In a world where a single post on Instagram can spark a whole movement, a single post can also damage a life. Modern day teens spend a lot of time on social media, even I am guilty of dangerous screen time. In a perfect world, we could all uplift each other on social media and create a community of support. However, this is not what happens in real life. Cyber-bullying runs rampant through my high school, people being called "ugly" and "stupid" on Snapchat, too insecure to post on Instagram, and re sharing Tiktoks about the most grim topics. They say comparison is the thief of joy, and I believe that to be true. Social media is addictive and evil. Like a drug, it is hard to quit even if the reasoning is right in front of you. Teen suicide is growing because of bullying and comparing. One thing on social media I find the most harmful and find myself falling victim to the most is unrealistic beauty standards. Unhealthy eating and exercise standards are shoved onto the algorithms on every platform made for teens. People are mass buying new inventions that help with "beauty" but also gaining destructive behaviors. Eating disorders for teens are rising rapidly within the last decade because of comparison to these influences we see who have unlimited access to materials to create a "perfect" version of themselves. Comparison is what is killing the youth, and damaging future generations. We have all heard of generational trauma, and these type of destructive behaviors are what this generation is going to pass on to their children, creating a loop of self esteem and mental health issues. Personally, as the Head of Social Media for my school's student government, online spaces are extremely important to me. I always try to post reminders and resources on mental health and resources to reach out. To combat social media issues in relation to mental health and self esteem, I believe all platforms should create stricter guidelines to protect children who are easily influenced. Recently, in Australia they have passed a law banning social media for those under the age of 16. I think something similar to this in the United States would help on these issues. While it may be hard to implement, I think a way to verify age for social media, maybe by uploading a photo of a drivers licences, permit, or other form of ID should allow access to different content. Based upon age, access to certain videos would be prohibited, as well as stricter guidelines that are monitored more frequently by these companies. The reasoning for this would be to monitor what the younger people get to consume, in order to protect children and teens in their most susceptible age range.

Being the "Least Smart Sibling" Is a hard title to hold - Even more so when it is self appointed. My older brother, Jake has been my mentor and inspiration for my educational journey. I was young when my father passed away, and don't have much recollection of him or his impact on my life. My sister was slightly older yet she does not remember much of him either. Jake was a teenager when my father passed and remembers the horrible time in life that was. He experienced my mothers grief and loss, and the majority of his high school years he was raised by a single mother. Today, I am in the IB programme and hopefully will get my IB diploma this summer. I am an IB student because of him, the first out of all three of us to go to an IB school and encourage us to join one. Through the tough times my brother was able to get an extremely generous scholarship to the University of Mississippi where he studied and eventually go to Yale for graduate school. Just this past month I visited for his thesis defense and realized what an incredible brother I have. I had a deep conversation with him about the stress I was feeling in my senior year. ACT, IB, AP, EE, IA, all of these things were haunting me. They still are - in fact I will be taking my ACT again trying to get my score up and receive more money too wherever I end up. Senior year cost a lot of money, and my family is struggling right now. My brother knows I want to end up in New York City one day for dance, A dream I have pushed aside as people tell me I won't make it, or it will not support me financially. Talking to my brother about this was hard, as our 13 year age gap makes connection harder as we are in extremely different stages of life. We do not talk much. We need to talk more. However, he wants me to be happy and knows where I want to study in college and places I do not want to. He told me I could apply to as many colleges I wanted to and he would always help with the application fee. He said if I can get into a school in New York, He will make it happen no matter what. This changed my life, even though it was so recent. I felt rejuvenated and inspired as I was afraid I would be in a state school I won't enjoy as much. Since then, I have been reaching out for advice as he has been in my shoes before about a decade ago. The selflessness he had to make the day he made the final strides towards getting his doctorate about me is astonishing. Now, I want to continue my journey and make my older brother, my idol, proud of me. Above all, I want to be proud of myself, I want to be happy. I say I am the "Least Smart Sibling" because I have lower test scores and GPAs than my brother and sister, but maybe my brother's smarts come from his ability to understand, and his ability to love.

Mental health issues to my family is like a moth to a flame. My immediate family is all affected by mental health issues in some capacity, like as a result of my father's issues with substances and addiction. For a long time, I was the only "normal" one in the family with no mental health issues. I was proud of this fact as my mother suffers from severe depression, my oldest brother suffers from severe seasonal depression and anger issues, my older sister from anxiety and eating disorders, and me, for 15 years was perfectly happy. I could see the effect of medications on my family members and see their new prescriptions change them as people. Lexapro, Prozac, Zoloft, and Xanax were commonly used in my house as a blessing. As I developed, I changed: My grades, friends, motivation all slipped through my fingers like grains of sand. My mother grew angry with me as I ignored her and isolated myself. She tried to get me help for a long time before I finally accepted her help. In a blow up fight I admitted to her I felt depressed. The next week I was in the psychiatrist's office getting diagnosed with generalized anxiety and depressive disorder. After starting my Fluoxetine, I felt my old self coming back almost instantly. I had the motivation to actually go to dance practice, something I skipped constantly because I just wanted to sleep or lay in the dark. My grades slowly began to rise and then plateaued to my usual achievements, I wanted to see my friends, my family, everyone. And then, I got told one of the worst things that will stick to me. One of my close friends told me I was unbearable to be around with my new medication. I was too loud, too happy, too me. I had no filter apparently. This sent me back to square one. I did not take my medicine. I cannot swallow pills, so I would pour 2 tablespoons of my liquid Prozac down the drain each in the morning after breakfast so my mother wouldn't know. And when she did accuse me of skipping dosages, I would get so upset and shoot to kill with my words. That was one of the worst times of my life so far. I knew what it felt like to be happy again, and then ripped it away from myself for public approval. Now, I am healthy again and never miss a dosage of my medicine. I am inspired by my own personal journey for my future. I hope to major in Political Science on the Pre-Law track with a minor in Psychology with a emphasis on mental illness. To make change in the world, one day I hope to be on the courtroom floor with a case. I want to tackle things from the eyes of a lawyer with a struggle with mental health, as I understand why mentally ill people act the way they do, as my illnesses have driven me to do irrational things. I would hope to represent these people and get them the proper help they need in psychiatric care rather than have them locked up in a cell which will worsen their illnesses and create a negative stigma around people who struggle with mental health issues.

Grief comes in waves, or at least that is what everyone says. Grief pulls me in. Personally, I lost my father Micheal Aaron Thrasher in 2011. While I am too young to remember his death- or for that matter personally as he and my mother divorced when I was 6 months old due to his substance issues- his death still affects me daily. When it happened, I remember my family turning to complete turmoil that was hidden away from me and my young sister. My older brother, Jake, was old enough to remember my father and his issues. Now, we can talk about him in an appropriate manner and tell me about him. He had a jaded relationship with my brother as my father did not approve of my brother being queer. I have learned all the bad things about my father from my brother, juxtaposed by my mom who only tells me the great things and how much I look like him. Since It was just me and two lovely women in the house after my brother went to college, I joined the sport my sister did- Dance! I started in an all boys hip hop class 11 years ago. After that first year, I ended up quitting baseball and football as well as gymnastics for dance. I started competitively dancing around the age of 9. It was all consuming and became my obsession to this very day. As I enter my senior year of high school as well as dance, I have had plenty of time to reminisce on how dance has shaped my goals. Oftentimes, people overlook dance. I am sure everyone has seen a post or heard someone say that “Dance isn’t a sport”, which is the furthest thing from true. That statement has always made me feel like I had something to prove to my friends who all played baseball, football, or basketball. They would say dancing is easy, and for girls. Dance is hard- very hard. My intense practice schedule (4 Weekdays and Saturdays) pushed me to be physically active but also mentally healthy as I find dance as my escape from my problems. I started to take dance more seriously when I entered high school. I realized that it was my one true passion and I considered it as a career path. Immediately following my decision to pursue it professionally, I put myself down, deciding I was not good enough to make it since I started late at 7 years old, compared to the other girls on my team who had been dancing since they were 2. But soon, that started to fuel me even more, to try harder, take extra classes,and be seen. I owe my passion to my mother, the strongest woman in the world. I dance for her, I dance for my late father, I dance for God, I dance for myself. One day, I hope to make it into the professional dance world and perform with a Contemporary Dance Company and also have degrees in Business and Marketing. But most importantly, I want more boys to be dancers and I hope I can make a difference and inspire at least one little boy to sign up for dance class.

F Grief comes in waves, or at least that is what everyone says. Grief pulls me in. Personally, I lost my father Micheal Aaron Thrasher in 2011. While I am too young to remember his death- or for that matter personally as he and my mother divorced when I was 6 months old due to his substance issues- his death still affects me daily. When it happened, I remember my family turning to complete turmoil that was hidden away from me and my young sister. My older brother, Jake, was old enough to remember my father and his issues. Now, we can talk about him in an appropriate manner and tell me about him. He had a jaded relationship with my brother as my father did not approve of my brother being queer. I have learned all the bad things about my father from my brother, juxtaposed by my mom who only tells me the great things and how much I look like him. Grief affects me like sinking into quicksand. I don’t realize what I am grieving, as in cartoons the silly characters don’t realize they are falling into quicksand. I could always just stare at fathers and sons out in public together for hours. Recently, I realized that I was grieving my father. I see all these relationships my friends have with their fathers and realized my heart was yearning for the missing fatherly figure in my life. I guess you could say I have been grieving since his death in 2011, but since I was too young to remember him grief affected me differently, like a missing puzzle piece. It is important to accept this into your life. Once I accepted that I truly was upset instead of pretending like I was fine since I never knew my father, I realized that that is untrue. I will always know him, he is a part of me. I see him in my fears, my fears of ending up on the same path of addiction as him. That is why grief is my warning. My warning of drugs, alcohol, and driving under the influence. Grief helps me do the right thing. Grief is angry, mad at him for hitting my brother, for yelling at my mother, for leaving me. So for some, grief comes in waves. But for me, grief is quicksand. It’s impossible to drown in quicksand, so I will not drown in my sadness. When you get stuck in quicksand, you kick your legs gently back and forth and pull yourself free. I know one day I will get to pull myself free from the quicksand of grief. While I may escape slowly, I know one day I will pull myself out of the sand. I will be present for my future children, I will be loving, I will be kind, I will be there. My future kids will never even know what quicksand is.

The day I decided to join an all boys hip hop class was the spark of my love for dance and what shaped me to be the man I am today. When I was little, I tried my hand at every sport there was. On Monday's I was playing baseball with the Hunter Street Baptist team, then on Tuesdays I was so excited for my flag football practice because, If you could perfectly recite the bible verse of the week, you got a free Popsicle. In my first couple of sports I tried out, I never was the best, which may be obvious from the fact I remember eating popsicles at practice instead of playing. One day, everything changed for me as my mom entered me into an all-boys hip hop class at the dance studio my sister took lessons from. My love for my sport bloomed from that first class as the next year I was signed up for ballet, jazz, tap, and hip hop. Since then, I've loved dance and become a competitive dancer. As I enter my senior year of high school as well as dance, I have had plenty of time to reminisce on how dance has shaped my goals. Oftentimes, people overlook dance. I am sure everyone has seen a post or heard someone say that “Dance isn’t a sport”, which is the furthest thing from true. That statement has always made me feel like I had something to prove to my friends who all played baseball, football, or basketball. They would say dancing is easy, and for girls. Dance is hard- very hard. My intense practice schedule (4 Weekdays and Saturdays) pushed me to be physically active but also mentally healthy as I find dance as my escape from my problems. I started to take dance more seriously when I entered high school. I realized that it was my one true passion and I considered it as a career path. Immediately following my decision to pursue it professionally, I put myself down, deciding I was not good enough to make it since I started late at 7 years old, compared to the other girls on my team who had been dancing since they were 2. But soon, that started to fuel me even more, to try harder, take extra classes,and be seen. As well as being an athlete, first I am a student. I have been a member of the International Baccalaureate Program since I was in the sixth grade. I had to learn extreme time management in order to balance the two aspects of my life. Most people ended their sports careers before high school, as the IB workload is more than regular high schools. But for me, I knew dance was something I couldn’t live without. I decided to stick with it. It was extremely hard at times. Getting home from school at 3:45, having practice at 4, and then not getting home till 10 at night still having to eat, shower, and do my homework. I am so thankful that I stuck with dance because it is something I so hope to pursue and study in college and I am already equipped with the skills to manage my studies and my love. One day, I hope to make it into the professional dance world and perform with a Contemporary Dance Company and also have degrees in Business and Marketing. But most importantly, I want more boys to be dancers and I hope I can make a difference and inspire at least one little boy to sign up for dance class.