from my own plate. Some days it's hard to even eat. The important thing, I am learning, is that I acknowledge the vast amount of love I am capable of serving to myself and the world. If you can't bring yourself to consume your own love today, try again tomorrow, and the day after that, and even the day after that. I may never reach the end game, but living with the knowledge that I am worthy feels much more beautiful than waiting to have my worth evaluated.