When I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, I felt joy. I had an answer. There must be a solution. I was naive and young, only 19. Within two years I had exhausted every pharmaceutical option and was taking every supplement I thought might help. I was constantly exhausted and felt as if I'd never get my life back. I was miserable. Fast forward to 2010. I am 25, freshly transplanted from the east coast to the Sonoran Desert in Tucson. I met a friend through a now-defunct support group who invited me to a saltwater oasis in the desert. It was in this saltwater pool, heated close to body temperature, that I first felt true relief from pain and exhaustion. I could simply exist in this marvelous space, listen to the gentle waterfall and enjoy the feeling of not knowing where my skin ended and where the water began. It was in this space that I met another friend, a friend who would help see me through some tough days. During my days at the pool, I discovered new resources and made friends. I quickly realized there weren't any Fibromyalgia support groups in my area that met regularly and I decided to fix that. Using a small cafe near the University of Arizona, I held my first support group meeting. It couldn't have gone better. All three of us decided to do it again. We discussed how just getting out of the house to socialize made us all feel a bit better. This became the recurring theme of my support group- less awareness of pain through social distraction. The early days of my support group were hard and long, with careful planning and networking guiding me and the group. I emphasized using the group to grow your own support network for bad days, and people did. Soon, I was seeing conversations between small groups of members lifting each other up and encouraging each other, sharing home remedies, and reminding each other that some things require a doctor, not the internet. The group has offered events such as "Exercising Safely with Fibromyalgia," movie nights at a local theater, picnics in the park, outings to state parks for picnics and gentle hikes, family-friendly bowling (with adaptional equipment), many lunches together, and "Medical Cannabis 101" and "Medical Cannabis 202." When the Medical Cannabis seminars were developed, many of our members were discussing using medical cannabis in lieu of opioids. These conversations were happening in public and I didn't want anyone to think that the group was doing anything illegal or immoral. So, I educated myself on Medical Cannabis and developed the initial presentation. Over the course of 3 years, we offered these seminars 4-5 times and I saw no fewer than 13 women decrease or eliminate their dependency on opioids, with their doctor's supervision, and replace those successfully with medical cannabis. All of these women seemed happier for it. For those women and many others in different situations, their lives were changed for the better because of the information they found in a support group. I'll take that legacy. Over the years, the group has grown to over 300 members. Today, the group meets primarily virtually because of the pandemic. Our Facebook page is active and we have a daily chat. Even though I am a thousand miles away from Arizona now, I still manage and lead the group. I have always found it to be fulfilling work that makes me feel uplifted instead of depressed, fulfilled instead of lacking in some way, and competent when my body makes me feel helpless.

COVID-19 is the biggest problem facing the world right now. One way we can work on this problem is to listen to epidemiologists and mask up, social distance, vaccinate, wash hands frequently and stay at home as much as possible with the obvious exemption for essential workers, including EMS workers, who are currently deemed “non-essential” in most of the United States. We can implement financial or judicial penalties for people who spread mis-information intentionally and implement stricter quarantine rules for people who refuse vaccination out of general principle, bad information, or that the general safety of vaccines due to the speed of production and distribution because they are so used to long, drawn out production schedules due to underfunding of public healthcare and research. We could implement harsher penalties for refusing to wear a mask or quarantine. We could finally join every other industrialized nation with a national health care program, eliminating the need for special healthcare systems like Medicare, Medicaid, and tricare. We could make vaccine exemptions harder to get. I have survived GBS, have an autoimmune disorder, and I was able to be vaccinated safely. We are not living in Plandemic. We are watching natural selection in action as COVID- and vaccine- deniers die from this now largely preventable disease. Most of humanity has used their intelligence and technological advantage to outwit this new virus. Eventually humanity will triumph over COVID, and then, we must tackle Climate change.

The most helpful piece of financial advice I’ve ever received was to have multiple sources of income and to save at least three months’ worth of expenses in case you ever have to live off of it.

After the birth of my daughter, I had horrific post-partum depression. I had to return to work six weeks after giving birth, and only had a small window each evening to spend time with my precious new baby. Being away from my daughter made me wish for death, all while balancing a busy special education teaching job with violent students and supervising 17 para-professional student aides. The following year, I was able to stay at home. I needed six months with my daughter to relieve my depression. I can still remember when it lifted- we were in Fiona’s bedroom, sleepy 14-month-old in my arms, sitting on my yoga ball singing a lullaby. In an instant, the darkness and heaviness that had been dragging me down for more than a year lifted and disappeared. Colors were more vibrant. Light was brighter. It was easier to breathe. My daughter was even more precious than I’d been able to see or appreciate. I leaned my head against her cheek on my shoulder and breathed in deeply, my heart melting inside me at the joy of my baby’s birth all over again. I felt more relaxed than I had since getting pregnant. At that time, I had to center my life around my daughter to meet my own needs in surviving PPD. Jessie -1, PPD-0. My daughter is now 5, and I have decided to change careers due to the stress of teaching. After I graduate, I hope to find a job assisting teachers, professors, or professional development educators develop their online courses. Until then, I will work as a private tutor to fund my education. My husband and I are finally ready to start trying for baby #2, which means that I will welcome baby #2 while I’m in grad school. I anticipate that I will likely have to face PPD again since I have clinical depression. I will definitely be at home with baby #2, which should help shorten PPD if I develop it a second time. I miss those happy nesting days and hope I can find time in the next year to make baby quilts, both for my own children and to donate to local children’s hospitals and long-term disabled children’s care facilities. My biggest concern with going back to school is not having enough time with my family due to work and school schedules combined. The more I’ll need to work, the less time I’ll have for my family. My family is the center of my world and for me, it’s the greatest gift God has given me. Winning this scholarship would mean more time with my daughter, reduced stress during my next pregnancy, and would give me more time with baby #2. This pregnancy will be different from my first because I was recently diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder. Pregnancy can cause autoimmune diseases to go into remission, so this pregnancy will make me objectively healthier and happier even after birth.

I grew up clinically depressed and constantly anxious in an abusive household. I started counting down to college, when I could escape my family when I was in grade school. Eventually, I made it out and graduated with my Bachelors degree in 2008. After years of therapy and a move in 2017 that took me far away from all my blood relations, I began to experience memories that I couldn’t identify as my own, but could not deny as my own experiences. This was the beginning of the resolution of dissociative amnesia, which I’d had since 1989. Though I had been clueless to my own condition, my family knew all along that if they scared me enough, my amnesia would kick in to protect me from trauma I couldn’t process. In 2019, I finally found a trauma therapist familiar with my condition; I was quickly diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and C-PTSD. I have spent the pandemic learning about my split ego, the result of trauma at a young age, as well as coming to terms with the severe abuse I survived and finally finding appropriate health care. I have learned that it’s common for survivors of childhood abuse to have autoimmune disorders from the stress in their lives. While DID is not very disabling, PTSD is. I have joined support groups for PTSD and I am now able to have candid conversations with my healthcare providers. I have finally found treatments for some of the chronic pain I’ve suffered for decades. I am now able to identify when a provider is discriminating against me because of my mental health conditions, which plagued me during my twenties. I have led a chronic pain support group since 2011 and plan to share what I’ve learned about stress and trauma with my group, as any chronic health condition can, in and of itself, be traumatic. I am still developing a presentation on trauma and mental health for this group but have already shared several resources, such as Bessel van der Kolk’s book, “The Body Keeps the Score,” and mental health hotlines.

My ultimate educational goal is to earn a PhD in Education to provide a higher quality education to K-12 students. Public education is vital to producing future generations of citizens who can think logically and rationally for the public good. Public schools also serve as free childcare for working parents; public schools are an essential part of public infrastructure. We can use this infrastructure to produce more highly educated citizens who will help correct past societal mistakes. Those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it. I want to help develop curriculum and lessons that produce educated students who pursue freedom, justice, and equality for all after they have exited school. I see this positively impacting the world by creating a society that is more fair for everyone, especially Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC), who are still feeling the effects of Jim Crow laws and segregation generations later. I hope to eventually work at a state or federal level to create educational opportunities to reduce the incidence of poverty between BIPOC generations as one part of the necessary efforts to make life for more equitable overall for our society. I will start work on my M.Ed this fall, focusing on Educational Technology. I hope to learn how to make educational technology available to all students across all socioeconomic strata as well as making digital lessons more accessible to students with disabilities or who are from lower socioeconomic levels. I am familiar with Assistive Technology as a former Special Education teacher but would like to learn more and make that a bigger part of my job. The more education I have, the easier it should be to help lift others out of poverty by providing a fair education to all students. Last year, we saw a significant gap in students’ home access to computers and internet that matched socioeconomic strata. Closing this gap means that all students have a more equitable start to school. Removing those barriers is necessary work. Some internet providers stepped up with basic internet service packages at low or no cost to families who could not afford internet access at home. Many schools were able to provide chrome books to students for use at home, but some schools lacked the funding for a computer for every teacher and students. Some districts provide computers for all and others do not. I hope to learn more and work to close these gaps in all districts.