When I was 13 years old my brother struggled really badly with an addiction to meth. It effected our whole family for a very long time. It wasn't until I turned 18 that I was faced with not only the physical consequences but also the financial, emotional and mental consequences of my eating disorder. I struggled with an eating disorder since I was 11 or 12 and didn't get help until I became an adult. I struggled with it for a long time, I spent so much money on food, I ended relationships, I dropped out of school, was in and out of the hospital due to my eating disorder. It wasn't until I hit my personal rock bottom and understood that my actions even though I thought that they affected just me, really affected everyone around me. I struggled to keep friendships, struggled to keep my job, I struggled to stay in healthy long term romantic relationships and had poor relationships with my family. It wasn't until I realized how unhealthy it was for me to continue this way that I decided that I needed to change. I made a radical change and decided I was going to do whatever it takes to get better no matter what. I ended up getting help for my eating disorder and it was a really big struggle at first and then I decided getting better was better than me being stuck in my eating disorder. I ended up doing really well and became a tech at a facility for eating disorders. I ended up eventually being able to start martial arts and was able to compete a year after I decided to go all in in my recovery. I ended up having really fulfilling relationships with everyone around me. I returned to school and was able to start my BA in social work. It was through my recovery that I decided that I want to help other people with eating disorders. I want to be able to be with people on their own journey and help them fight their darkest days and show them that recovery can be for them. I want to show people hope when all feels lost. Throughout my recovery I have found that I still sometimes have hard days and when that happens it means that I am slipping on focusing on myself. Sometimes it's needing to add an extra therapy session or maybe sometimes it's needing to meet up with friends and go out for a meal or sometimes it means that I should spend some time in the gym or helping other people who are struggling like I have. I continue to push forward in my recovery, school and life.

I want to focus on a career in social work because people of all backgrounds especially those who identify in the LBGTQ community and those who are BIPOC who are chronically ill, neurodivergent, or disabled at a higher rate for struggling with mental health. I want to become a therapist and do research on how trans and nonbinary and gender expansive people who identify also as BIPOC struggle with eating disorders and disordered eating at a higher rate than their white counterparts but also struggle to even get diagnosed and also get treatment as well. There are so many barriers to this including: access to doctors who aren't biased, insurance that will pay or won't cut off when attending treatment, access to food consistently, and other demographics that lead them susceptible to not getting diagnosed or getting treatment. As someone who fits this category and also has gotten treatment and been in eating disorder recovery, even if you get to treatment having a treatment team or place that understands your chronic illness, gender identity or neurodivergence is really hard. A lot of these providers ( there's no blame to them) just aren't educated or understand or have these lived experiences which is letting these groups of people at a higher rate struggle longer or go with undiagnosed eating disorders/ disordered eating. I also think that people don't realize that you can become disabled or chronically ill in a blink of an eye. It only takes one accident to become disabled. I never thought I would become chronically ill until I did. Even to this day I struggle with managing symptoms because there is no cure for what I have, just symptom management. People who don't have access to insurance are left with struggling alone or even in silence. It's unfair that in this world you get treated differently if you don't struggle with these things, but also they make us who we are. I don't think I would have ever pushed as hard as I have for disability rights or for access to insurance or even for better accessibility if I didn't struggle with these things. I also think it can be a challenge because some cultures don't believe in eating disorders so also understanding that there are so many challenges wrapped up in just one situation can be hard to address them all but also so important. I have been fighting systems and also people for years for better access to these things but without better access we can't move forward as a society, we would be leaving so many people behind.

As someone who is a nonbinary and also Asian it can be hard to find good treatment when it comes to finding treatment for myself especially in regards to eating disorder treatment. I currently work in a inpatient hospital setting for men who struggle with intensive behavioral health developments. I want to be able to go to school to change what I actively see in not only the eating disorder/disordered eating treatment but also treatment in general. I have seen and personally experienced treatment first hand that has not been beneficial or even made things worse. That's not to say that those people weren't equipped to handle those situations but they did the best that they could in those moments. However that being said one of the first things we need to be able to do is treat people as humans first. What I mean is that a lot of health care providers see patients as mental health disorders and not people. They think about how can they treat them and send them to the next level of care instead of taking the time to make those connections or to even just treat them like a human being. I've seen patients belittled, abused (physically, emotionally and sexually) during my own treatment stays. To change the way that therapists, doctors, behavioral health techs and anyone in the mental health field is to make them change the way they see things. When helping or approaching a patient I always like to think about putting myself in that situation. It helps to bring yourself down on their level and understand why they're doing what they are doing. When we can do that we can help change the behavior or help them with coping which is why they are doing what they are doing. Doing these little actions of putting yourself in their shoes can make a big difference and sometimes providers skip this step or don't know about it. Which we can't know everything a hundred percent of the time. Which is why constantly educating yourself and learning can be so important. I truly believe actually living a day as a patient is so important because it brings so many insights to your realization. Teaching and telling my coworkers this can make a huge impact on not only patient satisfactory but also overall acceptance in their situation which in turn can create a positive impact.