Option 3: Purpose & Connection We live in a world where human connection is both our greatest necessity and our most complex challenge. As an aspiring Marriage, Couples, and Family Therapist at Lewis & Clark Graduate School, my professional goals are inextricably linked to the study of relationships. However, my belief in the power of connection is not just a career path; it is the foundational philosophy that shapes how I view humanity and how I intend to impact the world. I operate from a core belief that most people possess fundamentally good intentions. Conflict rarely stems from inherent malice; instead, it is usually the product of unresolved personal wounds or simple, painful misunderstandings. Every individual functions as their own unique ecosystem, shaped by a distinct personal culture, history, and internal language. Because of this, entering into a relationship—whether romantic, familial, or professional—is inherently risky. It requires vulnerability, and with vulnerability comes the potential for friction. But it is precisely within this risk that the opportunity for profound transformation exists. My commitment to this transformation is deeply rooted in my work at Outside In, a transitional housing program in Portland for youth who have been outcasted by their families. Many of the young people I support identify as queer and/or BIPOC, navigating the heavy realities of systemic oppression alongside personal abandonment. In this environment, I see firsthand that when individuals are trapped in survival mode, it is nearly impossible to process deep-seated wounds while they are actively bleeding. By helping to rebuild a strong, affirming foundation and an unconditional support system, we allow these youth to finally step out of survival mode. Providing a healthy, stable system is not just about housing; it is the crucial first step to fostering a healthy community. On a deeply personal level, my understanding of a healthy system has been shaped and nurtured by my partner of five years. Our relationship has been my greatest teacher in what sustainable love looks like. While we still find ourselves arguing over silly things, our history has taught us that we are almost always on the same page—we are simply speaking in different terms. Through him, I have learned the invaluable art of giving second chances, taking necessary space to calm down, and returning to the table with a clearer mind. We have built a partnership where we constantly push each other to do better, but crucially, we leave room for each other to fail. This reciprocal grace has strengthened our communication tenfold. My long-term professional goal is to help couples and families decode their internal languages so they can find their way back to one another. Too often, people get trapped in cycles of defensiveness because they are speaking different emotional dialects. In my future practice, I want to champion two vital tools: patience and curiosity. When we replace judgment with curiosity, a defense mechanism transforms into a conversation, and when we bring patience to a misunderstanding, we allow space for the real issue to surface. Beyond the therapy room, relationships play a crucial role in my personal goals for community building. I believe that healing a single relationship has a ripple effect. When a couple learns to communicate, or a family heals a generational rift, they bring that newfound stability into their schools, workplaces, and neighborhoods. Through fostering healthier interpersonal connections, we can learn to grow community together and open our collective knowledge to entirely new perspectives. Relationships are the laboratory where we learn to tolerate difference, practice empathy, and expand our worldview. This scholarship will directly support my journey at Lewis & Clark as I develop the clinical rigor necessary to match my passion. My ultimate objective is to be a facilitator of connection in a world that often feels increasingly fractured. By investment in my education, you are investing in a future therapist dedicated to helping people see the good intentions in one another, turning risky connections into lifelong spaces of mutual growth and community.

For many, mental health is a topic of academic interest; for me, it has been the defining lens through which I view the world. As a graduate student in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy, mental health is not just a field of study—it is the foundation of my personal history and my professional mission. My journey began in a home shaped by the complexities of service-related PTSD and was further molded by my own experiences with trauma. These challenges taught me early on that mental health is not a luxury or a secondary concern; it is the essential framework upon which a functional, fulfilling life is built. As a student, prioritizing mental health is the act of recognizing that we cannot effectively serve others unless we have done the work to understand and heal ourselves. One of the most profound realizations I have gained through my studies and lived experience is the way trauma manifests physically. We often discuss mental health as something existing solely "in the head," but trauma truly resides in the body. When a person experiences prolonged stress or acute trauma, the nervous system can become "stuck" in a state of hyperarousal. This physiological toll can lead to chronic health issues, disrupted sleep, and a constant sense of unease. Understanding this somatic connection is vital; it transforms our view of "behavioral issues" into "survival responses." As a student, this knowledge drives my passion for holistic care—care that acknowledges a person’s physical sensations as much as their spoken thoughts. I bring this understanding into my advocacy work at Outside In, a non-profit dedicated to supporting homeless youth with marginalized identities, including those who are LGBTQ+ and BIPOC. In this community, the intersection of trauma, systemic oppression, and housing instability creates a heavy burden for young people. My advocacy centers on the implementation of "unconditional positive regard"—a concept pioneered by Carl Rogers that involves supporting a person regardless of what they say or do. For youth who have been consistently rejected by society, their families, or institutions, being met with unwavering acceptance is a radical and healing experience. By practicing unconditional positive regard, I help create a sanctuary where these individuals can begin to regulate their nervous systems and regain confidence in their own abilities. Advocacy, in this context, isn't always about grand gestures; it is about the consistent, quiet work of holding space for someone’s humanity. It is about advocating for their right to be seen as more than their circumstances. I strive to show these youth that their physical and emotional responses to trauma are valid, and that they deserve safety and support without needing to "earn" it. In my home, my school, and my work, I advocate for a world where we treat mental health with the same urgency as physical health. By focusing on how trauma affects the body and utilizing the power of unconditional acceptance, I aim to help those in marginalized communities break the cycles of trauma that have held them back. Mental health is important to me because I have seen it be the difference between merely surviving and truly thriving. As I move forward in my career, I hope to become a voice for those whose bodies are still carrying the weight of the world, ensuring they have the resources and the regard they need to heal.

The experience of service-related PTSD is rarely a solitary one; it is a weight carried by entire families, rippling through households and shaping the lives of those within them. Growing up as the daughter of a disabled military veteran, I witnessed firsthand how the echoes of conflict can disrupt the sanctuary of a home. For years, my father’s PTSD colored our daily lives, creating a landscape of tension and misunderstanding. This instability was compounded by my own experiences with PTSD from external factors, which initially made our relationship incredibly fragile. However, it was through the crucible of these shared struggles (and our eventual journey through Dialectical Behavior Therapy) that I discovered the profound resilience of the human spirit and my own calling to serve others. My experiences have taught me that PTSD is not a deficit of character, but a profound physiological and emotional response to the unthinkable. During my time in high school, my father and I participated in group DBT together. This was the definitive turning point in our lives. It taught us how to navigate our individual triggers, communicate our needs without shame, and bridge the emotional gap that trauma had carved between us. Today, our bond is closer than ever. This transformation taught me that healing is not only possible but can lead to a deeper level of intimacy and understanding than existed before the trauma took root. Furthermore, my family’s journey opened my eyes to a sobering reality: our society frequently fails to care for those it sends into harm's way. Watching my father forced to fight a relentless, exhausting bureaucratic battle for his VA benefits revealed a systemic lack of support that borders on negligence. It became clear to me that we often treat veterans as symbols rather than people, forgetting that they and their families are just as human, and just as deserving of community-based compassion, as anyone else. We must support our troops not just with rhetoric, but with the resources necessary to reintegrate into their lives and communities. Driven by these insights, I am currently pursuing a graduate degree in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy. My goal is to work directly with families who find themselves in the same unstable, painful situations I once navigated. I hope to use my personal history and professional training to act as a bridge. Veterans currently suffering from PTSD often feel fundamentally isolated, but I can offer them the unique empathy of someone who has seen the "war at home" and successfully navigated the long road to the other side. I intend to advocate for a systemic approach to veteran care—one that recognizes that when a service member returns, the entire family unit requires support to heal. By facilitating the same kind of evidence-based interventions that saved my relationship with my father, I want to help veterans reclaim their roles as partners and parents. We owe our troops more than just gratitude; we owe them a community that fights for their mental health as fiercely as they fought for our safety. Through my career in therapy, I will dedicate myself to ensuring that no veteran or their family has to fight the battle for recovery alone.

Human behavior has always fascinated me. I’ve always found it interesting how social rules and trends would fluctuate so rapidly, and yet everyone understood the flow—Everyone, that is, but myself. I am an observer. I watch how others interact, how arguments grow from misunderstandings, and how each individual shows their love in unique ways. I realized that despite everyone speaking the same language, each person seemed to have their own “micro language” — a personal set of meaning and interpretations attached to certain words or behaviors, shaped by their individual experiences. I first encountered this idea during a group Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) class with my father. At the time, our relationship was strained; arguments escalated, misunderstandings lingered, and my brother had recently cut ties with him. At first, I didn’t believe this class would help— I had nearly lost all hope for healing our relationship. However, every week my father would show up, fully engaged, willing to share his own flaws with the group and, most importantly, with me. Then one day, after our final session, he said the words I’d never thought I’d hear: “I’m sorry.” That moment marked the first time I truly believed that connections could heal through understanding, communication, and vulnerability. Today, I have moved to Washington to be closer to him, and we are able to navigate through conflicts in healthier, clearer ways. This experience inspired me to help other families going through rocky situations. I hope to inspire others to learn to listen without judgement or reaction and to speak with love. My greatest critical feedback came around this time from my private therapist, and was closely related to my issues with my father along with my social anxiety in high school. I was told that I feared a judgement that came not from others, but from myself. My friends and family never said the words “I hate you,” and yet I assumed it based on small behaviors or phrases. My own micro language was tainted with doubts of my self-worth, and words from others were filtered through these fears. Going to DBT with my father helped clean my own language, and whenever I have doubts I am now able to ask for clarifications without fear of judgement. I hope to bring others this confidence through my therapy in the future as well. It was only a couple years later that I realized I am autistic, and maybe these micro languages were not visible to the average face. Nonetheless, My passion for learning how people communicate has grown, and I hope to foster space for differences in language, culture, and perspective. I strive to find environments that will expose me to a full spectrum of diversity within race, gender, sexuality, and neurotype. It is my belief that immersing oneself in diverse cultural perspectives is vital for fostering empathy and understanding. Through my MFT degree at Lewis & Clark, I hope to continue this adventure and one day help other family systems navigate their complex emotions, leading to healthier discussions and outward expressions of love.

I still remember the crushing weight of loneliness that engulfed me before my first suicide attempt in high school. At the time, I struggled to maintain friendships due to my undiagnosed autism, while intensifying family conflict added to the burden. With so many stressors converging, it felt logical that since I was the common denominator, I was therefore the problem. It wasn’t until after I had taken the medication that I snapped back into lucidity, and the faces of everyone who loved me rushed into my mind at once. I went downstairs with tears in my eyes and a heavy sense of shame to tell my mother what I had done. While much of that night is a blur, I know my heart rate dropped dangerously low at the hospital. One of my clearest memories from that time is waking up to see my family by my bedside, including my parents (who deeply resented one another) standing side by side with shared worry in their eyes. Through intensive family therapy, I began to realize just how complex life truly is. My parents, whom I had only ever seen through the lens of their roles, became individuals with their own histories. I learned to decouple the harm I had experienced from my own identity, finally understanding the nuance of life’s struggles. I realized that being in the center of these stressors was a matter of perspective, not a matter of fault; being the observer does not make one the cause. This realization sparked a curiosity about other family systems and the ways generational trauma is passed down. I felt a calling to help others navigate their pain, just as my therapists helped us, and I deeply want other children caught in the middle of family conflict to understand that they are not the problem. Creating space for nuance allows for the forgiveness and patience necessary to heal with those we love. Driven by this purpose, I volunteered at my local suicide hotline for a year and have since dedicated my career to supporting family systems through a practice of unconditional positive regard. I am currently pursuing my degree in Marriage, Couples, and Family Therapy at Lewis & Clark College, focusing on a systemic lens to help families break cycles of pain and find collective healing. With my privilege as a white, cishet presenting individual, I recognize that I occupy a complex intersection of both privilege and marginalization as an openly queer and autistic person with invisible disabilities. This unique vantage point allows me to bridge different experiences of systemic injustice, ensuring I use my relative power to create inclusive spaces and advocate systemically for the dignity and empowerment of other underrepresented communities.