I was told I wouldn’t live past 14. “You’ll die without a lung transplant,” the doctors said. And even if I got one, they warned, I might not survive the table. So, I prepared to die. I didn’t plan for college. I didn’t plan for adulthood. I wrote in my diary about all the things I wanted to do before not after. Because “after” wasn’t supposed to come. But somehow, it did. I survived. And suddenly, I was standing at a finish line I never thought I’d reach: high school graduation. While other students were busy imagining their futures, I had to start from zero. I realized I hadn’t planned to live and now I had no idea how to live. That was the first adversity I had to face: not the disease, but the aftermath. My illness Juvenile Dermatomyositis nearly took my life, but it also taught me everything about what it means to have one. I’d spent months in isolation because a common cold could kill me. I watched my skin grow weak, my lungs collapse, and my body betray me. But I also watched my will strengthen. I read obsessively. I took online classes from my hospital bed. I started researching the criminal justice system because it was the one thing, besides survival, that made me feel something other than fear. My mom and I would watch NCIS and Criminal Minds during infusions. Those stories made me curious. What makes people do what they do? How does trauma turn into violence or strength? I began to realize that surviving wasn’t the whole story. Understanding what to do with that survival was. I didn’t overcome my adversity by beating illness I overcame it by refusing to let it define the rest of my life. I started asking questions about justice, about systems, and about people who are also forgotten or written off just like I had been. That’s why I’m now studying criminal justice and psychology. Because I want to help others who were never expected to survive or never expected to matter. Being part of the disabled community made me see the world differently. I saw how bias, dismissal, and cruelty weren’t just things that happened in hospitals they happen in courtrooms, in prisons, and on the streets. I experienced firsthand what it means to be unheard, to be judged before you’re even seen. That changed me. It made me more aware, more vocal, and more determined. If someone asked me what advice I’d give to someone facing what I did, I’d say this: your pain is real, but it isn’t all you are. Don’t let survival be your only goal. Let it be your beginning. Let it push you into purpose. You are not broken because you struggled you are powerful because you kept going.

One of the most significant issues facing the criminal justice system today is how it continues to punish pain instead of asking why it exists. Mental health is still treated as an afterthought in courtrooms and prisons, especially for people of color, and especially for Black youth. The system moves too quickly to convict, to incarcerate, to punish without ever stopping to ask how trauma, environment, or untreated mental illness shaped a person’s choices. Instead of being centers for rehabilitation and reform, prisons have come to be viewed primarily as places for control, incapacitation, and punishment. My personal experience taught me early how bias shapes outcomes. I was nine when my body started attacking itself. My joints stopped working, my skin darkened with rashes, my lungs burned with every breath. For months, doctors dismissed me. They said it was eczema. Obesity. Anxiety. Hormones. Anything but what it really was: Juvenile Dermatomyositis, a rare autoimmune disease already attacking my lungs. Part of the delay? They said my skin was “too dark” to show the classic signs. That experience taught me what it’s like to scream without sound, to be overlooked by people with power because you don’t fit their expectations. That same bias plays out in courtrooms and prisons every day. Research shows that Black men have an increased likelihood of receiving jail time compared to white men and women who commit similar crimes. Minority defendants are less likely to receive bail, which becomes the first step toward long-term incarceration. Our jails are disproportionately filled with people of color not because they commit more crimes, but because the system was never built to treat them fairly. Juveniles, too, are caught in this cycle. Although progress has been made to remove minors from adult facilities, about 4,200 children are still held in adult jails every day. These aren’t always hardened criminals. Sometimes they’re runaways. Sometimes they’re truants. Sometimes they’re just kids who slipped through cracks no one bothered to fill. These children, disproportionately Black and brown, are thrown into environments that punish instead of rehabilitate. My own experiences made me painfully aware of how broken these systems are. I’ve lived mental illness: depression, anxiety, OCD. I’ve lived chronic illness: chemotherapy, prednisone, chest ports. I’ve lived poverty: overnight shifts at Waffle House to pay for medication, school, groceries. I’ve fought through Medicaid hearings where I had to rehearse how to sound palatable enough for a judge to approve basic care. I’ve watched my mother fight for her life with congestive heart failure, cancer, and permanent nerve damage, while systems treated us like cases, not people. Those experiences shaped my beliefs. I don’t believe in resilience as a virtue for those society fails. I believe in compassion, in advocacy, in questioning systems that erase people who don’t look, sound, or behave the way they’re expected to. That’s why I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology not because it was my childhood dream, but because my life showed me exactly where change is needed. My goal is to work in forensic psychology, to understand the “why” behind behavior and advocate for reforms in how mental health intersects with the law. I’m passionate about prison reform not just therapy programs, but improving the environments themselves. Overcrowding, lack of access to medical care, untreated trauma these conditions worsen mental health and make rehabilitation impossible. Prisons become warehouses for people society has decided are easier to forget than to help. Through my lived experience, I’ve already started this work. I’ve helped people navigate disability hearings, taught them how to speak in ways judges and lawyers recognize. I’ve found resources for people who didn’t know where to turn, answered messages from strangers saying, “I thought I was the only one.” These aren’t traditional internships, but they’ve prepared me to walk into this field with firsthand knowledge of how systems work and how they fail. Justice isn’t just about laws. It’s about visibility. It’s about making sure no one else has to survive what I did just to be heard. My experience taught me that pain doesn’t make you weak. It makes you more determined to fight for those who are still waiting to be seen. That’s why I’m here. Not just to study systems, but to change them.

I never liked telling my story. I spent years refusing to talk about my illness, my mental health, or how close I came to dying. I turned down opportunities like Make-A-Wish because I didn’t want to be remembered as “the sick girl.” I wrote lists in a diary of things I wanted to do before I died because I’d already accepted the doctors’ words: if I didn’t get a lung transplant, I wouldn’t live past fourteen. Even if I did, they said I’d probably die on the table. I had no plans for college, no plan to live at all. But then I didn’t die. I finished high school. I’m in college now. And somewhere along the way, I realized I couldn’t keep shrinking myself to survive. My mental health wasn’t just a footnote to my illness; it was a battle of its own. Depression, anxiety, OCD they weren’t symptoms; they were my reality. My brain told me I had to control everything to keep the people I loved alive. That if I wasn’t perfect, someone would die. Maybe me. Maybe my mom. I scratched my skin until it bled, not because it itched, but because pain felt better than fear. That shaped everything about how I see the world. It taught me that survival isn’t about pushing through silently it’s about unlearning the shame tied to vulnerability. My mental health struggles taught me how systems fail people like me: Black, female, disabled, poor. Systems don’t want to hear about grief or mental illness unless it fits into a neat recovery narrative. Mine didn’t. My recovery looked like ER visits and psych wards and late-night panic attacks where I couldn’t breathe even when I wasn’t on oxygen. It looked like surviving, even when I didn’t want to. These experiences shaped my beliefs. I don’t believe in resilience as a buzzword anymore. I believe in compassion. I believe that mental health isn’t just about coping it’s about having access to care, being heard, being seen. It’s about breaking the cycle of shame that tells people to hide their pain. My relationships changed too. I stopped pretending I was okay to make others comfortable. I stopped carrying everyone else’s expectations like they were oxygen tanks strapped to my back. I built connections based on honesty, not performance. And my career aspirations? They’re shaped by all of this. I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology not because it was my childhood dream, but because my life taught me how systems erase people who don’t look or sound the way they’re expected to. Especially Black girls. Especially the misunderstood, the misdiagnosed, the misjudged. I want to advocate for those forgotten by the system. I want to sit in rooms where policies are written and ask, “Who are you forgetting?” My experience with mental health taught me that justice isn’t just about laws it’s about compassion, visibility, and advocacy. It’s about changing systems so others don’t have to survive what I did just to be heard. My mental health isn’t a weakness I overcame. It’s the reason I understand why change is necessary. I didn’t plan to survive. But now that I’m here, I’m determined to make sure my survival becomes something bigger a voice for others who are still waiting to be seen

I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology because I want to fight for the misunderstood, the misdiagnosed, and the people who don’t fit textbook cases — especially Black youth, especially girls. My illness didn’t just change my body; it broke me open and taught me this: healing and justice are twins. Survival is sacred. I don’t give up. Not just for me, but for the girl I was, and the girl out there still waiting for answers. I was nine, half alive, propped up in a hospital bed with rough cotton blankets pooling at my knees. My lungs were shutting down, and the doctor’s words “Lung transplant” rang in my head. Oxygen tubes up my nose, wires wrapped around me, trembling swollen joints, and a body that didn’t feel like mine anymore. I used to scream and cry when the nurses brought out needles. Eventually, I stopped reacting. I’d put on my headphones, crank the volume high enough to drown out everything, let my body go stiff, and disappear. The pain hurt less if I wasn’t really there. No one saw the months before that. Months where my pain and symptoms were dismissed. I was told it was eczema. Arthritis. Obesity. Anxiety. Everything but the truth: Juvenile Dermatomyositis. A rare, aggressive autoimmune disease that had already begun destroying my lungs while adults in white coats said I was dramatic, hormonal. Part of it was ignorance. Part of it was bias. My skin was “too dark” to show the classic signs. And so, I became invisible. That stayed with me — not the diagnosis, not the needles, but the silence of people who didn’t believe me until I was dying. My mother didn’t look sick, but she was: cancer, fibromyalgia, heart failure. She died on the operating table twice, lost her hair, her strength, her memory. But she still showed up every day. I stopped praying somewhere between realizing I might die and being evaluated for a lung transplant. First, I begged God to fix me. Then I wondered what I’d done wrong. Finally, I gave up. Healing didn’t come next. Grief did. Grief for the girl who used to run barefoot across California fields, ride horses too fast, and thought the worst pain was a scraped knee. That girl was gone. I was smaller, quieter, angrier now. Every doctor visit left me with a bandage on my arm, new prescriptions, and a doctor’s note. Every step hurt. Eating hurt. Breathing hurt. Existing hurt. Recovery was slow. My body attacked itself. I picked at my skin until it bled not because it itched, but because pain felt better than fear. People called me brave. I smiled, but in the mirror, I called myself weak for wanting it to end. Somewhere in the aftermath, something shifted. I joined my mother in telling our story. Another little Black girl, still innocent, overlooked — her mother watched our Facebook Live. Her mother listened. That child was diagnosed early. She got to live. My illness changed my body, but it reshaped my purpose. Survival means nothing if you can’t pass it forward.

I used to pray every night, first for healing. When the healing never came, it turned into asking for answers. “Why me?” “What did I do wrong?” “Can I just have a different body?” When nothing answered, I stopped asking. I stopped speaking up. I stopped asking for help. Until something shifted.What saved me wasn’t faith. It was community. My uncle stepped in, sending money for my infusions. My grandparents moved all the furniture out of their dining room to build us a bedroom. My grandma, a nurse, took my vitals every few hours, made sure I ate, dragged me out of bed to walk, and prayed over me even when I didn’t want to hear it. My grandpa came to my infusions so I wouldn’t have to see my mother cry. My mom’s ex-husband offered to go with us to Toronto for my last trip, just to make sure we were safe. The brothers and sisters at our Kingdom Hall sent flowers, cards, and sometimes themselves even when I was too sick to care if anyone came. My aunts shipped medical masks across the country when COVID raged. My mom’s Facebook friends left comments under every picture, even when my face was puffed from prednisone, telling me I looked beautiful and brave and strong. That was my community. I made a promise to myself: If I survived, I would give back. I’d speak for the girl I used to be, the one who didn’t feel seen. I got involved in advocacy work, helped my mom run Facebook Lives teaching people how rare diseases show up on Black and Brown skin. One of her friends, another mother, recognized the signs in her daughter. That little girl was diagnosed early, treated in time, and got to keep living. That’s what community does: it passes survival forward. I didn’t tutor kids or lead a volunteer project. But I became a quiet lifeline to others online, sharing my story, reminding people they weren’t alone. I turned pain into language, isolation into visibility. That’s what community is. It’s refusing to look away. It’s the soft hands that hold you through the worst days and nights of your life. It’s the whisper of a prayer you stopped believing in but someone else keeps saying anyway. Today, I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology. I want to fight for the misdiagnosed, the unheard, the “too complicated” cases like mine. I want to be the person who listens. Because I know what it’s like to scream without sound. I know what it’s like to be seen too late. My illness changed my body. But it reshaped something deeper: my purpose. It taught me that justice isn’t just policy it’s compassion. It’s storytelling. It’s survival as resistance.

They told me I wouldn’t live past fourteen. Thats where the fight in me started. It’s one thing to grow up sick. It’s an entirely different thing to grow up sick, Black, and ignored by a system thats meant to protect you. I never asked to become an advocate. I never wanted to become an advocate and I don't consider myself an advocate, but survival doesn't leave you much of a choice. I remember in 5th grade I had an assignment. If you were a superhero what would your superpower be? I was never a shy kid but I liked to observe, maybe I could prank somebody or save the day and still be back in time for snack time so i chose invisibility. Between medical gaslighting, financial strain, and navigating a rare autoimmune disease most doctors have never heard of, I quickly learned how dangerous invisibility in this world can be. That’s why I chose criminal justice and psychology. I didn’t want to just understand people but to know how to protect the ones who keep slipping through the cracks. The people who are criminalized instead of given an option of counseling. Labeled as “dangerous” instead of listened to. I want to work in forensic psychology, profiling patterns that get ignored and helping restructure how the system responds to circumstances like neurodivergence and trauma especially in Black and unrepresented communities. Right now, I advocate in small but real ways. I’ve helped people navigate Medicaid and therapy when they didn’t even know where to start. I’ve helped people with their disability cases learning what to say and what not to say so they get the best chance. I use my story to educate others. I recently applied to a crisis text hotline and start training in a few weeks. Once every three months I go live with my mom to raise awareness and raise donations for Cure JM Foundation, which led to an early diagnosis for a child with autism who might’ve been dismissed like I was. I also do academic research about mental illness, race, and media representation because I know how powerful perception really is. Change isn’t always about protest it’s about persistence. After college, I plan on being the person in the courtroom or the psych ward or the juvenile facility who actually sees the human being the number and behind the file. I’ll be the one making sure nobody slips between the cracks and no one has to fight like I did just to be believed. I want to do work that actually saves lives.

“Breathe, baby. I’m right here.” That’s what my mother whispered one night, her voice just above the hum of the oxygen machine beside my hospital bed. I was nine, struggling to breathe, my joints too stiff to move, tubes lining my nose. My body felt like a stranger to me heavy, failing, unfamiliar. The nurses thought it was asthma. The doctors blamed eczema, anxiety, weight. But it wasn’t any of those things. It was Juvenile Dermatomyositis, a rare autoimmune disease that had already begun attacking my lungs by the time anyone named it. By then, I had already disappeared inside myself. I stopped reacting to the needles. I stopped crying. I’d put on my headphones and drift away, music turned up loud enough to drown out my fear and the tears I was too exhausted to shed. My mother never left my side. Even while fighting her own cancer, she covered her pain with concealer and a smile, sleeping upright in the hospital chair, waking every few hours to make sure I was still breathing. She held my hand through panic attacks, through blood draws, through everything. We didn’t talk about being brave. We just… survived. But survival didn’t just come from her. My grandparents turned their dining room into a bedroom for us when we couldn’t afford anything else. My grandmother, a retired nurse, made sure I ate, checked my vitals, and forced me to walk even when I didn’t want to. My grandfather sat with me through my infusions not saying much, just being there, steady. Friends, facebook strangers, and family sent flowers, masks, handwritten notes, meals and prayers. Even when I didn’t feel loved, I was being held up by dozens of invisible threads. Before that, I was just a girl in California riding horses, running track, staying out until sunset with grass stains on my pants. I didn’t think much about illness, or fragility, or mortality. I thought the worst thing that could happen was scraping my knee or being told I couldn’t go outside to play. But life shifted fast. After an abusive relationship and the crash of my health, I ended up in Georgia, scared, angry, and confused. I felt like I was losing everything my body, my spirit, my voice. For a while, I stopped speaking altogether. I scratched my skin until I bled just to feel something. I was later diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and PTSD. I cycled through medications and therapy. I was hospitalized for my mental health. It was dark. Unrelenting. And yet… somewhere in that silence, something small survived. It started with a Facebook Live. My mom and I shared what my illness looked like on Black skin. A mother watching recognized the signs in her daughter. She pushed for tests. Her daughter was diagnosed early and treated in time. That changed everything for me. If my story could make even one person feel less invisible then maybe it mattered. Maybe I did, too. So I kept talking. Kept writing. Kept showing up, even when it was hard. I didn’t start a nonprofit. I didn’t lead a campaign. But I stitched myself back together thread by thread and offered those threads to others. A message. A memory. A reminder: You’re not alone. That’s how I try to live now with intention. Quiet, but consistent. Because even the smallest acts showing up, listening, telling the truth can shape someone’s future. Just like they did mine.

“The first time I dissociated, I was nine years old.” I remember the hospital room more than my own bedroom that year cold air, the beep of machines, swollen joints, and an oxygen machine whirring beside my bed. I was diagnosed with Juvenile Dermatomyositis, a rare autoimmune disease that attacked my lungs and muscles before anyone took my pain seriously. By then, it wasn’t just my body that was deteriorating it was my mind, my soul, my faith. I used to scream when they brought out the needles. But eventually, I stopped. I learned it wouldn’t stop anything just prolonged the inevitable. I’d put my headphones in, turn up the volume, and disappear. It wasn’t about music it was about escape. One day I had enough. Of the pain, of the guilt, of the hurt, worry, my brain, the way my skin looked, the way I looked. I went to the bathroom and dragged a razor blade across my wrist. It was too dull to make a cut. I threw the blade across the room and cried on the cold bathroom tile because I didn’t look, feel, or sound like me anymore. That’s what no one tells you about trauma: it makes you vanish piece by piece. Psychologists later diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and PTSD. And honestly? That list felt like confirmation of what I already knew something inside me had been unraveling for years. First it was therapy. Then medication. Then, when I couldn’t keep pretending I was okay, a stay in a psychiatric unit. I was surrounded by fluorescent lights and other kids who flinched at loud noises and carried invisible wounds. For once, I didn’t feel alone. Just broken in a way I could finally name. But mental illness doesn’t exist in a vacuum. My mother who was battling cancer while taking care of me slept in my hospital room just to make sure I was still breathing. My grandmother, a nurse, took my vitals every few hours at home. My grandfather sat with me during infusions so I wouldn’t have to see my mother cry. Family, community, even strangers online told me I was brave, even when I didn’t feel human. I didn’t just survive because of pills or therapy I survived because someone kept saying, “You matter,” until I believed it. Now, I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology. Because I’ve lived through what it feels like to be misdiagnosed, dismissed, and punished for being in pain. And I know firsthand how mental illness—especially in Black girls is too often labeled as “attitude,” “manipulative,” or “too much.” I want to change that. I want to fight for the kids who can’t articulate what hurts, and the ones who’ve been silenced by shame. My story isn’t polished. It’s messy. But it’s real. I didn’t heal in a straight line I stumbled through it, clinging to scraps of hope. Mental illness shaped me, but it didn’t end me. It made me an advocate, a survivor, and someone who understands that visibility is the first step to justice. And I’ll never let anyone feel invisible again.

“Breathe, baby. I’m right here.” My mother’s voice was soft but steady the kind of calm that cracks at the edges. I was nine, curled in a hospital bed with oxygen tubes in my nose and joints so swollen I could barely move. At first, I screamed and cried every time they brought out the needle. Eventually, I stopped reacting. I’d slip on headphones, crank the volume high enough to drown out the beeping monitors, and disappear somewhere quieter. She never left. Even while battling her own cancer, she slept in bed beside me, waking up to check that I was still breathing, while I slept. She always looked beautiful, normal, never sick just a little too quiet, a little too tired, with makeup hiding the dark circles under her eyes and her sunken cheeks. As a Jehovah’s Witness, I prayed constantly. At first, I prayed for healing. Then I begged for answers. “What did I do wrong? Why did God make me sick? Why couldn’t I have another body?” When all I got in return was silence, I stopped asking. What saved me wasn’t faith. It was community and it’s also the social issue I fight for now: the neglect and dismissal of illness in Black and Brown bodies. My autoimmune disease was misdiagnosed as eczema, arthritis, anxiety. It wasn’t until the damage was nearly permanent that someone looked deeper. That delay caused by bias nearly killed me. My grandparents moved furniture to make us a bedroom. My grandma took my vitals, fed me, prayed even when I didn’t want to hear it. My grandpa came to infusions so I wouldn’t see my mom cry. My uncle sent money for treatment. My mom’s Facebook friends told me I was beautiful even when my face was swollen from prednisone. That was my first experience of grassroots care: people becoming the system that failed me. Now, I use my story to address that failure. My mom and I went live on Facebook to educate others on what Juvenile Dermatomyositis looks like in kids of color. One mother watching quietly recognized her daughter’s symptoms. That girl was diagnosed early, got treatment, and lived. That’s what change looks like: survival passed forward. I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology to fight for BIPOC women and youth who are overlooked, misdiagnosed, or criminalized instead of treated. I want to advocate at the intersection of mental health, race, and justice. I want to be the voice in the room saying, “Here’s who you forgot.” Sharing my story helps others feel less alone. That’s how I fight this issue not just in courtrooms one day, but in living rooms and timelines right now. I know what it’s like to feel invisible. And I’m working every day to make sure no one else does.

I used to scratch my skin until it bled not because I itched, but because I wanted to feel something sharper than fear. That fear lived under everything: the panic that my mom would die if I left the room, the obsessive need for control, the constant pressure to make everything perfect or else. I wasn’t afraid of death because it felt inevitable. Illness ran through my family like wildfire. I expected it. Prepared for it. And when I was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease at nine, I met it face-to-face. But the physical illness wasn’t what broke me. It was the silence. The weight of pretending I was okay, of watching my mother fight cancer while caring for me when I couldn’t walk across a room without gasping for air. It was the belief that if I could just be perfect quiet, helpful, unbothered I wouldn’t make things worse. I didn’t realize I was unraveling. I just knew I couldn’t breathe, even when I wasn’t on oxygen. I began isolating. I stopped finding joy in anything (anhedonia, they called it). Crowds triggered full-body panic attacks. My thoughts were still logical, clean, goal-directed but inside, I was being crushed by anxiety, OCD rituals, and the exhausting hyper-vigilance of trying to keep everyone alive through force of will alone. I needed to know every outcome. I needed control. Because if I didn’t hold it all together, someone would die. Maybe me. Maybe her. Eventually, the weight became too heavy. I was hospitalized in a psychiatric unit. And it wasn’t soft. It was fluorescent lights, questions that made me cry, scratchy sheets, and group therapy with people who had scars like mine but in places you couldn’t always see. It was in that sterile, locked ward that I learned pain could be survived. It didn’t have to be hidden or perfect. It just had to be faced. That experience didn’t just change me. It built the foundation for who I am now and who I plan to be. I’m studying Criminal Justice and Psychology, with the goal of becoming a criminal defense attorney and forensic psychology professional, because I know how easy it is to be misunderstood. To be misdiagnosed. To be punished for pain that no one sees. I want to advocate for BIPOC women and youth who are criminalized instead of treated, ignored instead of heard. I want to sit in rooms where policies are written and say, “Here’s who you forgot.” My mental health journey has made me deeply empathetic but not in a soft, abstract way. I know how to sit with discomfort. I know what it’s like to feel unfixable. I’ve seen how systems treat pain like a threat when it comes from the wrong body. And I believe that advocacy is not just legal work it’s emotional labor, too. My relationships have changed because I no longer hide how I feel to make others comfortable. My beliefs have changed because I now understand healing as a rebellion in a world that tells you to suppress, to endure, to smile through the bleeding. And my career goals are laser-focused on change because if I can make even one girl like me feel less alone, less ashamed, and more seen, then all the pain I survived becomes something powerful. I’m still healing. But I’ve turned my pain into purpose and I’m not afraid to use it.

The first time I heard the words “lung transplant,” I was nine years old and already running out of time. My autoimmune disease had been misdiagnosed for months. Doctors told me I had eczema. Then arthritis. Then anxiety. Even obesity. What they didn’t consider was that I had Juvenile Dermatomyositis, a rare disease that shows up differently on Black skin. No one recognized the symptoms not because they weren’t there, but because medical systems aren’t trained to see them in girls who look like me. By the time I was properly diagnosed, the disease had begun attacking my lungs. I was told I had 3–5 years to live without a transplant. I was only nine. While I faced that reality, my mother fighting both breast and ovarian cancer was taking care of me, making dinner, managing appointments, and holding everything together. That experience didn’t just shape my childhood it shaped my understanding of how systems time and time again fail Black women. Studies show that Black women in the U.S. are nearly three times more likely to be misdiagnosed than white women, often with serious or life-threatening consequences. That statistic isn’t just numbers to me it’s personal. I lived it. And I’m not the only one. That’s why I’m pursuing a degree in Criminal Justice with a minor in Psychology to turn my lived experience into action. I plan to become a criminal defense attorney with a specialization in forensic psychology, using the legal system not just to defend but to dismantle the patterns that keep Black and Brown women trapped in cycles of neglect, punishment, and invisibility. Whether it’s in a courtroom or a clinic, I want to advocate for women who’ve been mislabeled, misunderstood, or silenced by the very systems that claim to protect them. But I’m not waiting for a law degree to start. My mother and I hosted a Facebook Live where we educated others on what JDM looks like in children of color. Because of that one video, a young Black girl my mom’s friend’s daughter was able to get diagnosed early. She got the treatment I never had the chance to get in time. That’s the moment I understood: my voice could save lives. And that community online and in real life became the foundation of my purpose. I plan to use my education to create community workshops on legal rights and mental health, specifically for BIPOC women and girls. I want to build programs that offer both advocacy and healing places where women can understand the systems they’re navigating and learn how to protect themselves within them. I will partner with public defenders, trauma-informed therapists, and grassroots organizers to push for policy changes that center compassion over punishment, particularly for women criminalized for surviving trauma. I stayed quiet for years because I was ashamed of what I went through. But I realize now that silence is what lets systems keep failing us. I refuse to be quiet anymore. I will speak for myself, and for every girl who was told she was “too sensitive,” “too complicated,” or “just anxious” when she was actually dying. Through law, psychology, and deep-rooted community engagement, I will fight for a future where BIPOC women are seen, heard, believed and finally, protected.

I never expected a Facebook Live to change someone’s life but it did. For years, I was silent. I didn’t talk about my disease, not because I didn’t care, but because I was embarrassed that I wasn’t “normal.” I didn’t want to be known as the sick girl, the one who couldn’t breathe right or who needed help walking across a room. But behind that silence was a diagnosis that nearly took my life and eventually helped save someone else’s. At nine years old, I was diagnosed with Juvenile Dermatomyositis (JDM), a rare autoimmune disease that attacks the muscles and organs. Because of my dark skin, the rash that signals the disease went unnoticed for months. By the time doctors figured it out, my lungs were failing. I was told I had 3 to 5 years to live without a lung transplant and would need to move to Texas just to qualify for one. While I was losing my strength, my mother was fighting breast and ovarian cancer and still somehow taking care of me while taking care of herself. What made it harder was knowing the doctors didn’t fully know what to do with me. My case was so rare and so advanced that I became, in many ways, a medical experiment. But I didn’t mind. If using my body and my treatment plan could help build a standard of care for kids in Georgia who looked like me, then I could live with the needles, the tests, and the fear. Still, I carried survivor’s guilt, especially after learning a young Black boy with the same condition died just months before my diagnosis. For a long time, I kept that pain to myself. But eventually, my mom and I decided to share our story. We went live on Facebook and taught people what JDM looks like in children of color how it presents differently, what to ask for, and how to advocate for proper testing. One of the people who saw it was my mom’s old college friend. Her daughter had similar symptoms, and because of our video, she knew exactly what to push for. Her daughter got diagnosed early and treated in time. That moment changed everything for me. It showed me that my voice could be a lifeline, that sharing what I once felt ashamed of could literally save lives. For the first time, I understood that being part of a community means giving what you’ve lived through so that someone else might suffer less. That one act of honesty one live video created a ripple effect of awareness, empathy, and access. Being part of that community gave me something I hadn’t felt in years: hope. Hope that kids who look like me will no longer go undiagnosed. Hope that being different doesn’t mean being invisible. Hope that speaking up can lead to real, lasting change. Now, as a Criminal Justice and Psychology major, I carry those lessons with me. I want to work in forensic psychology and law not just to fight legal battles, but to stand up for people who feel unseen, unheard, or misunderstood, just like I once did. I stayed silent for years because I was ashamed. Now I speak because I know that silence can cost lives and community can save them.

I was nine years old when the world stopped feeling safe. I remember sitting on the cold edge of an exam table, my mother beside me, while doctors tossed around terms no child should ever hear, ones I could barely understand “autoimmune,” “degeneration,” “lung failure.” My joints ached constantly, I felt weak, I had dropped half my body weight in two months. My muscles weakened. But what no one saw, or rather, what no one wanted to see was that my dark skin was hiding the rash that should have led to a diagnosis of Dermatomyositis months earlier. By the time someone finally looked past my skin tone, the disease had progressed. It had already started attacking my organs, especially my lungs. I was told I had 3–5 years to live without a lung transplant, or I’d be dependent on oxygen for the rest of my life. To even qualify for a transplant, I would have to uproot my life, leave behind my family and everything familiar, and move across the country to Texas. As a child, that reality broke something in me. My mom tried to shield me from the details, but I wanted to know everything. I needed something I could control. I studied the surgery, the risks, the odds of surviving. I knew my ribs would be broken open. I knew I could die on that table. But I also knew I couldn’t let fear be louder than the possibility of living. What made everything harder was that the doctors had no idea what to do with me. My case was so rare and so advanced that I became, in many ways, an experiment. I didn’t mind being the test case if it meant it could help another child one day but it haunted me that a young Black boy who had the disease before me didn’t survive. He looked like me. He had the same symptoms. And he died just months before my diagnosis. That survivor’s guilt hit me harder than the illness ever could. Why did I get to live when he didn’t? At the same time, my mother was quietly fighting her own war, battling breast and ovarian cancer. While she was sick and dying, she was also cooking for me, helping me shower, holding my oxygen tubes, making sure we slept in the same bed so she could make sure I hadn’t stopped breathing in my sleep, and sleeping next to me in hospital rooms. I was old enough to know what that meant, and I was old enough to feel the weight of it. I was old enough to know that she couldn’t work because she was sitting beside me while I cried over butterfly needles being pushed into my veins for chemotherapy. I felt like a burden watching her break her body just to keep mine barely functioning. I tried to be strong for her and for my grandparents. I helped around the house, cooked when I could, but no matter what I did, it felt like it was never enough. That’s when the depression set in. Then the anxiety. Then the silence. Eventually, I landed in a psychiatric ward. Not because I gave up but because I needed help surviving the part no one could see. I had to face what I’d been pushing down: the guilt, the anger, the confusion of growing up too fast in a world that expected me to smile through it. The weight was too heavy to carry alone. I spent weeks there, breaking open emotionally the way I had already been broken physically. I confronted guilt, fear, helplessness and came out of it more aware, more grounded, and more determined than to carry on my family legacy of being a survivor. Now, I’m in college studying Criminal Justice and Psychology, with the goal of becoming a criminal defense attorney and working in forensic psychology. I want to stand up for people who have been overlooked, mistreated, or misunderstood just like I was. Mental health shaped everything about how I see the world: it made me more patient, more analytical, and far more compassionate. I don’t just understand pain I recognize it in others, even when they can’t name it yet. I still have hard days where I pray for a different body for a different brain. But I’m here. I’m healing. I’m building a life that honors the version of me who almost didn’t make it and the kids like me who didn’t get the same chance.

Life with chronic illnesses such as dermatomyositis and interstitial lung disease has not only tested my physical strength but has also taken a profound toll on my mental health. Over the years, I have been diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, both of which have deeply influenced my perspective and resilience. For much of my adolescence, the weight of navigating a rare and debilitating condition, coupled with the physical pain and emotional isolation it caused, left me feeling like I was fighting an invisible battle alone. At one point, the darkness felt insurmountable, and I found myself close to giving up. I had a rare disease that was misdiagnosed for years because of racial stigmas. The constant stream of medical appointments, treatments, and uncertainty about my future at one point doctors told me that I would only make it to 12 because of misdiagnosis. I felt discouraged and a burden to many family that had to deal with my medical bills. This led to a breaking point where thoughts of suicide seemed like the only escape from the pain. Yet, in that darkest moment, I was reminded of the love and support from my mother, who herself is a four-time cancer survivor. Her resilience inspired me to seek help and open up about my struggles. Through therapy and connecting with mental health professionals, I began to reframe my mindset. I learned the importance of acknowledging my feelings instead of bottling them up and discovered tools to manage my anxiety and depression. Writing became a therapeutic outlet for me—a way to process my emotions and find clarity amidst the chaos. I also leaned into my education, using my experiences to fuel my passion for criminal justice and advocating for others who feel unseen and unheard. Mental health challenges have taught me that it’s okay to not be okay and that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. These lessons have profoundly shaped who I am today. They’ve given me a deep sense of empathy for others facing similar battles and have fueled my commitment to making a positive impact in the world. Whether through community outreach or my future work as an attorney, I aim to create spaces where people feel supported, understood, and empowered to overcome their struggles. My journey with mental health has been far from easy, but it has been transformative. It has strengthened my resolve to not only persevere but to ensure that others know they are never alone in their fight.

Life has taught me that resilience isn’t just about survival—it’s about finding purpose in adversity and using it to grow and make a difference and transforming those roadblocks into a foundation for purpose and change. Growing up with dermatomyositis, a rare autoimmune disease and Interstitial Lung disease both have challenged me not only physically but emotionally, I have navigated a life filled with uncertainty. At the same time starting at a very young age, I’ve witnessed my mother fight and overcome cancer four times, each battle showcasing her incredible strength and perseverance which has shaped me into the person I am today. These experiences have shaped me into someone who is not only determined but deeply empathetic, with a commitment to making a lasting impact on my community. Currently pursuing a degree in criminal justice with a minor in psychology at Georgia State University, I am driven by a passion to advocate for those who have been wronged or overlooked by the legal system. Watching crime shows and documentaries as a child sparked my interest in law and justice, but it was the real-life experiences of navigating healthcare and witnessing systemic inequities that cemented my desire to fight for fairness. My goal is to combine my education with my life experiences to become an attorney who ensures justice is accessible and fair to all, especially marginalized communities. My mother’s cancer journey and my own health challenges have taught me the value of compassion and advocacy. They have also instilled in me a sense of responsibility to give back. Whether through volunteer work or supporting others in need, I strive to embody the strength and resilience that have defined my family’s story. This scholarship would provide the financial stability needed to focus fully on my education while allowing me to dedicate more time to causes I care deeply about, like community reform and taking care of my health and family. I believe the Michelle Durant Scholarship would enable me to honor my mother’s legacy by continuing to fight for others, just as she has fought for me throughout my life. By helping me to achieve my dream of becoming an attorney, this opportunity would not only transform my future but also empower me to make a tangible difference in the lives of others. Together, we can create a ripple effect of hope, justice, and compassion that extends far beyond the courtroom.