While in the military, mental health became a huge focus of mine when I began feeling very depressed. The longer I ignored those depressing feelings, the more intense they became. While pursuing my degree in psychology, I began to see how mental health impacted every one. I also began to se how similar my experiences were with people who were suffering from depression, anxiety, and PTSD. In my professional military career, I would be faced with mental health episodes that no one knew how to treat. I would experience a PTSD episode and would be told "oh it's nothing. Suck it up and get on with your job." These moments were devastating to me. I would look to my peers and higher us for help and no one knew what to do or would just ignore me. As this continued to happen to me, I decided I needed to do something about it. I began to educate myself on mental health. I would go to the behavioral health center on base and attend every class they had on mental health, depression, anxiety, PTSD, anger management, everything. I would also couple these classes with classes I was taking for my degree. The more education I received on mental health and the different types of issues, I was able to begin to better myself and my fellow Marines. Due to the mental health struggles I was suffering, my beliefs were vastly tested. I felt that as these issues were continuing and becoming more and more intense I was beginning to lose myself. These trials and tribulations caused me to really take a long and lengthy look at what I truly believed in. During this long and lengthy reflection time, I was able to evaluate myself, my beliefs, my morals and my overall health and happiness. I looked into myself and realized what I needed to change in myself in order to begin my healing process. I saw that I needed to start taking care of myself. I would take more time for myself. I would begin to go to the places that made me happy. I would buy myself that special treat that I continued to push off. I would take a day off here or there to help reset myself. I realized that I needed to begin to do things for myself instead of putting everyone else first. My beliefs were the next thing that I evaluated. Growing up, I was not heavily involved in religion. I would go to church,but not every Sunday. Religion never played a huge part in my life while I was growing up. When I went to bootcamp, I would attend the Catholic Services with two of my friends. These services allowed us to have a break from bootcamp while at the same time allowing for a spiritual recharge. Having been raised Methodist, I was not completely connected to the services, but I was still attending a service that was reaching out to God. I begin to see that I did not need to attend a Methodist service in order to feel closer to God, that any Christian Service would allow me to still feel that connection. I then began to see that I did not need to attend a service at all, that as long as I had my faith and belief, I could feel closer to God no matter where I was. I began to feel better about myself and my belief and was able to feel closer to God, knowing I could express my beliefs at any moment and not confined to a church setting. As my mental health journey continued, I began to question my morals and what truly guided me in my decision making. I have always had a string sense of morals and stuck by them. As I began to evaluate my mental health, I also began to question the morals that I was following. To see if those morals were guiding me into situations that negatively impacted my mental health. I looked to see if I had any moral conflicts that were causing my mental health to decline. This took me a long time to evaluate. As I went over each of my morals, I began to bounce them off of my beliefs and situations that I had encountered on my journey to better my mental health. I found that the morals themselves were not negatively impacting my mental health. I found that they were guiding me in a positive direction. I only had to slightly change a couple of them as to better define what I wanted and also to better align with my thinking as to not have any more conflicts. This caused me to be able to reset myself and have more defined morals to help guide my life. After evaluating myself, my beliefs, and my morals, I was able to realign myself. Once I looked over and fixed myself, my beliefs, and my morals, I was able to evaluate my overall health and happiness. After the evaluation of myself, beliefs, and morals, my happiness naturally began to improve. My overall health began to brighten and I felt much better about myself. My mental health was able to improve, although I still episodes and I am currently taking medication. I was able to look out on life through a clearer lens and able to find joy. My mental health was able to vastly improve and I was able to help others, without putting them first. I was able to get a hold on my beliefs, morals and overall happiness. Having the ability to regain and maintain control on my life, beliefs, morals and happiness is allowing me to be a happier and healthier person. I have a great outlook on life. I am better prepared to help myself and others. I want to be able to show others what I went through in an attempt to help them succeed at life. I want those that I help to be able to control their lives and their happiness and to help shed that positive light on to those around them.

My name is Dereck Tabor. I am currently pursuing a degree in Psychology. I decided to choose a degree in psychology as I love learning about the brain. I have always been fascinated by it and how and why we are us. Learning about how we have developed as a human race is very important so that we can see where we are going in our knowledge of mental health. I was in the military for over 17 years and throughout my career, I saw many of my fellow Marines suffering from mental health concerns. I had a close friend commit suicide because life outside the Marine Corps was too difficult and the depression he suffered was a direct result of his service. I have always wanted to understand why I and so many of my fellow Marines suffer, suffered, and are currently struggling with anxiety, depression and PTSD. As I have continued on my educational path, I have learned so much about the brain. I want to continue to learn where depression comes from, how we are impacted by it, and how we can develop ways to lessen its effects and potentially find ways to cure it. I have struggled with depression and anxiety for several years. I also suffer from PTSD brought on by my service in the Marine Corps. I have always thought that I had a good hold on it and that I was "beating" it. I was very wrong. As the days continued on, I found myself more and more defeated. I was not happy with my life and I did not find joy in anything that I or my family did. I was always looking for the negative and for the "when does this all get ruined by something bad". My PTSD would also rear its ugly head, and cause my anxiety and depression to be off the charts. My PTSD episodes would cause panic attacks and I would be unable to function at all. I was always aware this was happening, but I just pushed it in the back of my mind. That all changed when I found myself in a cloud of life where nothing seemed real and I was in a dream. I was absolutely in the lowest point of my life and I could not see the good in ANYTHING. It was in this moment that I truly realized that I did not have my anxiety and depression under control and that I needed the help of a professional. Once I started seeing a professional, my life began to change. I could see everything clearer. The dream-like state I had been in was finally lifting. Because of my experiences, I have pushed myself to continue with my education in Psychology. I love helping people and I hate seeing them suffer. I would love to be able to connect to people through our similar experiences and help them to become better versions of themselves. I want to help them overcome these mental health struggles and lessen their chance of losing their battle with mental health. I have seen too many people take their lives over this suffering. I would love to earn my doctorate so that I can help others. I want to be part of the shift in the focus of mental health and make a positive impact in the field of psychology.

The one book that I would recommend everyone in the world to read is 11/22/63 by Stephen King. This is my all time favorite book. It is about a man who can go back in time and decides to live in the 60's. While he is in the 60's, he decides to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He is in the unique position to ultimately change the course of history. This book held me from word one to the very last word. I love history and it gives a very detailed account of the history of the event while still holding true to the writing of Stephen King. This book is a very plausible historical fiction that truly had my mind thinking, this could actually be true. In the appendix of the book, Stephen King tells the reader how this book was wrote in the 70's, but his wife thought that it was too soon to release a book on such a tender subject. He goes on to tell the reader about all the historical research he did and the visits to the areas in the book to capture the events and areas in detail and to transport the reader to those locations. I have read many books, and this one made me feel that I was in Lee Harvey Oswald's apartment or in the Texas School Book Depository. Stephen King is, in my opinion, the master at making the reader feel the emotions of the time, the weather on your skin, being a part of the events that are taking place, making the reader feel they are the main character. I can read this book over and over and it still holds my attention. This book also gives the reader a great history lesson of the time surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy without actually being a typical historical book. I absolutely love this book and will always recommend it to anyone I talk to.

1. Being the first in my family to obtain a college degree means that I am helping set the example for my family. Throughout my life, I have had to endure many different challenges. I have always had the support of my family to continue to better myself. While I was in the Marine Corps, I began taking college classes. I realized that I was the first in my family to actually attend college to ultimately earna degree. My mom had taken classes in the past, but never received a degree. Being the first in my family to obtain a college degree is very important to me. I would love to show my children that no matter what, if you set your mind to something, you can complete it. I would love to be the example to them for them to want to also attend college and receive a degree. 2. I am currently pursuing a degree in Psychology with a minor in History. I would love to be able to receive my Bachelor's and continue on to my Master's or even Doctorate. I absolutely love Psychology and History. These two subjects have always intrigued me. The study of the brain is absolutely mesmerising to me and I want to learn as much as I can about it. History is also very important to me as it allows me to understand where we, as humans, have come from. It is important to me to continue on with these subjects further than just as as undergrad. I love being able to help people better themselves and also learning about the past. Having the ability to complete this degree would be fantastic. 3. My long term goals are to complete my current degree and continue on to my Master's and possibly even my Doctorate. I want to be able to use this degree to help people. I want to further my Psychology degree from general Psychology to Clinical Psychology. I want to help individual people, families, couples, survivors of abuse and trauma, the sexual health of individuals and couples, etc. I love helping people and Psychology is one of the best ways to do that. I would love to eventually open up my own practice to be able to provide different services people to help them solve problems in their lives and to make them better than when they first came into my office.

Have you ever visited your grandparents and your grandmother thinks that you are one of her children? Or that she wakes up from a nap telling you that you need to call 911 to help save the neighbor boy who has been injured and is in her room on the floor? I have experienced this on several occasions and every time is harder than the last. I have witnessed is with my great grandmother and currently with my wife's grandmother. Alzheimer's and Dementia has played a significant role in my life. When I was 8 years old, my Great Grandma was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. I was too young to truly understand what was going on, but to see how quickly she declined in health was absolutely heartbreaking. She went from a bright and intelligent woman to a husk of a person in less than a year. To see how quickly she forgot the people around her was devastating to my family and I. She passed away not knowing anyone around her and we still have lingering impacts from those dark days. Today, my family and I live with my wife's grandparents. My wife's grandmother has recently been diagnosed with Dementia. Dementia and Alzheimer's have very similar effects on a person. The difference between my great grandmother and my wife's grandmother is that my Great grandmother did not know what was happening to her, my wife's grandmother does. Over the last year, my wife's grandmother has been forgetting more and more. She will tell stories that are mixed with others or that she has made up on the spot. I have also noticed that with dementia, hallucinations are more common and more vivid. There have been numerous occasions where my wife's grandmother has woken up from a nap and has had a dream so real that she is confused as to why she is not currently in the place she dreamed about. My wife's grandmother will also tell us the same stories over and over. My wife and I usually go along with the story like this is the first time we heard it, or we just let her tell the story. Sometimes she will look at us and say, "I have already told you this story haven't I? Well I can't remember anything these days and it is only getting worse." It is absolutely heartbreaking to she her memory fade so quickly. I learned very quickly how this disease can take someone away. I would love to be able to see the causes of these diseases identified and be able to help prevent or slow the progression of the disease. I do not want to see other people and families suffer from these diseases. The disease as a whole made me intrigued about the human brain and ultimately led me to want to get a degree in Psychology. I would love to be able to continue my studies in Psychology to possibly play a part in helping to discover the root cause of these diseases. Once the cause is discovered, I would love to help with finding ways to cure or slow the progression of the disease. I would love to be able to work with people who have been diagnosed and are suffering with Alzheimer's or Dementia and help them understand what is happening. I would love to eventually see ways to help reverse any damage these diseases have caused and help them live happier lives.