My whole life I didn’t think that anyone would ever understand. Everything I’ve been through has always been hard for me to talk about and even harder for me to comprehend. It wasn’t until I watched the movie Beautiful Boy that I felt seen. My parents got divorced when I was a kid and my mom remarried what felt like immediately, but the biggest problem I’ve faced in my life is my relationship with my oldest brother Sam. I can’t say that it’s an obstacle that I’ve overcome, because I haven’t overcome it and I won’t for a while, if ever. He’s more like the recurring problem that comes back around every few months. The only person who has ever understood what growing up in my house was like is my other brother named Jaden, who is two years older than me. Since my parent's divorce, Sam has constantly been in and out of different mental institutions and rehabilitation centers, but nothing has ever really helped. In fact, things have progressively gotten worse. He tries to fill the hole inside himself with substances and poor decisions. Sam has a history of mental health issues ranging from ADHD to schizoaffective disorder, a less serious version of schizophrenia. He also has horrible substance abuse tendencies with alcohol and hard drugs. Since I was a kid, there have always been people arguing in my house. Whether it was my parents or my brothers, there never really seemed to be more than a few days of peace at a time. I’ve always told my closest friends throughout my life when things would get bad, and they’d always help me feel a little bit safer. I’ve always had a great support system through my friends, but I never really felt understood. Obviously it wasn’t my friend's fault for not understanding, I just always wished that I could find someone who would get it. The movie Beautiful Boy changed my life. In that movie, the main character, Nic, is addicted to various drugs and alcohol. Nic had two younger siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister. Just like Jaden and I. There’s a scene from the movie that I will never forget, Nic’s siblings were crying because they couldn’t find their allowance money because Nic had taken it to buy drugs. I had to pause the movie to think. “Finally,” I thought, something I had been through was accurately portrayed in film. A story so similar to mine was so well received by its audience, and that was the most validated I have ever felt. Not only was Timothee Chalamet’s performance scarily accurate, it was inspiring. It was beautiful. To me, this movie was the hardest thing for me to watch and relive but I will never forget it. I felt the overwhelming emotion of being deeply understood for the first time in my life. It was so accurate that I don’t know if I’ll be able to rewatch it for a while. I want to create art to not only heal myself but maybe help someone else out there with what they are going through. I believe that everything we experience is a lesson and that there is something to be learned from every moment of life. Whether you learn to love where there is a lack of it or learn to love due to an abundance of it, I think that you can always make the best of every situation. Maybe one day I’ll find the courage to publicly tell my own story. Until then, Thank you for your consideration.