When I was 11, my mother gave birth to my youngest brother and stayed in bed afterward. For a long time. She had postpartum depression. These few months turned into a few years and it developed into regular depression. As a child, it really affected how I developed. Watching my mother, one of the strongest women I knew, stay in bed in her dark room with not even a smile on her face. It broke me and it made me think that it was a normal feeling to feel and a normal thing to do. With my mother in bed, I had to step up. I had to take on a lot of responsibility at 11. I had to do a lot of things a lot of kids my age shouldn't be doing. Growing older, this experience made me resent responsibility. I had responsibilities and things to do my whole life and it already made me so tired and worn out. Staying in bed all day, crying myself to sleep, and sometimes staying up at all hours of the night, feeling terribly alone because I don't know how to socialize. I wish people knew the effects of postpartum depression on not only the mother and birthed child but for the children that are ultimately paying the price for mental illness. Developing resentment and anxieties that shouldn't be happening if people knew more about postpartum depression and pychosis and knew how to properly research and care for someone with it. So this can stop.

I don't remember the first movie I've watched, but I remember the first movie that greatly impacted me and helped me choose what I wanted to major in for college. I knew of Johnny Depp and at the time, he was getting accused of domestic abuse by his ex-wife, Amber Heard. I didn't know what to think of him at the time as evidence against Heard was getting published and was pretty shocking to everyone who consumed the media. I, however, didn't let my indifference on the matter persuade me while I watched this movie. What's Eating Gilbert Grape is a movie that I believe wouldn't be received well now as it did have some offensive aspects with its writing and use of an able-bodied actor play a role of a mentally disabled person. However, Leonardo Dicaprio's performance wasn't offensive but merely, he played what he knew. And he did a good job. When I was 11, my youngest brother was born. My mother suffered from postpartum depression during this time, and I had to step up and be the big sister. Help out around the house with my mother in bed and my father at work. Helped with laundry, cleaning, cooking, getting my siblings ready for school, errands, etc. And this helped build my skills as an adult now but I look back and am frustrated with how much of my childhood I spent, helping be a parent. Watching Gilbert Grape made me realize that I wasn't the only one who felt this way. As my brother grew up, we knew something was wrong. He was developing a lot slower than kids his age, he didn't reach the milestones when he was supposed to. We knew we had to do something if we wanted him to keep up with kids his age and I felt extremely protective as I knew how frustrating it is for kids to pick on you for superficial things or, at the time, maybe out of your control. I grew up as a bigger kid, getting picked on for being fat and get dirty looks for eating school lunch. I was also a lot darker than my classmates and have indigenous features that made me stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to a lot of my classmates with button-noses and thin lips. My family's concerns were answered when we finally evaluated my brother for autism and he was officially diagnosed at the age of 7. If only we knew this earlier, growing up and helping him develop would have been a lot easier. What's Eating Gilbert Grape made me realize that my life isn't that much different than that of Gilbert. Being the eldest (or in Gilbert's case, one of the oldest) and having responsibilities put on you by a mentally ill parent when you should be using this time to discover yourself, discover life. However, now that I'm older, I use college and film as an outlet and discover what my life should be. I'm a hardworking person and have been working hard my whole life, I deserve a break too. I deserve to be the one traveling in the RVs and trucks instead of watching them from the sidelines. (Watch the movie if you want to get that reference.)

I want to create movies and write stories. I want to tell the stories of my friends, family, and my own experiences as well. As someone who has experienced a lot but mostly kept these things to myself, I write them down as a way to remember every detail and do something with these stories later in life. When I realized that I wanted to become a storyteller, through multiple forms of media, I decided that I can tell my stories and finally, let these negative experiences keeping me from truly experiencing life. I experience things that no one at that age should go through and it makes me so upset knowing that people are too uncomfortable to talk about those sort of things or haven’t experienced it themselves and I want to be that person to talk about it. I want the world to see how I see the world through my eyes. The eyes of the average Joe, the everyday person. We all see the world but through our own eyes. I want the world to see how I see it. At the age of fourteen, I lost one of the most important people in my life. And since then, I’ve seen the world through a different pair of eyes. I slowly realized that I was surrounded by death and I didn’t know how to control my anxiety about death and the afterlife. Later, I learned about the importance of finding true friends in the most uncommon of places. I remember growing up, we would have school rallies and be presented about the dangers of the internet. Not to talk to strangers or not to interact with those online because they can kidnap you and kill you and all those kinds of things. It’s ridiculous how we were taught all these things growing up, making us scared of everything even though we grew up with technology and the other person on the screen may be telling the truth. I have made numerous online friends throughout the years and some of them have stuck through middle school and high school. We video and voice chat all the time and we even plan on making a podcast together. I don’t think I’m any different from the next person in line, we are all human and make mistakes and get angry and throw fits and cry and laugh and everything that a human is and does. But I believe that a lot of people in Hollywood are so out of touch. I’ve grown up watching shows and movies that take place in high school and see all these plots and episodes and they just fill me with dread because I was never that accomplished or an interesting person in high school. It makes me feel terrible about it. I want to make films and shows about people in their twenties and thirties that are still figuring things out, not knowing exactly how credit works, or being not that great of a driver. I want to see real people on screen, personable characters that live a regular life. I think that’s what makes Friends so great and memorable. Twenty-something-year-olds that aren’t that sure about what they want in life or how to achieve it but have each other along the way. We need another show like Friends. And I know just the person who can do that. Me, I’m that person.

I'm currently enrolled in Filmmaking Practices and am working towards a bachelor's degree at Arizona State University. All my life, I have told stories. I always loved reading books and reading them to my siblings. I used to read to them for “Read to your Kids Day” at my elementary school and would be excused from class to read to them since my parents couldn’t. During that time, my mother got diagnosed with post-partum depression and my father was always working so I did activities like that with them. I remember drawing scenes to the stories I told. I would get printer paper and tape them together and drew in them like they were books and I’d tell them to my parents and tell them about my characters and the plot and the happy ending they’d have. I was always super imaginative as a child and I think I carried that into adolescence and my adulthood. I think after watching an Adam Sandler movie (I believe it was Grown Ups, I don’t remember.) and as silly as it seems, I wanted to create movies after that. Funny movies that revolve around friendship, family, and shenanigans of the everyday person. I’ve always wanted to write for the little guy because I am the little guy. I grew up always worrying about money. I grew up in apartments and always dreamed of living in a house and buying on-brand cookies and cereals and not worrying about money. I want to earn money doing the thing that I love. And that is to create and tell stories. And because I am continuously trying to break that cycle. My father tried to but was too poor to afford it. He had the will to become something great but the only thing that held him back was money. He never wanted that for me. He knows that I can pursue my dreams and break the cycle and I can pay for a house for my family and they can live the life that they deserve instead of living paycheck to paycheck.