I sat in my tub, with my shower pouring down on me, my "self-empowering" music blaring convincing myself to not take the selfish route. Do not read that sentence and think the poor thing, must have had terrible parents, life or any other form of terrible youth you could come up with. I had quite remarkable parents, and although I come from a low-income family I never went without nor at the time did I realize I came from a low-income family. I had a great group of friends growing up as well. I do suffer from anxiety and had a very low moment that at the time felt I had to wear a mask and cover my pain ultimately leading to the moment I made into a statement I used to start this paper. I led a life of very unusual circumstances, where most of my life I had to lie to protect my family. I could not ever truly be honest to the people surrounding me and all the time being preached how it was horrible to lie. I led a life where I had to be almost an entire chess game ahead of the ones who knew me, my first time I can remember doing this was at the tender age of four. I recall at five telling a bent fact to explain away something happening in my household and being sick to my stomach about lying to my friends. Most of the people in my life, even as an adult, do not realize all I went through to appear to be normal. Oddly enough, as I went through the most anxiety-riddled life I could imagine; my friends came to me to be boosted up, to figure out their best route to take, while I did all I could to keep up my grade point average, bust my ass to get on all-state teams, and keep a strong smile not only on my face but seen through my eyes. I would sit in my room and cry myself to sleep, only after crying in my shower, because there I would not be heard as easily so as not to make my family feel bad about my feelings. I never wanted to be a burden, because that is how mental health issues seemed to be was a burden. I felt that way NOT because my mother made me feel that way, no I felt that way because that was the light mental health was painted in at school, in the community, on social media and so on. If mental health was not being looked down on, it was being mocked or just sloughed away as a you just need a better hobby situation. My mother used any and all resources she could find to try and assist me. She recognized her own anxiety and depression within me and tried her very best to make life as easy and breezy as a cover girl ad. She reached out to family, friends, school, community, library, internet, Pinterest, and in my rural area there just was nothing available for me. We even ended up in screaming matches over my mental health as she felt I was too stubborn to deal with it (in hindsight in a way she was right) and I felt like she was not listening to me say I had it handled and to stop bothering me about it. In the event she did find something that made sense, I always felt the ones around me friend or foe, were in a larger need of help and I could muddle along with myself, and would not accept the help. Looking back on this I feel like these moments are where I solidified the need to become the help I so desperately needed as a child. This feeling, in large came from the lack true assistance that was there for us, leaving me feeling more anxious and led to my depression. Once you start down that slope, it continues (sorry for the cliche term) to become more and more slippy. This feeling came from a place of self-loathing, a product of reaching out as a child only to be told more or less to suck it up that people had it so much worse than I did, this came from a person in an administrative position. I should have been protected, I should have been assisted, I should have been heard, but my area did not have the money nor resources for any of that to occur. At a young age, I decided I would become a part of the solution, I decided I wanted to go to school to become a Child Clinical Psychologist, and so I did. Straight out of high school, I started at Southern Illinois University's bachelor's program. Once, I got into my classes, I realized my story was very similar to my fellow students, or someone very close to them. I was astonished to find out how many people around me had a friend, loved one, or classmate who has succeeded in the taking of their own lives and even worse most of them had no real place to receive help. I came to the realization the issues I found in my youth was so much larger and needed to be taken care of quickly as possible. Never did I imagine it was this massive of an issue, especially since very recently Mental Health has become almost a social media trend. Our field needs more. More students, more faculty, more resources, more recognition just to name a few. I decided I would take up this mantle and be a part of the reason others never had to feel the way I did and so very many others. I pushed myself to the brink of "insanity" completing my bachelor's degree in three years, to come to another horrifying fact; not only does our youth have very few options when it comes to the needs of their mental health, but we as students attempting to get into graduate programs have limited spaces due to the lack of faculty in our field. This is a vicious cycle being created, fewer spots means fewer graduates meaning fewer people to help our youth and round and round we go. I sit here in my living room writing a mediocre essay because being a dyslexic in a low-income school I did not receive proper resources nor assistance to be a phenomenal writer, but that is an entirely different essay, but I sit here nonetheless. I sit here attempting to "WOW" you to the brink of naming me the recipient to be awarded this and many other scholarships I am applying for. I will not be self-loathing here, I am trying to end that cycle. My name is Kaitlyn Meadow Galadriel Lewis, and I suffer from anxiety and depression. I battle daily to get through life the very best way I can, and my goal is to be someone our Nation's youth will be able to depend upon to ease their struggle. I want their mental health issue to be able to be controlled and/or maintained with such ease they no longer have the need to come and see me. I want for my patients to be proud of their life's journey, and for them to come to a scholarship application such as this and have a sense of ease writing it out and showing their positive journey with their mental health. I want them to wake in the morning with a face of empowerment instead of dried tears. Mental health is not a disability, it is just a different journey. I want to be one that assists the world in seeing mental health in a different light. I want to be a part of the big picture not just one that looks at it and says it is broken. One day I hope to be in your position, one where I can be handing out dreams to those who have walked in my shoes, I just hope that the number of applicants I come in contact with is a much smaller number due to the fact that I have assisted somehow to make the world of mental health a little bit easier of one. I hope my prompt for the future applicants does not refer to the nation's mental health as a crisis. I leave you with something I read: “Peer support has really changed. Young people aren’t as quiet about whether they go to therapy, take medicine, or if they’re having difficulty,” observed Harold Koplewicz, founding president and medical director of the Child Mind Institute, who spoke on The McKinsey Podcast with Coe. “They share that information. Knowing how their peers have overcome struggles can be very helpful.” This is the kind of thing I want my future self to be quoted on. I want our world to be a healthier place.

Hey you...yes, YOU!!! Do you ever just feel like you are spinning, spinning, spinning like a hamster on a wheel? If you said no, congratulations, you are my goal; if yes then you have my condolences and besides those, know that I feel your pain and if you would like a bump off my oxygen I do not share nasal cannulas, lol. Money sucks! If I could have bartered my way through life I would but at last I cannot. Hello, my name is Kaitlyn Meadow Galadriel Lewis, a student in the Chicago School of Professional Psychology Master's program. I finished my Bachelor's at Southern Illinois University in three years and went straight into my master's program all while working full time as a teller at a bank, and before that working "part-time" with full-time hours sometimes with a second job. I am winded just typing it all out. These above facts do not a hero make. I'm not the first woman to do this and I most definitely will not be the last one. I'm not looking for a standing ovation, my pat on my own back was what was most important to me anything else is icing on my cake. In my family, they would object to all that I just said. My mother, a stay-at-home mom, and my dad a Vietnam vet 100% disabled retired from the US Army neither ever attending college, nor their parents would tell anyone who would listen that I worked miracles with this accomplishment. Being a first-generation college student, coming from not only a low-income family but an even lower-income school district means a lot to them, and don't get me wrong it means a lot to me as well, but even more, it means a lot to my future self and future family. I recently had to take a student loan out to pay for my master's program and it rocked me to my very foundation, to be quite honest I cried for days over it, but I will not let money be the reason I am not able to reach my dream. This dream includes my acceptance into a doctoral program as well, so there is even more money I will need. I have a great life story, one they could make a lifetime movie out of; but I do not want that to be my legacy I want to go on to assist our Nation's youth with their mental health needs, I want to assist them in building a better foundation for themselves, I want to lead them onto a path where I actually become obsolete to them and they can live their lives along with handling their mental health. I am not the best essay writer, believe you me it is a struggle in graduate school papers are everything, but I will be one of the best listeners our Nation's youth will have in their corner one day; I am asking for some help along the way. You will read many a brilliant paper, from many a brilliant woman. I am not saying I deserve it more than them, or that they may not deserve it more than myself, I am saying that an investment in me will not be wasted. I will not allow my life to be a product of the oppressive one I grew up within, I will not allow my future to be one I do not excel in, for this, I am asking that you take your chance, this chance on me. Thank you for your time. Until we meet again, Kaity