It was 2020 and I was on the sofa sorting through various donated art supplies from friends and family. I had just gotten home from the hospital with a fresh feeding tube wedged up my nose. I had been in the hospital for a week in which my stomach refused to keep anything down. A hellish week in which condescending nurses and doctors told me to “keep trying, honey” and “we believe this issue is psychological.” Turns out they were dead wrong. After finally getting detailed labs, they realized this had been caused by a massive inflammatory event which had essentially shut down my GI tract for business. By the time I got home with no treatment plan beyond “here’s a feeding tube for the foreseeable future,” I was angry, bitter and wanted to scream at the world. Unfortunately, being the height of the pandemic, I found the world to be indifferent to my screaming. So, I opened a pack of consolation gel pens sent from my cousins and set to work. I don’t know why I picked the pens but there was something satisfying about how permanent they were. The perfectionist in me couldn’t take over, because every time I messed up, it had to stay on the page. My style turned scribbly. I poured all my anger, fear and frustration onto the pages. I was strapped to a feeding bag twenty-four/seven (due to a deviated septum, I was reliant on an infant tube, which meant round-the-clock feeding). Because of this, my mobility was limited, and my physical energy was at an all-time low—my mental state, on the other hand, was overactive. I couldn’t go for a run or punch out my feelings; I didn’t have the energy. So instead, it went into my art. I drew disturbing images--organs outside of the body, skulls, monsters, eyes merged into flowers. Eyes were a big motif for me during that time. I guess the feeling of being watched after the hospital never really left me. I translated the lack of control over, and disgust I felt with my own body, to the art I was drawing. With every new piece, I could see my mom grow more concerned, but it felt freeing to get it all out on the pages. After several months, we were able to remove the feeding tube. It was frustratingly anticlimactic--this thing that had completely reframed my life was just gone one day. But it wasn’t a smooth road after that. A couple months later, a catastrophic reaction to an iron infusion led to a serious mental health crisis and manic episode—which resulted in a year of therapy sessions. I don’t remember a lot from those months, but I can look back at the art I made in that time and get a sense of what I was feeling. As I slowly recovered, my medium of choice changed from pens to watercolor. It’s fitting--as art slowly morphed from a survival mechanism to something I did for fun--my style evolved. I went from frantic pen strokes and scribbles to more meditative and flowing watercolor. Now, I tend to embrace detail and precision--which is why I find myself preferring digital art--but watercolor and pen are still dear friends. As I look back on my many sketch books, I find snapshots of myself at different times. It’s not the exact memories of a journal but I wonder if maybe it’s more honest. This is the purest glimpse into my mental state throughout my health journey.

I have always loved watching the end credits of movies. Even before I could read fast enough to catch the names flying by, I remember being staggered by the sheer number of people involved. It was hard to believe that behind every name there was a person. I liked to imagine what it would be like to see my name up there. That little ambition has never really left me, though now my interest has expanded beyond that single hope. As a kid, I never saw media with a person like me, someone who couldn’t follow a group conversation, who needed people to look at them when they spoke, and never heard when a teacher called them the first time. Sometimes, I wonder if I would have known I was hard of hearing sooner if I had seen someone like me in the movies and shows I watched. Art has the power to emotionally move us, but it also has the power to inform, change minds and empower. This coming school year I am attending a university to get a bachelor’s degree in film and media arts. I hope to be a Director of Photography. I’ve always been more of a visual person, maybe that comes with the territory of hearing loss, but I find visual forms of communication to be more powerful. Unfortunately, in order to attend college, I will have to take several large private loans, which will leave me in deep debt. One of the elements contributing to this is the fact that I will need to stay on campus. I have mobility issues with that necessitate my staying on campus, but this will greatly add to the financial burden of college. With this scholarship I’m hoping to cover much of the cost of housing for my first year of college. Getting an FMA degree will help me get hands-on-experience on film sets as well as provide me with internship and networking opportunities. Growing up, I was homeschooled (medical reasons) so I wasn’t in a crowded classroom daily. While tests were up and down (multiple sets of ear tubes meant there was always something to blame), I was fifteen before I was diagnosed with Central Auditory Processing Disorder and lower end hearing loss. But even before the diagnosis I knew something was wrong. By the time you ask your friend to repeat a question five times in a row or make her translate camp counselor instructions, it becomes hard to ignore. If I had been diagnosed sooner, I wouldn’t have had to fight with insurance over needing hearing aids and the adults in my life wouldn’t have yelled at me for being “inattentive”. I knew there was an issue, but I didn’t have the language to ask for the right tests. Awareness is the first step to self-advocacy. I want to spread awareness, not just of my own diagnosis, but bring light to other issues as well. Film is a great platform for the education and destigmatization of health issues, whether it takes the form of purely informational videos or as representation in entertainment. I have a unique voice and life experience to bring to the table. I want to create the media that I needed to see as a child. Seeing my name on the silver screen—that’s just a plus.