I lost my mother in 2011. At that moment in time, I was lost and did not want to continue to fight to move on. I felt that every day was just a blur and I was not going to be able to move on with my life. Around the age of sixteen, I knew that I had a passion for psychology and for helping others. I started pushing myself harder in school to get better grades. High school graduation came and I was proud to be valedictorian. I had fought hard to better myself and overcome the trauma that I had experienced. Standing up in front of all the parents and graduates I knew that I had a purpose in life and that was to help others when they needed it the most. After high school, I thought about attending college and decided that I was not going to. At least that was until my best friend told me that I had too much potential not to pursue my dream of working with people that had a mental illness. He helped me fill out all the paperwork that I need to complete and "boom" I was enrolled. I was nervous about college, but I remembered that if I wanted to achieve my goals then I need to fight even when the PTSD wanted me to quit. The two semesters went by and I had all my prerequisites completed and started taking psychology courses. The psychology courses brought up some things that I had not dealt with. I utilized what I was learning and how I felt to continue to help me relate to the classes that I was taking. The other two semesters went by faster than the beginning and I graduated with an associate's degree in health science. I went on to transfer to a four-year university where I am working on my bachelor's degree in psychology utilizing my past to help me fight to better myself as well as others.

Mental health is very complex and easily misunderstood. I have always struggled with my mental health. I grew up poor and went to a low-income school. I never really understood how bad my mental health was until the age of 10. My mother was shot and killed in front of me. The trauma behind the death of my mother changed my perspective of life from being good to life throwing curveballs and you have to learn how to swing. I struggled with my mental health after my mom's death and it made me feel that life was not meant for me. I struggled to find friends because everyone felt that they needed to cater to my every need. All that did was make me push people away. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me and treat me like I was fragile, I wanted people to treat me like any other normal day. When I first started battling with my mental health I was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). PTSD made my life horrible with having flashbacks and constantly being in a state of fear. I was placed on medication for my PTSD to help with the flashbacks and constant fear, but I realized that it was not working. I was going to counseling to try and move on from the trauma. I finally had a therapist that was able to help me move on from my past and life started to look up from there. Now, 11 years later I do not struggle as badly with my mental health. I have recently been diagnosed with anxiety, but other than that my mental state is good. I have been around people that have mental health problems including myself and that has shown me how much I like to help people with their mental health. It has also inspired me to pursue a degree in psychology so that I can continue with my passion for psychology and help those in their time of need. When it comes to my relationships with others I have been able to build positive relationships with others. I am slowly progressing when it comes to me being social and meeting new people. My anxiety tries to prevent me from being myself and talking with others. I have successfully been able to go out with some coworkers, meet new friends and socialize without feeling any anxiety. My understanding of the world has changed a little as well. I still believe that life throws curveballs and you need to learn how to swing at them, but I also think that the world puts people through so that they realize how strong they are and how resilient they are as well. There are still some days that I feel the world is out to get me, but that is just what everyone feels sometimes. We all know that life is harsh, but we also know how we can handle the things that life throws at us no matter how difficult they may be. All of my family has mental health problems. My mom was one that had really bad mental health and it started to show a few months before she died. After she died we discovered that she had been writing stories and poems about a girl who was all these negative things. The stories/poems also talked about how the girl wished she was dead and that everyone was better off that way. My family still has not figured out what that was about and it still hurts us to think about it.

Mental health is very complex and easily misunderstood. I have always struggled with my mental health. I grew up poor and went to a low-income school. I never really understood how bad my mental health was until the age of 10. My mother was shot and killed in front of me. The trauma behind the death of my mother changed my perspective of life from being good to life throwing curveballs and you have to learn how to swing. I struggled with my mental health after my mom's death and it made me feel that life was not meant for me. I struggled to find friends because everyone felt that they needed to cater to my every need. All that did was make me push people away. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me and treat me like I was fragile, I wanted people to treat me like any other normal day. When I first started battling with my mental health I was diagnosed with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). PTSD made my life horrible with having flashbacks and constantly being in a state of fear. I was placed on medication for my PTSD to help with the flashbacks and constant fear, but I realized that it was not working. I was going to counseling to try and move on from the trauma. I finally had a therapist that was able to help me move on from my past and life started to look up from there. Now, 11 years later I do not struggle as badly with my mental health. I have recently been diagnosed with anxiety, but other than that my mental state is good. I have been around people that have mental health problems including myself and that has shown me how much I like to help people with their mental health. It has also inspired me to pursue a degree in psychology so that I can continue with my passion for psychology and help those in their time of need. When it comes to my relationships with others I have been able to build positive relationships with others. I am slowly progressing when it comes to me being social and meeting new people. My anxiety tries to prevent me from being myself and talking with others. I have successfully been able to go out with some coworkers, meet new friends and socialize without feeling any anxiety. My understanding of the world has changed a little as well. I still believe that life throws curveballs and you need to learn how to swing at them, but I also think that the world puts people through so that they realize how strong they are and how resilient they are as well. There are still some days that I feel the world is out to get me, but that is just what everyone feels sometimes. We all know that life is harsh, but we also know how we can handle the things that life throws at us no matter how difficult they may be.

Mental health is very complex and easily misunderstood. I have always struggled with my mental health. I grew up poor and went to a low-income school. I never really understood how bad my mental health was until the age of 10. My mother was shot and killed in front of me. The trauma behind the death of my mother changed my perspective of life from being good to life throwing curveballs and you have to learn how to swing. I struggled with my mental health after my moms death and it made me feel that life was not meant for me. I struggled finding friends because everyone felt that they needed to cater to my every need. All that did was make me push people away. I didn't want people to feel sorry for me and treat me like I was fragile, I wanted people to treat me like any other normal day. Now, 11 years later I do not struggle as bad with my mental health. I have anxiety, but other than that my mental state is good. I've been around people that have mental health problems including myself and that has shown me how much I like to help people with their mental health and now I am pursuing a degree in psychology so that I can continue to pursue my passion. It pushes me to better myself so that I can continue moving on with my life and not feel that the world only attacks me. When it comes to my relationships with others I have been able to build positive relationships with others. I am slowly progressing when it comes to me being social and meeting new people. My anxiety trys to prevent me from being myself and talking with others. I have successfully been able to go out with some coworkers, meet new friends and socialize without feeling any anxiety. My understanding of the world has definitely changed a little. I still believe that life throws curveballs and you need to learn how to swing, but I really think that the world puts people through things so that they realize how strong they are and how resilent they are as well.

I first experienced DCFS at the age of 10. My mother had been killed and I became a ward of the state. I was placed in my first foster home where I experienced a type of abuse that would traumatize me for the rest of my life. I was bounced back and forth between 6 different foster homes and three residentials. The things that I experienced during the 11 years that I was in DCFS care have pushed me to further my education so that I can help others by advocating, educating, and empowering current/former youth to use their voice so they can be heard. While in DCFS care I saw people being neglected, abused and mistreated in general. I experienced some things that others may not have. I have been part of the Youth Advisory Board as a youth and youth intern where we help the other youth in care change policies within DCFS to better the experience of others in care. For example, the Youth Advisory Board wanted to be able to obtain information about their GAL (Guardian Ad Litem) such as their contact information. The advisory board was able to get a bill passed saying that the youth are supposed to be given this information with no questions asked. The experience that I got from the internship helped me realize that I can help others in DCFS care not only by advocating for change but also by working with children in residential facilities or psychiatric hospitals. I have in the works a book that will shed some light on problems within the DCFS system and I hope that not only with it be part of advocating, but I also want other youth that are in care or were in care to know that they are not alone in the things that they may have experienced. Now when we talk about how my experience in foster care shaped my outlook on life it was complex. Before I knew that I wanted to help people out and use my voice to advocate for other youth in DCFS care, I would have told you that life wasn't worth living. I felt that I was uncared for and that I was cursed because all of these bad things had happened to me. After realizing that I could use my experiences from being in DCFS care life started looking up for me. I started pursuing my dream of being able to help others and currently help children that have a disability and are in the special education classroom.

My mental health was destroyed when my mother was killed in 2011. Since then I have been trying to build up my mental state and try to get back to some sort of normal mindset. In 2017 I decided that I was going to take control of my life again and go into the psychology career field. I developed a passion for learning about and helping people with mental health disorders as well as mental health problems. Mental health keeps us in a good mindset so that we can function in our daily lives and take care of our children as well as ourselves. If we all had poor mental health then the world would not run as smoothly as it does. We would not be going to work so we would not get paid and then we would fail our families making our mental health worse than it already is. For me, I use writing and playing video games along with homework to help maintain my mental health. In the warmer months, I like going on long walks and being out in nature. Besides our mental health helping us function properly, it also helps us with our motivation to do things like continue our education.

In my community, I would love to see people stop judging people for what they got. We live in a low-income community and I am tired of people judging others because they can not afford a car or can not afford internet for their children to do homework. For the country/world I want to see people stop all the nonsense fighting. There is no reason that we should have to worry about a missile being launched at us or world war 3 starting because someone said that they were not going to back down on something. If that is how every town and city worked there would be no time to do anything else but fight. I advocate for youth not only in DCFS care but in my community that needs help getting the things that they need and just being there to listen to what they need to say.