In 2017, I gave birth to my daughter. Throughout my life, and that pregnancy especially, I struggled with mental health issues that led to my suffering from Postpartum Psychosis. After I attempted suicide, my husband and our friends were desperate to find me some comfort and help when my mental health took control of me. I went back to therapy and my therapist at the time suggested an emotional support animal. In April of 2018, a friend who knew about our search for a puppy informed us she had a litter and would like to give us a puppy, and that is how we met Bane. He came home to us at 8 weeks old, small enough to fit in my hand. I immediately bonded with him, and as he grew, he became an incredible support when my panic attacks hit. It is like he can sense them coming, because just as I am starting to get upset, he will appear next to me. We never did an “official” training with Bane. Everything he knows comes from things we taught him ourselves at home, or from himself being as incredible as he is. People are always amazed by that information, especially after seeing him in action. Bane is amazing. I rarely have to call for him when I need him, as he is usually already there. He always starts small, just licks on my hand to remind me of the here and now. If that does not slow me enough to make me focus on him, he will force himself into my lap and apply pressure to my body which helps stifle the nervous system, in turn helping calm me. Before I got Bane, panic attacks would be a huge ordeal that would often cost me the rest of the day to recover from. In the 4 years since meeting the dog that changed my life, my panic attacks have become less frequent and the severity has reduced immensely. Bane has been with my family through some of the hardest things we have ever faced, but thanks to him I have the strength to fix whatever comes our way. I am forever thankful for Bane and all the help he has brought me.

I am going into mental health research. All my life I have struggled with mental illnesses that are highly stigmatized, and that has pushed me to want to learn about mental health and help change some of these stigmas. I want people with mental illnesses to know they are not “broken” or “damaged” and that they can live fulfilling lives while helping teach mental health professionals to view these struggles as positive attributes. Very few therapists that I have met in my 27 years on Earth (there's been MANY in my life) have viewed my mental illnesses as things that could be used to my advantage, and due to that, I have only opened my eyes to that myself in the last year and a half. Last March, I found myself really struggling with my mental health. There were many contributing issues, the biggest being that my family of 5 (with one on the way) was homeless, and due to my high-risk pregnancy, I was unable to work to help my husband secure housing for us. I found myself certain I was going to kill myself as soon as I had my son and began the hunt for a therapist to help save me from myself. It took me a week, and 8 phone calls, but I finally found Carole. By the time my son was born in July, she had helped me quiet the suicidal thoughts and had even started to help me understand that no matter what awful scenario life throws at me, I manage to come out okay. This year, I was challenged to try for my high school diploma equivalent. I took the tests, unsure whether I would pass them as my self-confidence was at one of the lowest spots it has been. I surprised myself by passing with a cumulative score of 92/100, so I immediately set my sights higher and applied for college. I knew I wanted to study mental health, and after a little more thought I knew that I have the power to make momentous changes in the future of mental healthcare. I start my journey through school about 2 weeks from writing this and I am excited to learn. Once I finish my Bachelor's degree in Psychology, I plan to move somewhere where I can hopefully get my foot in the door with the research aspect of mental health. There are so many aspects of mental health I want to learn about, such as what can be caused by trauma and what is passed on genetically, and how those things are related. I want to learn what mental illnesses are preventable or repairable, and which are not. I want to know why trauma changes the shape/size of certain parts of the brain, and if we can change that. I also want to help make mental health services more accessible, especially to underserved high-risk areas, as I know that access to these services significantly affects suicide and crisis rates. I am passionate about mental health and helping those that struggle with it. This degree will allow me to do more than coach my friends through their stuff, by giving me access to research and professionals that are passionate about the same things. By achieving this goal, I will have the power to change the world for generations after me, and I am excited for that to come to fruition.

In 2009, I was removed from the care of my biological mother by the State of Montana. I was lucky to be saved when I was, I was beaten, molested, and starved by the very people who were supposed to love and protect me. As an adult, I got back in contact with the social worker who removed me from her, and that social worker told me that she was scared if she could not get me out when she did, they would have killed me. I spent almost 6 years in the foster system, where I did 46 placements. Many were placements lasting only a day or two while the state hunted for somewhere else to send me. I was considered a “difficult” child to place, few places were equipped to deal with the layers of trauma and mental illnesses that resulted from that trauma. As an adult, I struggled to shake the feeling of being unwanted and the idea that I was broken or defective because of my battles. I am now the mother of 4 incredibly beautiful children. Every day, I aspire to offer them the love and care I did not have, to do better than my womb host did. I still struggle with my mental health from time to time, but all these things together are what inspired me to return to my education. This past summer, I got my high school diploma equivalent, and am beginning in the fall as a nontraditional first-year student at my local university. I will be majoring in Psychology, as I want to study mental illness, but I am considering a second major in Sociology as most of my elective classes fall under Sociology requirements. After I finish school, I want to study the long-term effects of early childhood trauma and the resulting mental health issues. I want to learn how much mental illness is caused by trauma, and how much is genetic. I want to learn how much of these effects can be reversed, and how much can be prevented. I would like to turn around certain stigmas and help offer more education and services in underserved areas. A large amount of child abuse could be avoided if parents have more access to help, in the forms of health services, financial services, and respite care. I aim to be a part of making these things more accessible, both through my research and through work with community programs. I would like to help parents understand that they are not alone, and it does indeed take a village to raise children. By having access to programs designed to help without adding guilt, I believe we could save countless lives. Parents who suffer from mental illness just need a little extra support in a few different forms, and I plan to be a part of making that support happen.

Somedays, my mental illness rules my life. I struggle to remember my worth, I lose all motivation, and insignificant things seem unsurmountable. Other days, I rule my mental illness. I know I am capable, I make headway in my goals, and I can easily find solutions. Both days, I am me. Wholeheartedly, unapologetically me. I am who I am because of the trauma I have survived, because of the experiences I have had, and because I choose to view my disabilities as strengths. My relationship with my mental health has not always been a good one. For most of my life, I was taught that my mental illness is something that is “wrong” with me. It has just been in the last year that I have started to change my views, and by no means has it been an easy road. I spent a long time wondering “why me” and blaming the people that hurt me for the continued struggles I had. I fought a hard battle to find a religion I fit in with, before giving up. I cannot fathom an all-powerful all-loving person who controls everything in the world, allowing lives like mine to happen. The amount of trials life has thrown at me is unbelievable to the average person. I was severely abused for the first half of my life and spent my teen years bouncing around 46 placements in the very broken foster system. The night I turned 18, at midnight, the group home I was in put me out on the streets. I ended up dropping out of high school to work, finding drugs, and losing myself for a year. Finding out I was having my first son changed everything, I got sober, and my then-boyfriend, now-husband and I started doing everything we could to build a better life for our children than our parents gave us. Since then, we have added 3 more wonderful children, but we have fought through homelessness, countless financial issues, and food instability while trying to provide for them. These things plus postpartum exacerbated my struggles at times, and have put an immense strain on my marriage to the point of us discussing separation. I can count the number of people I trust completely on one hand. I have two remarkably close friends that have been in my life for a decade, I affectionately refer to them as my wife and my sister. My husband and I got together when I was 17, and there is no one in this world I trust like the 3 of them. They have all seen me in low places, amid the hardest things life has thrown at me as an adult, and choose to continue to be a support for me. I struggle to trust people due to my mental illnesses, but also because I have had uncountable amounts of people turn their backs on me or leave because they could not understand how those mental illnesses affect me. I want to change the way mental health is treated in society. I want to break the stigmas around having a mental illness. I want to study the reasons behind mental illnesses, and the differences in genetic versus environmental factors. I am fascinated with how brains can heal from trauma, and want to teach others with similar issues that they can use their struggles as strengths. I think mental health education should be taught in our education systems as young as physical health education and that services should be easily accessed. I want to be a part of a momentous change in how mental health is viewed by our future generations. It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted that to look, or if I was even capable of that, but now I am excited to be on the road there.

When I find myself needing to clear my mind or even just distract myself for a moment, I find myself turning to music, writing, or spending time with my children. Studies have shown all 3 of these things can effectively calm a person quickly by helping regulate the bodily response to stressors. These tools are my go-to's, though they are just the beginning of the many many options. I find them to be easily accessible and effective in almost any situation. Music has been proven to have incredible effects on the human brain, one of the biggest being the way it can change and evoke emotions. I know that if I am struggling to calm myself, I have a couple of songs on my playlist that help make it easier to reregulate. The same goes for my children, if they are having an off day or I need to change the focus of the room I know I can do so with their favorite songs. Music can completely change my outlook on my day, and I love to use that as a strength. Writing is a great tool in that it can help to make stress feel less burdening. Writing can help a person look at things objectively or help them get across feelings they may not have otherwise been able to construe. Writing can also help a person escape reality, or allow them to feel control over situations they might not have otherwise by allowing them to write out the potential outcomes. For me, writing gives me the chance to say things I might not say aloud, and communicate to others things I worry may get misconstrued in highly emotional situations. Spending time with my children often reminds me to slow down and appreciate the things I tend to forget when I am under a lot of pressure. They remind me that no matter what, I am surrounded by love. In their eyes, I am incredible for being just who I am. They inspire me to achieve greatness. When I am with them, I see that I have instilled heaping amounts of amazing into their hearts, and it is more than enough to help me face any obstacles life throws at our family head-on. There are quite a few other things I do to help clear my mind, but spending time with my children, writing, or listening to music are the top three. Having go-to skills for this is important, and has saved me from self-destructing a few times. They are easily accessible, cost no money, and leave me feeling loved and important.

If I were given $1,000 right now, I would catch up on my bills because I am behind on rent, and treat my children to an outing because they have been stuck at home since school got out. I have been working to pull us back out of the hole with the property owners so I can take my children to the nearby lake one weekend. We would go to a spot that few people know about, taking blankets and a picnic lunch. We would snack on fruits and nuts while splashing and playing in the sun, before heading home in the afternoon. I would surprise them by stopping by the local ice cream shop and letting them each get their own flavor of choice. We would come home to have a delicious barbeque dinner while playing in the last of the sunshine, and once the sun sets, we would build a small campfire in our yard. My children have never had s’mores, so I would use this time to teach them all about the incredible treat. $1,000 right now would relieve my largest source of stress and give me the chance to make wonderful unforgettable memories with my children.

I went into the very broken foster system when I was 13, and by the time I aged out at 18, I had been through 43 placements. Some lasted over a year, while others were just a night or two. Because I was forced to leave my group home when I turned 18 halfway through my senior year of high school, I dropped out of school to work while I struggled to find stable housing and tried to form a support system for myself. Since foster care, I have become a mother to 4 amazing children, but due to being a dropout with no trade skills, we have always been a low-income family, struggling to keep housing and food stability. The COVID pandemic has only exacerbated these struggles, and so when I lost my grandmother last year, I decided it was time to make her proud by going back to school. I did some research and found the nearest place to accomplish my high school diploma equivalent, and passed the tests with excellence. While in foster care but especially as an adult, I have noticed that adequate education on mental health and access to mental health services is a façade. Many people are still taught myths about many mental illnesses, even health professionals. In my local area, the nearest place that offers crisis care is over an hour's drive away. I cannot count the number of friends I have lost to suicide or other mental illness-related things, many of them having no idea how to even ask for the help they needed or where they might obtain it. I want to go into the mental health field to change these things. I want to help bring mental health to our education systems as young as physical education. I want to help bring accurate information about the struggles people face to the public, and bring more accessible services to areas that are at higher risk for these issues, such as the reservations and other low-income areas. I want to study the ties between mental illness and genetic versus environmental occurrences, and why some people suffer when others do not. I want to help heal brains from trauma, and even help prevent some brains from receiving trauma. Winning this scholarship would help me accomplish this goal by lessening the financial burden on myself as I pursue my dreams. I am the main financial provider for my family while my husband stays home with our children under school age, and the hours I work weekly at a job outside of school will depend a lot on how much help I can get paying for my schooling. I am too old to qualify for my state’s ETV funds and am running into that barrier in many of the searches for funds for former fosters that I have done. I want to provide a more stable life for my children, while helping as many people as I can, and this scholarship would be an immense help in accomplishing that.

My grandmother was always my biggest believer. She knew I was going to change the world from the day she met me, and she told me that constantly. Unfortunately, it took her passing away for me to realize she was right, and start making the changes in my life I needed to pursue my dreams. When I aged out of foster care in 2013, I dropped out of high school, so when my grandma died 3 days before my birthday last year, I realized I had a bit of a climb in front of me. Over 2 weeks in May-June, I accomplished my high school diploma equivalency with a cumulative score of 92/100. I was incredulous with myself, I had not studied for these tests or done any sort of preparation. My grandma was right. I then enrolled in the University of Montana for Fall 2022, to begin the first of many degrees in psychology, social work, and mental health that I intend on obtaining. I want to be an example for my children, that it is never too late to change your life. I want to use my education and my past to teach other people that their mental illness is not their definition, but instead a part of who they are and that it can be a strength. I want to change the stigma around mental health, by bringing mental health education to our education systems as young as physical health is taught. I want to make mental healthcare more accessible, especially in areas where more are likely to be affected. I want to study the reasons behind mental illnesses. There is so much to learn about the genetic versus environmental ties behind who suffers from what. I suffer from a mental illness that women are 5 times more likely to develop if they have a parent with that same mental illness than if they did not, and I have a daughter. I want to know what makes her so much more likely to develop it than her brothers, what environmental things I was exposed to that she is not and the effect that has. I am passionate about receiving my education because I am going to change the world just as my grandmother said. I am going to make the lives of those who suffer from mental illnesses easier in any way I can while educating them and everyone around them about their mental illnesses and how to use them as a strength. I have a lot of challenging work ahead of me, and I am so excited to get started.

Montana's leading cause of young adult deaths is suicide. I would need my own hands and someone else's to count the number of friends I have lost to their own hands since leaving high school almost a decade ago. One practical solution for helping more people who struggle with mental health issues is to make services more accessible and educate everyone, not just those that suffer, on how mental health affects the daily lives of those of us who do. Mental health education should begin as early as physical health education and be taught in schools. This could have the effect of getting rid of the stigmas around mental health that make people avoid seeking help. If there were more readily available options for people to seek the help they need, the number of crises and suicides would drastically reduce. Where I live now if a person were to have a mental health crisis or become suicidal, the nearest crisis center is an hour away and one may not have the time to call or believe help will get to them in time depending on the level of crisis. Many do not even know the centers exist, but even if they did, access to them could be impossible for those who are low-income and unable to travel 60 miles without budgeting ahead of time. If we educated everyone about the effects mental illness has, it would make it less “taboo” for someone to seek out that help, and lessen the amount of bullying that tends to exacerbate the issues that lead to suicide. In short, education and accessibility could make all the difference in the lives of those of us who suffer from mental health issues.

My best friend’s parents went out of state for a family reunion this spring, leaving her behind to run their bowling alley in our small town in their absence. The day before they were due back, I stopped by the alley to see how she was doing and if I could offer any help. Just after I walked in, her phone rang. It was her mother. I could not hear the conversation, but Z and I have been best friends for a decade now and I could tell by the look on her face that something was not right. I sat quietly waiting, I knew she would explain once she got off the phone, and she did. With tears running down her face she told me that her stepfather was having cardiac issues, she did not know what the exact problem or severity was, but she was worried. I asked her how I could help, and that evening I stayed with her while she did her closing duties so that she could get out a couple of minutes earlier than normal to call her mom for an update. She texted me that night that they did not know anything more yet and asked if I was free to come to the alley while she worked the next day. I had to work myself, but chose to go into town after I put my kids on the bus to school, an hour earlier than normal, and sat at the bowling alley for a while before I headed to my job. She did not need me to do anything; while I sat there, I researched scholarships, she just wished for my presence. Her parents eventually made it home the next day, and as of now her stepfather seems to be holding up all right, but that was an incredibly scary experience for my best friend. I was very thankful I could be there for her in that moment of uncertainty, as she has always been there for me through mine. When I met her, I was a very uncertain teenager caught in the broken foster system, and she never left my side through every challenging thing I have ever been through since. She was at the birth of my first child, she was my maid of honor at my wedding, and she is the godmother to all 4 of my children. It may seem like a small thing to any outsider looking in, but I was thankful to be able to be my friend's strength that day.

I passed my HISET high school diploma equivalency tests with a cumulative score of 92, without studying for them, almost a decade after dropping out. My greatest achievement to date is a tie, between that and being a mother to 4 incredible children, but for the sake of this, we will focus on the HISET accomplishment. It is quite an accomplishment, as I came from the background I did. I was born to a mother who never wanted me, who abused me at first only by way of neglect but eventually escalated to the point of my being removed and placed into the care of the foster system of the State of Montana at the age of 13. I bounced around 46 placements before ultimately moving in with my then-boyfriend hours after turning 18. Unfortunately, his housing was not stable, and I was forced to choose between going to school or working to secure stable housing. I chose the latter, believing that my mental illnesses made me “too stupid” to get anywhere in school and needing a home since it was mid-November. Passing my HISET showed me that I am not as unintelligent as I thought. I have often doubted my abilities in life, which played a significant role in why I waited so long to challenge the tests. Knowing that I scored as high as I did without any prep work showed me that I am more than capable of furthering my education. I have always wanted to work with people who have similar struggles to mine, helping them to learn why their brains reacted the way they did to the trauma they experienced, and how to live a productive life despite said trauma. The day I passed my final HISET tests, I applied for college. I am now enrolled as a nontraditional first-year student at the University of Montana, pursuing the beginning of many degrees in Psychology and Mental Health. My goal is to one day use my story to bring awareness to the effects of childhood trauma into adulthood, and help change how children and adults are treated in the mental health fields. There are uncountable stigmas around being diagnosed with a mental illness, in some situations even medical professionals tend to inadvertently treat individuals with mental health issues differently than those without. I want to change that, by changing the way these illnesses are talked about in professional settings, and being an example that we are not labeled by the mental illnesses we live with.

November should have been a great month. It is my birthday month, and last year my adopted sister gave me meet and greet tickets to one of my favorite artists. But last year, November was the worst month of my life, because my grandmother's heart failed, and I lost her. My grandma and I had always been closer than I can put in words. Even when her daughter lost custody of me to the State of Montana, my grandma made sure to stay in contact no matter which foster placement I was in at that moment. She always pushed me to be a better me, because she saw potential in me that no one else did. Losing my grandma made me sit down and think one day, “what can I do with my life to make her proud?” And I knew in an instant school was the answer. My grandmother worked at our local college and she would ask every time I visited her at work when I was ever going to get in there and put my brains to work. This last month, I put my head down and took my HISET high school diploma equivalency tests as I had dropped out of high school when I turned 18 due to losing my housing. I passed them with incredible scores, which helped show me that I am indeed capable of everything my grandma said I am. I then turned around and enrolled in the University of Montana, where she used to work, and am pursuing a degree in Psychology. I struggle with many mental illnesses myself, and I want to learn more about why brains process trauma the way they do, and potentially change some of the stigmas around mental illness in society. I've always thought college was out of my reach, because I am very low-income, I have 4 children to support, and I didn’t believe in myself. Losing my grandma has given me a push to fight for a better life, both for my family and for others who struggle with mental illness. I want to change the world, like she knew I could.