When I was younger, I never considered being a nurse; it never even crossed my mind. However, when I started volunteering at my local nursing home at fourteen, I knew I wanted to work there. I grew to love the residents and wanted to spend as much time as possible with them. I started looking into ways I could do more for them and decided I wanted to be a CNA. Unfortunately, I could not become a CNA due to my age, so I started working as a dietary aide in the kitchen. I loved the residents so much, and I was so eager to become a CNA. I quickly became enamored with the idea of being able to give these residents that I loved the best care that I could. However, much to my dismay, the nursing home shut down a year and a half after I started working, and I was devastated. I thought that one of my biggest dreams at the time was slipping away from me. Fortunately, they were able to transfer nine of the residents to our local hospital, and I was able to get a job there. Becoming a CNA at the age of sixteen is something that I am so proud of. I was so excited, and after my first week, I knew I wanted to be a nurse. I started at the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I was one of my residents’ only form of contact during this time. Being a CNA has been one of the most rewarding and challenging things I have ever done. Being a CNA has fueled my ambition to become a nurse. I want to give the best care I can and improve people’s lives, even if it is a quick emergency room interaction. I work in the hospital and long-term care, so I have seen what a lack of interaction and visitors can do to the patients and residents. I am in FCCLA( Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America), so I went to my local FCCLA advisor, and we came up with some activities we could do. Every month, three of us go to assisted living, and we do activities and have conversations with them. We do multiple activities every month, and the residents really enjoy it. I also participate in clothing and food drives for my community. My town is small, tight-knit, and very generous, so we can do a lot of fundraisers, and they always do well. I have been a part of FBLA and FCCLA, and both organizations do a lot of community service. Giving back to my community has been something that I have always tried to do, and I have done so in many ways and will continue to do so.

When I was six years old, my dad used to tell me “your mom is just sick and not feeling well, she will be better in the morning”. He would tell me this when I would see my mom passed out on the bathroom floor, the kitchen floor, the stairway, or the couch. He tried his best to shield us away from her “sickness”. He tried his best, but at the age of ten, my parents got a divorce. I remember being relieved that I wouldn’t have to see my parents fight, and a part of me hoped that my mom would get better. However at the age of ten, my hopes were quickly crushed. My mom increasingly started to get worse, but I was always there to help her off the bathroom floor. My dad, who I always saw as someone picking my mom up off of the floor, started to get mean. My parents both started drinking more and more, and it seemed that I was slowly losing them. I was watching my parents turn to alcohol. I was no longer a twelve year old girl, I was a mother to my siblings, and a parent to the people who were supposed to take care of me. Later that year I asked my parents to put me in therapy, as my anxiety was starting to take over my life. I started going to therapy weekly, but at the time I was still not strong enough to take on the burden that alcohol had caused my family. I stopped going to therapy after a couple months. I felt like I was failing. At the age of twelve, I felt like I failed my parents, my brother who had turned to alcohol, my sister, and my therapist. I was drowning. At the age of fourteen I remember sitting on my bathroom floor, just like my mother, and realizing I couldn’t do it anymore. I could not keep failing and I could not keep parenting. I remember taking the packet of pills and swallowing them. Nothing happened, and I realized that I had failed. I was devastated, and my depression and anxiety got worse. A couple months after my suicide attempt, I tried again. I sat in my bedroom and took more pills. I waited for a while, and when I was still alive and breathing, I realized that I failed again. My parents realized what was happening, and I was put on suicide watch. I went to therapy twice a week and went on medication. I started to get better, my dad started to get better, and I was happy. I was so happy that I fell into the arms of a seventeen year old male. He made me so happy, however his facade came crashing down, and in one night he had wrecked all of my progress. He sexually assaulted me, and I felt that it was my fault. I fell into a deep depression. A couple of years after the assaults I decided to press charges. On my senior night I found out that my case was dismissed. It was one of the most devastating things, and I was so angry. I was angry that the system failed me, I was angry that he was ruining my senior night, and I was angry that I was allowing him to overshadow what was supposed to be a celebration of my years as an athlete. Thankfully, I had my therapist during this time. I would not be writing this essay or be the person I am today without my therapist.