I grew up between two households, one house being four hours away from the other. I spent my childhood years mostly on the road, driving between two places, often getting motion sick from the ride. Between this split lifestyle, I grew up mostly forgotten. I was the middle child of 9 kids, four older than me, four younger than me. My parents were always busy dealing with the older kids going to college or the younger ones who still needed help going to the bathroom. In addition to this, my father was abusive and neglectful as well as an alcoholic, and my mother was at work all the time struggling to put food on the table for her kids. Now, if you throw all of these ingredients into a pot and add in some siblings that were mean and only used the younger kids as bullying opportunities, you end up with a 7 year old with depression and severe anxiety. By the age of 13 I was suicidal and nothing more than a shell carrying some internal organs. I was asking questions no 13 year old should be asking, “why am I here?”, “what is the point?”, all while laying in my bed struggling to breathe. I struggled with a self harm addiction. My sophomore year in highschool I was at my lowest. I called my friends crying to them about how much it hurt to keep waking up each day. All I needed to hear was that everything was going to be okay. But my friends left the call. They hung up and told me they couldn’t be around me anymore. I do not know how I survived that night. Nevertheless, I woke up the next morning feeling like I was not in control of my body. But on June 11, 2018 my outlook on life changed. My cousin committed suicide that morning, I did not find out until a few days later. They never let me read the note she left behind, I never even got to say goodbye. I remember I was in shock. I had always believed that if anyone in my family were to commit suicide, it would have been me. That night I went, in tears, to my mother and told her about my problems and asked to go to a therapist. I became obsessed with trying to understand why she did it. I became determined to understand the functions of the human brain and where mental problems such as depression and anxiety come from. My dream is to study the brain and figure out where in the sequence of DNA is the mutated nucleotide and how I could fix it. I want to answer the questions younger me asked. People deserve to live happily. I owe it to my cousin and my younger self to help people who struggle with mental issues and find the cure. I do not consider myself to be 100% free from my mental disorders, but I wake up each day knowing there is a better future for me and that I can make a difference.

Have you ever wondered what causes people to get anxious in large crowds? Have you ever been curious about the reasons why a young child can’t stay focused for long periods of time? About 80% of the human brain is unexplored and my dream is to be able to look at the DNA sequences and the rate at which neurons are firing in order to understand what makes people who they are. I believe that people are more complex than what mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, adhd, and phobias show. I believe that there is a mutated sequence of DNA somewhere or a neuron that is firing at the wrong rate that is causing these abnormalities and my goal is to be the scientist that can find the problem and fix it. Medications can only go so far. Eventually, the human body will build up a tolerance and the dosage of the medication will have to be increased. To get rid of weeds, you don’t keep mowing them over; you have to pull them out by the root. The same goes for mental disorders. It would be better to find the root of the problem instead of prescribing medications to mow over the disorder for a short amount of time. I am ready to put on my gardening gloves and start looking for those roots. Releasing people from pharmacy bonds and allowing them to live normal lives without a daily medication is my call in life. My desire to find a cure for mental disorders started when I was in 7th grade when I was diagnosed with crippling depression. I remember waking up each morning wishing I hadn’t and trudging through each day feeling like the weight of the world was resting on my shoulders. At thirteen years old I was asking questions like, “will it ever get any better?”, “Why is this happening to me,” and “Why am I here?” As I grew older, depression and anxiety became more common amongst teenagers. I’ve watched people fall apart and tear themselves to pieces due to depression and I believe there is so much more to life than suffering from a mental disorder. I want to answer the questions no therapist had an answer to when I was younger. People deserve to live free from the constant cloud of darkness and worry and I am determined to figure out where that cloud is coming from and how to get rid of it permanently.

I grew up between two households, one house being four hours away from the other. I spent my childhood years mostly on the road, driving between two places, often getting motion sick from the ride. Between this split lifestyle, I grew up mostly forgotten. I was the middle child of 9 kids, four older than me, four younger than me. My parents were always busy dealing with the older kids going to college or the younger ones who still needed help going to the bathroom. In addition to this, my father was abusive and neglectful as well as an alcoholic, and my mother was at work all the time struggling to put food on the table for her kids. Now, if you throw all of these ingredients into a pot and add in some siblings that were mean and only used the younger kids as bullying opportunities, you end up with a 7 year old with depression and severe anxiety. By the age of 13 I was suicidal and nothing more than a shell carrying some internal organs. I was asking questions no 13 year old should be asking, “why am I here?”, “what is the point?”, all while laying in my bed struggling to breathe. I struggled with a self harm addiction. My sophomore year in highschool I was at my lowest. I called my friends crying to them about how much it hurt to keep waking up each day. All I needed to hear was that everything was going to be okay. But my friends left the call. They hung up and told me they couldn’t be around me anymore. I do not know how I survived that night. Nevertheless, I woke up the next morning feeling like I was not in control of my body. But on June 11, 2018 my outlook on life changed. My cousin committed suicide that morning, I did not find out until a few days later. They never let me read the note she left behind, I never even got to say goodbye. I remember I was in shock. I had always believed that if anyone in my family were to commit suicide, it would have been me. That night I went, in tears, to my mother and told her about my problems and asked to go to a therapist. I became obsessed with trying to understand why she did it. I became determined to understand the functions of the human brain and where mental problems such as depression and anxiety come from. My dream is to study the brain and figure out where in the sequence of DNA is the mutated nucleotide and how I could fix it. I want to answer the questions younger me asked. People deserve to live happily. I owe it to my cousin and my younger self to help people who struggle with mental issues and find the cure. I do not consider myself to be 100% free from my mental disorders, but I wake up each day knowing there is a better future for me and that I can make a difference.

I grew up between two households, one house being four hours away from the other. I spent my childhood years mostly on the road, driving between two places, often getting motion sick from the ride. Between this split lifestyle, I grew up mostly forgotten. I was the middle child of 9 kids, four older than me, four younger than me. My parents were always busy dealing with the older kids going to college or the younger ones who still needed help going to the bathroom. In addition to this, my father was abusive and neglectful as well as an alcoholic. Now, if you throw all of these ingredients into a pot and add in some bad sibling dynamics you end up with a 7 year old with depression and severe anxiety. By the age of 13 I was suicidal and nothing more than a shell carrying some internal organs. But on June 11, 2018 my outlook on life changed itself. My cousin committed suicide that morning, I didn’t find out until a few days later. They never let me read the note she left behind, I never even got to say goodbye. I became obsessed with trying to understand why she did it. I became determined to understand the functions of the human brain and where mental problems such as depression and anxiety come from. My dream is to study the brain and figure out where in the sequence of DNA is the mutated nucleotide and how I could fix it. People deserve to live happily. I owe it to my cousin and my younger self to help people who struggle with mental issues and find the cure. I don’t consider myself to be 100% free from my mental disorders, but I wake up each day knowing there is a better future for me and that I can make a difference.

The quote I live by is actually from a song. "Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly." I went though a really rough time mentally, to the point where I struggled with selfharm, but this quote reminded me that even if you're broken, you can rise up again and fly. It reminded me to get back up because broken bones can heal. Those lyrics made me pick myself back up and devote my live to trying to find solutions to the problems I once struggled with. I painted those words on my wall to remind myself everyday to keep trying.