If you were to take a group of artists and ask them if they like the process of creating art, an overwhelming majority of them would give a resounding "NO!" as soon as the words leave your mouth. Creative block, physical limitations, and the monotony of practicing and improving are all reasons they would state. Now, if you were to ask them right after if they would ever stop creating art, that no would be even louder. In the world of AI, skills are barely appreciated in favor of typing in a few words and generating a soulless mess of pixels on a screen. But, any artist knows how important the process is compared to the final product. A gorgeous painting or a catchy song only happens after hours of work, of trial and error, of practice to get to the skill level required to make something so good. To let technology do all the work takes away from the joy of having a skill and letting yourself make something that is uniquely you, no matter how much you struggle doing it. As time has gone on, I've had to make art more and more slowly for my own sake. While I used to be able to start and complete a clean, fully colored, and finished piece (sometimes more than one!) in barely a day, I just no longer have the time to. I'm much busier with my academics as a senior than I was in middle school, my style is now much too complex to draw so quickly, and it physically hurts me to draw too much. However, this does not stop me from at least creating SOMETHING, even if it's not the fanciest thing in the world. Around a year and a half ago, I made an agreement with someone I knew to start a project on Twitter known as a "daily" account, where we picked a couple characters and would make and post a drawing of the two interacting in some way every day. While I was doing most of the work before, the other person has since left the project and left me to do all the posts myself. Because I've had to draw so much, even when I'm really not feeling like I can make anything at all, it's resulted in me developing worsening chronic pain in my drawing hand that flares up almost every time I draw or write anything at all. Despite my limitations and the pressure to always post, I still push through and it's taught me to be comfortable showing off things I make that aren't that perfect. Most days I'm tired at school from schoolwork and tired at home from homework and I put off drawing until the last second, but it's still a good method of making sure I don't get lazy and not post at all. This has let me really expand my artistic horizons, because I can make whatever I want as long as it stays in theme and I no longer worry about what I post being "good" enough for a public audience. I've found this to be a great exercise in perseverance in art, to keep going forward even when the idea alone of sitting down and making something sounds overbearing. But, no matter what, I will always love doing this infinitely more than selling my soul and making AI do it for me. As I plan to go professional, I take these skills very seriously so I can be an outstanding artist in my field and get a good job doing what I love. After I get my degree, I plan to go into the art field for video games and comics. Since I was a kid, I've had an unyielding love for the video game Team Fortress 2. Being autistic, I undoubtedly consider it my special interest. The daily account I run depicts two characters from TF2-- and has encouraged, to my knowledge, around 15-20 other people to do similar challenges or start their own daily accounts-- which absolutely does prove my love for it. If I were to get a chance to do work for TF2, it would be an absolute dream job. The company that owns TF2, VALVe, has very high standards for its employees, usually requiring at least seven years of industry experience. Because of this, I will have to gain experience through freelancing or getting hired to work for other companies in the meantime. Even with my skill level and ability to create something despite my reluctance, I would love to gain that experience in my field and try to get my name out there. Ultimately, attending university is going to be a huge help for my artistic skill and my ability to do work through internships in the industry, but I cannot do it alone. The opportunity to get any financial aid at all is something I am incredibly grateful for, and I truly anticipate seeing what any amount of aid could do for me.

Earlier this year, I was officially diagnosed with autism and ADHD. This came as no surprise to anyone around me, however, as my brother was diagnosed with both when I was younger and my family realized that I acted in the exact same way. It was an incredible struggle just to find a place that would return our calls and take our insurance and be able to even offer us a diagnosis. My own doctor (who has since been replaced by someone more compassionate) told me he didn't believe I could be autistic because I get good grades. All of these are just struggles in trying to get a diagnosis, not even mentioning being bullied by my peers and being unable to receive proper support from some of my teachers. In elementary school, I was a target of bullying because I was weird and too friendly in my peers' eyes. Now, I am a target of bullying because I was weird and too closed off. Because I don't fight and I don't argue, many people just see me as an easy target to make fun of. I've had teachers who didn't bat an eye about giving me support when I was clearly struggling and not emotionally able to express my troubles, when they were fully fine with accommodating everything for my brother's needs in the past. Since I have received my diagnosis and had a 504 plan put into place, I have been able to receive actual support and accommodations from my teachers, which has greatly improved my workload and taken off some of the stress I had about my future. Having a diagnosis also means getting accommodations in college, which was a huge concern I had before. I knew I would not be able to function living in a shared dorm and would not be able to keep up with work without teachers understanding the struggles I have with my energy levels, so I would absolutely need accommodations to keep me afloat. I don't want to let my disabilities hold me back in college, and I plan to try my hardest to adjust to college life and the workload it brings. My plan is to major in the arts, which has been my dream since I was very young. The struggles I have faced as an autistic girl have shaped my creative perspectives in ways that are crucial to the output of my art. I want to share my art, my perspective, my experiences, and my life with the world. I want people to look at the things I create and see themselves in them, or understand a perspective of the world they have never seen themselves before.

People always talk about how you should embrace uniqueness and the beauty in being yourself, but what they don’t tell you is that they don’t want you to actually be different. You’re not allowed to be different a weird way, only in a likable and palatable way. To most, it’s clear and unspoken that this is just something people say to feel like they have some moral superiority, but I unfortunately took it at face value. I’ve had to come to terms with this and understand how to navigate these kinds of expectations without dulling down who I am. For most of my childhood and teenage years, I have been bullied or otherwise been the butt of the joke. It’s obvious why: I’m autistic and I don’t hide it. I only was able to receive an official diagnosis early this year, but since my older brother got diagnosed when we were both kids, it’s been pretty obvious to my whole family that I had it too, and I never hid it from people when they asked me why I was so weird. When I was younger, I was weird because I was overly friendly and didn’t really understand the concept of someone disliking me. Now that I’m older, I’m weird because I’m closed off and prefer to be by myself in most social situations. When I was younger, other kids ran away from me because they didn’t like that I wanted hugs and liked talking about the things I really liked. Now that I’m older, my peers see me sitting alone at lunch and throw things at me or make condescending comments because they think I’m an easy target who must deserve it for being by myself. Especially as a girl, my traits are much more ostracized than when a boy displays them. The expectations placed upon me to act normal, as a girl, are extremely high compared to boys my age. Immaturity in general, other than perhaps petty friend drama, is looked down upon because teenage girls are expected to be more mature than their male peers. A boy doing something stupid is expected and normalized, but a girl doing that same stupid thing is shameful and irresponsible. I’ve learned it’s better to ignore the people bugging me because they just want a reaction out of me, but it doesn’t come without disadvantages. Being an outcast and ‘the weird girl’ to other people has made it difficult to navigate social situations and made me feel very alone even around my own friends. As a result of all of this, I developed many bad habits such as aggression and self destructive tendencies. I have many memories of when I was younger where I get frustrated that people don’t like me and loudly exclaiming that I want to kill myself, even though I had never heard of suicide or the things that drive people to it. Many of these outbursts were pushed aside by the adults in my life who just figured I was being melodramatic, which only worsened my loneliness. While I am luckily nearly four years clean of physically harming myself, that habit developing during middle school when it really became apparent to me that I'm different in a bad way sent me down a really terrible spiral. I can say now that I am in a much better place mentally, as I have a therapist who helps me learn to navigate difficult social situations and express my feelings, and I am in a happy relationship with someone who cares for me. I also take medication for my ADHD, which has been slowly helping me concentrate more on my work and leave me less stressed overall. I've been able to communicate more clearly with my parents when I am in a poor spot mentally, which they both understand as they are both clinically depressed, and stand up more when my peers try to poke fun at me for why I act different. I am a very huge mental health advocate because I can relate to people who are struggling as well. During lockdown, most of the people I knew online and in real life turned to me to be the therapist friend to help resolve their problems. It's too much of a toll on me to consider doing it full time as a future career, but I am more than glad to help people out whenever they need it. I also put effort into speaking out against people who repeat incorrect or harmful information about stigmatized mental health issues. When someone misuses or waters down terms like intrusive thoughts or 'bedrotting' I shut them down and inform them of their contributions to harmful stigma, especially because I know these people would not show much compassion to those who actually struggle with mental health issues. My career goal is to be an artist. I would like to specialize in digital drawing for things like comics or storyboarding, where I can make a character come to life and influence the viewer's feelings with their actions. I also like doing creative writing on the side, but only as a hobby that I can use to exercise my skills in storytelling so I can make sure my characters are complex and interesting. I enjoy exploring topics like mental health and stigma, especially surrounding misunderstood disorders like DID or OCD in time periods where nobody knew anything about them or considered them to be 'evil.' To explore the idea of a character beginning to understand themself and coming to terms with their disorders is something that's really important to me. I hope that one day I could help someone figure out an explanation for their own behavior, make someone feel heard in their similar struggles, or educate someone on a disorder they had previous misconstrued ideas about so they don't cause someone to feel like an outcast the same way uneducated people made me feel.