Hello, I would like to tell you the story of how my life changed meeting one special young girl. She has inspired my journey to become an educator and given me the great privilage of seeing a glimpse of the world through her eyes. In the summer of 2020 I was searching for a summer nannying position. I have worked in childcare since my early high school days. I loved working with young children and had the orginal goal of becoming a pediatric nurse. I had started my college education at a small technical school to work to getting my RN license, after a few months I quickly learned nursing was not for me. After this discovery I was a bit lost, not sure what I wanted to pursue. During my job search I get a message about a summer position working with a family with two young girls A. and L. I quickly get in contact with the family and meet them at their home. During this meeting I met the little girl that changed my life forever. 9 year old A. A small little girl clung to the sides of her parents, afraid to meet new people, on the autism spectrum. A sweet shy little girl that I began caring for that summer. A. opened my eyes to what it was like to be around a child on the spectrum. She gave me a glimpse into her world and showed me how autism effects her life. Now after four years I have seen as an outsider how she experiences emotions, what her happy is like, what makes her excited, how she gets frustrated and how much she makes me laugh. I have also gotten a glimpse into the lives of her parents and sister. There are unique challenges that every person in this family faces having a sibling/child on the spectrum. I have also been exposed to the broken public school system here in South Carolina and how little the SPED program gets. I was able to experience as a nanny the negative effects of a toxic classroom on a child on the spectrum. I have witnessed first hand how important it is to teach children with disabilities with a loving heart. This has pushed me further into the desire to become a SPED teacher. I want to create that safe loving environment for students to learn and be free to be who they are. A did not have that for one school year which resulted in extreme behavioral issues and a hatred for school. Thankfully over the past few years she has regained her love of school and looks forward to learning with her peers. I watched as As parents advocated for her to receive the services she so crucially needed. She has a wonderful support system at the school thanks to the advocacy of her parents and caregivers. Meeting A and her family has been an inspiration to me. Seeing this young girl flourish and turn into such a bright young woman despite the challenges that come with being on the spectrum. I can only hope to inspire my future students to embrace their differences and help them flourish such as A. has. In relation to the provided quote I believe that the best way to inspire students to gain a sense of his or her own presence is through meeting them where they are and celebrating them for all their unique characteristics. I think giving them a space to be who they truly are allows them to understand who they are as people. Allowing students to be uniquely them lets them connect with the heightened sense of emotions they may have. Guiding them through big emotions helps them gain an understanding of what they are feeling and how to handle it. I want to provide student with the tools necessary to live a happy well rounded life no matter what their disability is.

Hello, Mental illness effects so much of the worlds population and impacts the day to day life of many people who struggle with mental health or have loved ones that struggle. I personally have been greatly impacted by mental illness with my own personal struggles with Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I have also faced great adversity as my father greatly struggled with mental health diagnosis leading to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as drugs and alcohol. As a child I struggled with intrusive and obsessive thought that left me paralyzed with fear. I feared irrational things and would cope by controlling the cleanliness of the environment around me. If things were not in the exact place I needed them to be then I would break down in tears. I struggled heavily to control the environment I lived in as a child with a parent in active addiction commonly does. My father was a good addict, looking at him from a distance one would never know the battles he and we faced at home. He was the life of the party, the jokester, our friends and family loved him. No one really knew the struggles that came with being his child. From the outside he looked like a great dad, hard working, loved his family and his home. The looming cloud of mental illness and addiction could not be spotted on the outside.... until it could. Addiction greatly impacted our finical abilities and left us barely scraping by. Our house was old and slowly falling apart once piece at a time and with any extra money going to drugs and alcohol money was less and less available. Eventually, the fun and outgoing personalty faded the deeper he got into addiction. It was like living with a ghost of a parent, he was there, but he really wasn't. Divorce would be threatened by my mother over and over, he would promise to clean up his act, get some help, go to therapy... and he would for a month and then addiction would come back roaring its ugly head. Meanwhile my struggles with anxiety and OCD continued, over and over I would analyze situations that happened, convince myself of events that were not true and struggle to present my life a perfect and happy. Don't get me wrong there were happy times and I am grateful for those memories but my childhood is scarred by the impacts of mental health. Finally, when I was in high school my mom asked for a divorce to protect myself and her from any more damage. During this period he threaten to end his own life, forced my childhood home into foreclosure, and was in denial of his actions leading up to this point. Thankfully when I was at my lowest point mental, I came to my mom and asked her to take me to therapy. This dramatically helped my anxiety, OCD and at the time situational depression. I was able to identify my mental health struggles and find way to help cope when I feel they are heightened. Unfortunately to protect peace and my mental wellbeing, I do not have contact with my father. I am hyper aware of the impacts mental illness had on my life and how addiction changed my life. I still have my struggles with my mental health and have found coping strategies to help quiet my mind. I am now able to share my story with others who struggle with mental illness and those affected by parental addiction.