I was only nine when I started exhibiting symptoms of social anxiety and was diagnosed with general anxiety disorder and social anxiety disorder in the fourth grade. My family started taking me to see a child psychologist; but, my parents didn’t have much knowledge about mental illnesses or the treatments used to mitigate the symptoms. Unfortunately, my social anxiety started worsening; I ended up developing selective mutism. I physically could not speak to males, not male classmates, not male teachers or faculty, not my friends' fathers, not even my uncle or cousins; I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to them, much less look them in the eye. When my male classmates would try to speak to me during a group project, I couldn’t seem to get any words out, I felt this growing tightness in my chest and I couldn’t seem to ease it. When my uncle or cousins would try to speak to me, I would stare wide-eyed and not be able to move or breathe. I wasn’t sure why, all of a sudden, I developed a severe fear of speaking to males. I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to again. My teacher was the first person to realize my apprehension to talk to my male classmates and brought their concerns up to my parents. This is when my parents started to look into going to a psychiatrist for medication, even though they had strong beliefs and worries about it. I ended up being diagnosed with selective mutism and started on Prozac. The medication started to work, I was able to speak to my classmates, my teachers, and my family again. My social anxiety worsened when I was eighteen when I developed an eating disorder. I felt so much fear leaving my room, being around family and friends, and a significant amount of distress going to school; I felt like everyone was constantly judging me, specifically for how I looked. I started to go to therapy again, and my therapist helped me overcome those thoughts stemming from my social anxiety and heal from my eating disorder. That therapist genuinely changed my life and I am forever grateful for her. She is the reason I want to become a therapist and help others who may have similar experiences to mine. I do still struggle with social anxiety, but I am continuing on medications and with therapy, and I do feel a comparative, significant ease when socializing. I am now pursuing higher education at Pepperdine in clinical psychology, hoping to become a therapist specializing in eating disorder treatment. Therapy has truly changed my life, and I aspire to bring that same positive change to others' lives.

I have been in and out of therapy since I was nine years old. At first it was for anxiety, then shifted to focus on depression. After that, I went to EMDR therapy for PTSD and then eating disorder recovery. I will admit, that I didn't start taking therapy seriously until I was 18, I had just viewed it as a task to fulfill my parent's wishes. When I was 18, I developed an eating disorder, which, luckily, my parents caught onto before it was too late. They sent me to a residential treatment facility, where I remained until I left for college. I had to beg my mother to allow me to attend college that year, and she made a deal with me — I had to go to therapy for my eating disorder every week, and I agreed. I was at one of the lowest points of my life; the shift to college made me relapse further into my eating disorder, and unfortunately, I developed another one, but I persisted with therapy. This is when I started to see a major shift in my outlook on therapy and my recovery. I listened and applied myself to implementing techniques like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and other healthy coping strategies. After a year and a half of rigorous effort, I achieved recovery. I am no longer in therapy, but I do have those fleeting thoughts stemming from my previous eating disorder pop up on occasion. I have learned that having those thoughts is normal, and thoughts are just thoughts; you can't control them, but you can control if you act on them. That is something I think of in my everyday life, a motto you could call it. That motto does not solely apply to eating disorder thoughts. I use it and think of it when I have anxious thoughts or suicidal ideations. In my eating disorder, I had struggled significantly with how people viewed me and that they would treat me differently and judge me based on my weight and appearance. I fully believed that the things I was saying to myself in my own head were echoed in everyone else's head when they looked at me. Something that my therapist would consistently say to me when I would tell her these beliefs was, "You are not a mind reader, and you cannot put thoughts into other people's heads." Just because I was having negative thoughts and beliefs about myself and how I was viewed did not make them true. I think back to this whenever I notice those thoughts and beliefs arise, even today. I have also been able to apply this to different aspects of my life; I use it especially in my friendships and with my partner. When find myself "mind-reading" my friends or partner, I tell myself what my therapist would say, and I have been able to develop better communication because of it. I am now able to openly communicate and have hard conversations with the people in my life, finding it provides so much mental relief to talk about what's on my mind, and helps me be a better friend and partner as I allow a safe space for them to communicate their needs. Years later, after achieving recovery, I discovered a strong desire to assist others in their journey towards overcoming eating disorders, specifically athletes like me. I have been a dancer since I was 14 years old, and then at college, I joined the Cheer & Dance team. Dance has a notoriously high prevalence of eating disordered thoughts and body image issues, along with other sports that focus heavily on body composition and weight, such as gymnastics, wrestling, figure skating, and even powerlifting. I want to provide aid and a safe space for recovery for vulnerable athletes struggling with relationships with food and their body, as I know firsthand how difficult it is as an athlete to have to prioritize recovery over one's sport. I am now to attend Pepperdine University's Masters in Clinical Psychology Program this upcoming fall and, in the future, plan to enroll in Lewis & Clark College's Eating Disorder Treatment Certificate program. Therapy has truly changed my life, and I aspire to bring that same positive change to others' lives.