Mental health is the sea in which I swim, and we ignore it at our own peril. I spent so many years in a depressive haze confused by why some people refer to "bouts" of depression when for me, it's measured in decades. I honestly can't recall a single day where I felt the joie de vivre I've seen in so many other people, and no amount of medication, self-medication, meditation, exercise, or yoga has changed that. But what has helped are other people. I have had the honor and privilege to interact with countless other people throughout my life facing their own struggles. Talking with them has taken the fear and stigma away. Sometimes I feel like I might not be able to lift my own heavy bag of burdens, but somehow I can find the strength to help someone else carry their load, and that makes my own lighter in the process. As a former teacher, art coach, peer counselor, and mentor, I've had many opportunities to listen to others face their challenges. This has let me feel less alone while I face my own. I struggled with my own mental health while living in the Marshall Islands, and heavily self-medicated at the time feeling guilty that I had my dream job but still couldn't be happy. When I heard a college student describe her feelings about suicidal ideation, I reached out to a fellow teacher and we asked the young woman if she'd like to join a support circle we created on the spot. She did, and I felt like we all benefited from the community it created. I spent some time as a youth peer, trying to lean into my experiences and do what I could to help struggling kids see that they are not alone in their challenges, to take the time to listen and validate their feelings. While I've moved on it my job, I still use a lot of that training while volunteering at a local elementary school, often sitting down with children having difficult experiences throughout the day. Recently learning that I am on the ADHD/Autistm spectrum has been a huge influence in my entire perspective on life. Though I'm mid-career, I've struggled to hold down a job, never fitting in or feeling like I can be my best, even in jobs I love. Now, I've begun to understand that not knowing I was autistic, I was looking at depression through the wrong lens, and it's actually a symptom of masking my feelings and needs every day. Yes I'm frustrated I'm only learning this now, but what is life if not a series of new things to learn. With this new knowledge, I've decided to return to school to focus on my special interests so hopefully this next phase of my career can do a better job of working with my mental health rather than against. I currently volunteer with a community advisory committee for the Washington State Health Care Authority to help them understand the experiences of the public and remove barriers to access to healthcare. I also serve as a mentor for elementary school children in an afterschool journalism club. It's very important that whatever my future holds, it is one which helps empower other people to learn to be their best selves with whatever hand of cards they were given. As I explore what it means to be on the ADHD/Autism spectrum, and how it is going to affect my life and career going forward, I look forward to finding ways that I can use my experience to benefit others. I am never one who enjoys the spotlight, but I do appreciate planting the seeds for trees whose shade I may never rest in. Nothing thrills me more than seeing others I have helped succeed in the things that matter to them. I would love to use my creative skills to help others publish their experiences in book, graphic novel, podcast, or animated forms, to help people see through their eyes. There are a lot of options, but whatever lies in my future will be one where I serve as a connector to my community. Thank you for your consideration, as well as seeing those of us struggling with something that is often invisible. Should I be the recipient of this scholarship, I will do everything I can to pass it forward and compassionately serve those struggling in a way that honors your mother and her legacy.

Rosa Parks, THE Rosa Parks, mailed me a letter when I was a kid. I was too young to understand that it was some form-letter, probably a fundraiser, that perhaps thousands of people on her mailing list received. Instead, I thought that somehow I had gotten on the radar of this genuine hero and I spent my entire childhood and teenage years attempting to be the sort of person that wouldn’t disappoint Rosa fricken Parks! It was almost like the idea of Santa watching me throughout the year, and I wanted to know that if I ever had the opportunity to meet her, I’d be able to tell Rosa Parks that she had been right to have that faith in me, that I had done my best. Years later, I found the form letter with my childhood valuables and realized my misunderstanding, but why stop now? I have a nasty habit of doing what any therapist will warn against: comparing my insides to someone else’s outsides. When I was younger, before I’d learned what I know about mental health and how it affects me, I would compare myself to people like Rosa Parks. I’d think about all the great things that they had done by my age, and criticize my own lack of success. What I didn’t understand was that I was on the autism spectrum and so how I achieve success will often be very different from the more traditional paths. As a result, I’ve struggled through my career, pushing myself through challenges that others would find trivial. Ironically, I’ve also achieved some pretty incredible things others would have found challenging, teaching on multiple continents without earning a teaching degree, working as a credentialled peer counselor despite a lack of a social work degree, and learning 3d design and animation on my own as well. While my instinct is to look at my empty bank account, the lack of ring on my finger, and struggles landing on something that is easily defined as a “career” and to criticize myself for it. However, after years of work, I’ve been learning how to redefine success and start to see the things that I succeeded in without thinking about it. There have been a whole host of really big ways I’ve affected the world that might not have been my plan, but genuinely made a difference. Over the last year, I’ve been seeing some of my former students on social media post about some of their achievements. One girl I mentored in art class and helped get a scholarship for some art supplies is now a leader in promoting her culture’s traditional arts, another has organized a mental health support group at her college, another has a hit international song, and still another is working to represent her country in a legal defense fighting climate change. While I will never know how much of a factor I played in their successes, I am so proud of them and see that I did have some sort of role. While many of the dreams I had as a child may yet have gone unrealized, there have been so many wonderful moments on the way which caught me off guard, and I see that as a good thing. With my upcoming new degree, I hope to learn the best ways to share my experiences, and to help others share theirs, so that together we can find the perspective needed to destigmatize things like mental illness, poverty, and the cultural challenges placed upon us. While I think anyone who knows me would describe me as persevering and resilient, my recent exploration of mental health has provided a great deal of relief that there is a community of people who understand the challenges I’ve faced making it this far. I am looking forward to returning to college with a knowledge of resources that would have made navigating my education so much easier in the past. I hope that this new learning opportunity will course-correct my career into one that plays more toward my strengths and feels less like a constant up-hill battle. If Rosa Parks was still with us, I think I could honestly look her in the face and tell her that I’ve done my best to make her proud. But I’ve also learned that I don’t need to compare myself to genuine heroes such as her to be a successful ME. By trying to be myself, and creating an environment where I can thrive based on my own strengths, I am setting myself up for success and planning ways to pass this opportunity on.

Every week, I volunteer with youth at one of the most economically disadvantaged schools in my city. We have a “quiet zone” where children who are over-stimulated or struggling with their mental health can take a time-out. A couple weeks ago, I was talking with two of the girls in the quiet zone, and I was so surprised by their ability to communicate what their challenges were. Despite being elementary students, they spoke about their diagnoses and how it affects their daily lives with a vocabulary that took me a lifetime to achieve. So many people are suffering quietly, but by deciding to be more open about my own struggles, I’ve found others reach out to connect with me, and together we are working toward a culture where we don’t have to hide our challenges from others, or from ourselves. I spent many years living abroad not just for all the great reasons one should live abroad, but secretly because I’ve always felt like a foreigner, even among those closest too me, and being a literal foreigner made it easier for me to hide from my feelings. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had the joy of meeting people who thought that light was the best disinfectant. I’ve made friends who have adapted to some of my alienating habits and brought me the joy of their companionship over many years. This has strengthened me, and helped me learn that I’m not a fundamentally broken person, I’m just wired a bit differently than the majority, but there are others who are out there experiencing the world similar to myself. I spent a few years teaching in the Marshall Islands, and the local college hosted an open-mic night. While most of the performers had exciting raps or songs, one student tearfully read a poem about self-harm. I struggle with the idea of being called “a leader” but sometimes I know that’s a position thrust upon me, I knew this girl was struggling, and I knew I had just a moment to be there for her. So I reached out to a female teacher I knew who had a history of self-harm, and asked her to rush over and give that girl a hug as it was clearly needed but would be inappropriate for me to do. When I joined them, they were both hugging and crying. I thanked the girl for her bravery sharing that poem, and suggested that the three of us should start a mental health support group, which she eagerly agreed to. Each week for the next several months we met, and I’ll always be grateful that I had the insight to know when someone was asking for help, had the experience and knowledge to lead a group like that with compassion, and had a friend who was able to provide the support to make it happen. I don’t know what my life would have been like if I got the support I feel I needed when I was younger. Many things like “autism spectrum disorder” or “ADHD” just weren’t understood at the time. Even now, it is a struggle to get the proper accommodation I need at work, but at least now I have a better understanding of who I am and what I need to thrive, even if I’m not achieving it yet, I can at least be moving in the right direction. Knowing that I’m on the spectrum has helped me identify some patterns in my employment, and I’ve been working hard lately to understand how someone so skilled as I am can struggle so much at work. Through endless therapy, mental health support groups, podcasts, books, and conversations with loved ones, I’ve begun to realize just how many dreams I’ve put aside because I needed to pursue my career “the proper way.” But it won’t work right, because my brain is wired differently than those who succeed that way! Despite remarkable growth, I know I will probably always struggle with depression because it’s a consequence of masking my autism. I will probably always struggle with anxiety and money in general. But one thing I can do is focus on changing my environment to one which I have more control over. I am a damn good writer, and it is time I embrace that! So I’ve decided to go back to school and pursue a degree which will help me build the routine and network I need to succeed in the career that I know I can excel at. Changing the past would have prevented the understanding I needed to get where I’m at now, but I am working hard to find ways to use my experiences and personalities to continue to help others struggling with balancing their lives and their mental health. I have recently been appointed to a mental health commission in Washington State to help identify barriers to access care, and I aspire toward having a publishing company where people from diverse backgrounds can share their stories. Thank you for this opportunity for the scholarship and all that you do working together toward destigmatization.

The darkness and fog I have struggled through my entire life were always complicated by oversized hopes and dreams. I wanted to make a difference in the world and yet often couldn’t get out of bed. I’ve had depression as long as I can remember, and the older I got, the more I began to realize that it just wasn’t going away. I had traveled the world to see if maybe I put myself in a different enough context I would find a world that fit me, but no matter how far I traveled and how many beautiful things I saw, I remained depressed. I felt like somehow I was inherently the problem. I dreamed of the sort of “It’s a Wonderful Life” scenario where I was just erased from the world. Passively suicidal, I would walk out into traffic, never ready to attempt suicide, but willing to let it happen. When I saw a young child walking out onto the Portland train tracks as a train was coming, I thought nothing about walking onto the tracks and pulling the child back. I had no care for the risk to myself, it’s just what needed to happen. But saving that child that day messed up my suicidal fantasy of being erased from history, because if that could be achieved, than that young girl would have died. Though I was neutral about my own life, it meant a lot to me knowing that a child was alive now who might not have been. This is how I began seeking the help I needed for my mental health. Now, I might not know all the answers, but I understand that my depression is actually a symptom of how my brain is wired. I appear to be on the autism spectrum, and understanding that others are programmed similar to me has helped me give myself grace. It’s also helped me work with children directly as a peer supporter for a few years and as a teacher and a mentor. I appreciate any organization such as yours which works to destigmatize mental health. The barriers to access for help are hard enough, and when a person can’t often express what they are going through is a challenge we as a society must overcome. I have decided to be very open about my own mental health challenges in the hope that I may help others, especially those younger than me so that they don’t have the years of trauma a delayed understanding cost me. As much as my life has been challenged by my mental health struggles, I by learning what I could made me a safe person for my students to talk to when they were struggling. Last week, I had the wonderful opportunity to see on social media that one of my former high school students, was leading a mental health support group at her college. I was filled with so much complex joy. It was another “It’s a Wonderful Life Moments” where I understand that the challenges I’ve faced, made me the right person at the right time to help out another difference-maker on her own journey, and who knows the countless lives that she will also be able to reach. We are all so connected, and our mental health challenges are a foundational part of the interconnecting spiderweb of those relationships. After years of fighting my instincts, I am doing what I can to lean into them. I am applying to go back to school next year to pursue a degree in writing. I hope that I can use my communication and leadership skills to create a career that helps others specifically in destigmatizing mental health topics. I hope to write and help others share their experiences, shining light on the challenges that keep us from thriving. When that young child wandered onto the tracks, she had no idea that she was actually saving me, and that I would then go on to help others. Should I be the recipient of your scholarship, you have my word that I will continue to do what I can to pay it forward to help others understand their own unique challenges. As we all connect with each other in society who knows how many lives they in turn will help? As they say, let us plant the seeds for trees in whose shade we will never rest.

I’ve struggled with depression for as long as I can remember, but books were always there for me. LeVar Burton and “Reading Rainbow” showed me how I could go anywhere, or do anything if I opened the right book. And my local librarians were always there to help me find that right book. I spent my childhood reading, and with that came the desire to return the favor and share the adventures I created in my head with other children, particularly those who had mental health struggles the way I do. “Don’t study humanities or you’ll be poor” was a never-ending theme as I was looking into college, and so despite my instinct that I should go into the arts, I steered away and into areas I thought would be better paying. But as anyone in the CREATIVE.INSPIRED.HAPPY community knows, a person achieves more when they are passionate about what they are doing. I’ve recently learned that I am neurodivergent and this has been groundbreaking for me. I’ve never been able to land my career goals, because I’ve sacrificed too many of my artistic dreams to go with the flow, but the reality is, that as someone on the autism spectrum, I’m always going to be swimming upstream. So rather than fighting a world not designed for me, I should be doing what feels natural, working in the areas I feel gifted in. And what I’ve known since I was a child is that I am a creative writer. Prior to covid lockdowns I began writing a graphic novel, updating it weekly. I felt so much joy from interacting with people around the world who found my story and would ask me questions about it and offering theories about what was going to happen next. It was truly an incredible experience and one that showed me that I have what it takes to tell stories that I want to write and readers want to hear. But when covid hit, I was unable to devote the time I needed into continuing the graphic novel. I am proud of the work I did delivering food and books to refugee children, but I was saddened that I never had the writing habits I needed to continue to focus on my writing as well. After that, I became a social worker, and that pulled me away even further as I was exhausted each day. Again, I am proud of the work I’ve done, but I seem to be getting further away from my writing goals rather than closer to them. So I have decided to return to school and participate in a graduate program in creative studies. During my time, I look forward to not just refining my craft, but learning how to create a reinforced routine that supports positive writing habits. Knowing now that I am autistic will, for the first time, help me work with my challenges, rather than against them. I have ghost written in the past, but this month, my first flash fiction story is being published in a horror anthology, and it feels spectacular knowing that I am finally moving in the right direction (or is it, write direction?). Better late than never! Thank you for this opportunity to help me become the writer I’ve always known I am!