Mental health has been something that I have struggled with for years, and through experiencing it in my own life, it has given me the ability to be more understanding to those around me when they are experiencing challenges due to their own mental health. This has lead to better understanding of the people around me and trust between us in order to come up with solutions together. Mental health has been something that has surrounded me or affected me directly for many years. I was first introduced to the concept of mental health and mental illnesses in high school when I had a friend who struggled with depression. I did not understand it at this point in my life, mainly because I came from a family with a 'you're fine' mentality. It took me a while to come around to understanding what my friend was feeling, it was foreign to me and I did not know how to help. It was concerning seeing someone is such a dark place and not be able to help. I then took it upon myself to learn more about this field of psychology in order to be better for people in the future. I am very grateful that I took those steps back then to understand mental health more, because it would not only help others that I would come to know, but also would help myself later. My freshman year of college, I was told by my mom that my parents were getting a divorce. Since 50% of marriages nowadays end in divorce you would think that this was something that I knew about and would be okay with. I understood why and knew it was the best for everyone, but also I couldn't help but feel as though it was my fault or I could have done something more to prevent it. I then entered a very dark time in my life where I struggled emotionally. This brought along depression and anxiety that are still with me today, and make it difficult at times for me to get up and go to work. This experience and how far it has lingered is very eye-opening for me. From being something that I didn't understand to something that completely dictated my life, it was a shock to me to see how impactful mental health was on someone. It made me change my outlook on mental illnesses and made me more sensitive to others that were going through similar experiences as me, or completely different. I was able to empathize with them. Having this empathy enabled me to grow skills to not only help myself, but help others that were in these unfortunate circumstances. I was more open to listening to others who were struggling, and tried as best as I could to give them advice based on what worked for me. Regardless of what I told them, I always advocated for seeing a counselor or talking to their PCP about what they were feeling because the doctors and experts have more resources than me. Through being there for those around me, it strengthened trust between us and allowed for our friendship or relationship to have a better foundation than it did before. Through being able to help others as well, it made me realize how good it made me feel to be able to be a support for someone and made me realize that this was something that I wanted to incorporate into my professional life as well. I now am going to school to get a masters of clinical mental health counseling in order to help those who are struggling with mental health get better. Through this program I hope to learn more about how to help individuals with their mental health while retaining healthy boundaries so that I can still have balance in my own life. I am very grateful for all of my experiences thus far with mental health because if I did not have them I would not be where I am, and would not have made the relationships that I do now. I would also have not made the decisions that I have in life professionally, so I do not know where I would be at this point.

It was very hard to for me to complete my schooling assignments when I didn't even want to get up and start my day. While hours of work loomed over my head, I barely had the self-esteem to motivate myself to get up and get it done, and ended up rushing last minute to get assignments passed in. This heavily affected my grades my freshman year, and made the rest of my undergraduate career climbing back out of the hole I dug myself. Depression and anxiety were no stranger to me in high school, I had irrational thoughts and worries that dictated my actions. I was never great at school, I struggled to focus and was often struggling to stay organized. I was on a 504 plan up until 7th grade, where my parents decided that I did not need it any more. I think that this contributed a lot to my mental health. I put so much pressure on myself to get good grades but when I didn't, I turned my frustration inwards and blamed myself. It was not just my academics that my mental health affected. I have played Ice Hockey my entire life. I decided in high school that I wanted to play in college because I both enjoyed the sport and was skilled enough to play at a collegiate level. Although, my senior year I started doubting myself, and my mental health got so bad I almost quit the sport completely. I am so grateful that I did, because if I didn't I would not have had such a good undergraduate experience and I would not have met my fiancée. I had tried medications throughout high school and the beginning of college that I was told would help with my symptoms, but in many ways it made them worse. I would take my medication every day for a month, not see a difference in my mood and go off of them. This created withdrawal symptoms that made everything worse, and negatively affected how I presented myself to others. I finally tried again and stuck to it my sophomore year of college. I was encouraged to by my girlfriend, and I got on a new type of medication and started seeing a counselor. I don't think I could have done this successfully without her, because she was compassionate and understanding with me through this time. When I had a bad day, she would get me to take a walk or to do something to get my mind off of what it is I was worrying about. I was able to be vulnerable with her in a way I was never able to before. This made it easier for me to get better because I had support from someone who understood me. I then started prioritizing my mental health, because I realize how much it can affect in my life. To do this, I do meditations before bed, make sure I work out 2-3 times a week, and am more insightful with my emotions. I catch when I am getting into a dark space and work to regulate my emotions through coping strategies. Prioritizing my mental health, I am a 4.0 student in a graduate certificate program, and just got accepted into a masters program where I aim to help others prioritize their mental health. Though there is still a stigma around it, I do not look at mental health that way. I want to encourage everyone to be mindful of how they feel while also having compassion for themselves as they are on their own healing journey.

There are many experiences that I have had with mental illnesses, both personally and interpersonally. It was the experiences that I personally went through that helped me gain the knowledge and skills to help others around me, and guided me to the career that most suits my interests. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for many years. At the beginning, I didn't understand why I was more irritable than usual, or why some things didn't interest me as much. I gradually learned about mental health in high school, and had some friends who had worse mental health than me. I would guide these friends in the ways I knew how, talking to them about what was wrong and what I could do. I attempted many times in my high school career to understand the people around me, but the stigma against mental health made it hard to have deep conversations about important topics that needed to be discussed. once I graduated high school and was headed to college, I saw my own mental health declining, and so I needed to take time to myself and prioritize my mental health so I was in a better place to help others. The road to healing was not easy, there were many medications I went on for a month and then stopped immediately without gradually stopping them, and many therapists that I ghosted. These mental illnesses were extremely isolating, and I started understanding how my friends had felt in high school. I persisted though, trying again and again to show up for myself and those around me. In college, I finally started getting on the right medication, and seeing a counselor that I really enjoyed talking to, and challenged me to change my mindset and perspective. It was because of this that I got to a place where I understood my own mental health, as well as studying psychology in college to learn more about different mental illnesses and how to help those who have it. If I did not do this, I could not be there for people I would get to know later in life. Since college, I have interacted with a lot of people in my personal life, trying to encourage them to open the conversation of mental health and being okay for asking for help. I always give them reinforcement and try to give them options that they could try to better their mental health, and I get a great sense of reward from knowing that they are taking small steps towards a better future for themselves. I found through helping those close to me that it was something I saw myself making a career out of, and it motivated me to apply and enroll in a masters of clinical mental health counseling program. Here, I am going to be learning about effective counseling strategies to help individuals who suffer from mental illnesses, and will be able to see the difference I am making in my clients. Though the stigma of mental illnesses still exists over the majority of the population, I have seen the negative effects of them enough to know how important it is to set those presumptions aside. It is important to listen to the individual and create a safe space for them to be comfortable to talk honestly about what they are experiencing. It is unfortunate that not everyone thinks this way, because many lives could be changed drastically by one understanding person reaching out to someone in need. that is my goal for my career, to be there for those in need.

It's interesting to me how an emotion meant to protect us from danger somehow evolves in specific individuals to a relentless feeling of unease that can't be escaped. Maybe it is because we had been told to be safe rather than sorry, but too much precaution never lets us fight for ourselves, so we hide away in our safety and never let anything relatively daring near. Anxiety has kept me in a loop of perpetual fear, for now and the future. I stop myself from doing activities because I fear the worst and can't imagine the best working out. I trap myself from leaving where I am comfortable in fear that I won't belong somewhere new. Sometimes, I trap myself in my own body, unable to move because I am so on edge about my surroundings. If I was asked to go to a party I don't think I would go because I can think of at least three bad things that would happen there. The whole scenario would play out in my mind over and over until I would scare myself into thinking that was my reality. I am socially withdrawn because of my anxiety, and the only place I feel I can be outgoing is when I am playing Ice Hockey. Hockey is my outlet where I feel comfortable with myself and my own abilities, that it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. What I do is what I know I am capable of, and my anxiety has never affected me on the ice the same as it does in everyday life. I will be really outgoing during a game, but the minute a teammate tries to talk with me or invite me somewhere, my anxiety tells me they don't like me because of something I said or did, and I make an excuse not to go. People will tell me 'its all in your head', and yes, it is, that is the problem. The mind is very powerful and can create outlandish scenarios for us and make us believe it. Just as we can read and imagine a fictional place, we can create fictional scenarios that become reality, and that is a very hard chain to break. I can make up a scenario, and it is so real that it does not matter what others say to me to debunk it; I have already made it my reality. I have gotten better at understanding my anxiety and trying to control myself through grounding exercises and self-care. One of my ways to do self-care is through my schooling. When I learn about a subject, if I can get confident in what I am learning about enough to explain it to someone else, my anxiety dissipates because I am consciously aware of my abilities. It is objective that I know this subject. Pursuing a master's degree in mental health counseling is very important to me to be able to not only feel confident in my own abilities but help others become confident in theirs. Increased education gives me a sense of self-worth and confidence that I lose once anxiety has a hold of me. I am a very determined individual who does what she sets her mind to, and being able to complete a master's degree would give me the confidence and knowledge I need to help those who haven't found their confidence yet.