My name is Kynlee Maxwell and I'm a senior at Dripping Springs High School. I plan to attend the University of Pittsburgh with a major in Psychology focused on sports and athletes mental health. I grew up playing competitive soccer for the majority of my life and even before high school I started to get really in my head with my performance in the sport. Growing up in a competitive environment with a low mental state was my biggest challenge as a kid, I always compared myself to other players and told myself I was never good enough and "I should just quit because the team was better off that way." Once high school started I began playing high school soccer and club which ultimately crushed my spirit, I started having breakdowns before games from the nerves and afterwards I only ever had negative thoughts that had grown to be worse than before with me thinking things like, "If I can't be good enough to play then why even live at all?" and "This is the only thing I have and Im starting to lose it." I really believed I had nothing else going for me in life and no goals to push me to keep going. After two years I realized this mentality wasn't healthy or normal in all athletes and the pressure was too much for me to bear so I chose to end my soccer career after Sophomore year. I thought that quitting would fix my issues. I thought. The following Junior year, I felt completely lost in who I was, I no longer had soccer and no career aspirations to look forward too. It felt like everyone around me had a plan, a dream college, career and a whole life after set up for them. I began to feel that familiar pressure again, I need to get my life in order, I need to have a plan and goals. I stressed myself out with school and held myself to extremely high standards when it came to my grades. After every "bad" grade, anything below an 85, I would tell myself, "you're so dumb, you have nothing." I would go to sleep thinking, "if theres anything out there, please just take me now." I would wake up and drive to school hoping a car would hit me. Eventually I got the help I needed, I started seeing a therapist and talking about the thoughts I was having. It took a while to open up because I felt to ashamed for even thinking of wanting to die when I had so many great things in my life. I had amazing supportive parents, a stable family income, vacations once a year, a great school and amazing friends, but all I saw was my weaknesses. After a while I got better, I saw the great things I have and do, my strengths as a person. Once I healed my mental wounds I knew I wouldn't let my thoughts get ahead of me. The biggest thing I learned from this experience is that everything is a small step and its not a straight line. I have bad days and I know how to heal myself from them, how to take care of myself to prevent that rabbit hole of thoughts. For the years to come I will remind myself of what I went through and inspire myself to continue my work in becoming a psychologist.