My mental health My mental health—its decline and the labor required to recover it—has irreversibly shifted the trajectory of my life. Since my first art class, I was enamored with art. To make something meaningful and beautiful from my own hands was the most empowering pursuit. In retrospect, art was the main tool that helped me through the shame of growing up in an abusive household; a way to mediate the waves of my mother's tirades and to fill my father's neglect. I did not realize it at the time, but I was using art to regulate my emotions. As a second-generation Korean American immigrant, I grew up with intersections that were never addressed or forbidden out of cultural stigma. The dark dysfunction was always looming in the inter-generational trauma within my family. I used to believe that I was alone. Now, I know that Asian Americans are of a demographic with some of the highest rates of mental health challenges in the U.S. and yet are 50% less likely to seek care. I was no exception, as I held onto masking away my symptoms until they became unbearable. I did my best to hold on and grow up as fast as possible through loving school and getting perfect grades and attendance, but in high school, everything began to fall apart. My mental illness could no longer be buried as I struggled daily with suicidal ideation, severe depression, social anxiety, and eventually, psychosis. I was forcibly hospitalized by my parents at 17 as they physically dragged me into their car and I was put on a slurry of pharmaceuticals until deemed stable enough to leave nearly a month later. It was difficult to keep making art, but it was one of the only things that still gave me solace, so I kept creating. I graduated from high school with no plans or guidance as neither of my parents had a degree in higher education. After months at the worst of my mental health, I began to change. I took myself off the sedative medications, funded my own counselor through part time jobs, enrolled myself in community college after years of being out of school, and volunteered at my local cat shelter. Over the years, I steadily regained my agency and cultivated my strengths, bringing myself out of the isolation of my adolescence and into adulthood. I graduated from community college with a 3.95 GPA, becoming the first graduate in my family. At Montgomery College, I met formative mentors, exhibited my artwork in shows across the state of Maryland, won dozens of merit scholarships, sold my first original piece, interned at the nonprofit art and education center, VisArts, and was set to transfer to one of the best art schools in the world with a prestigious Presidential Scholarship at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). I am founding the first club for nontraditional students at SAIC, Nontra to spread resources and bridge the gap in guidance for students who do not fit the traditional college experience. I am now set to graduate this Spring with a robust portfolio and rigorous studies in art facilitation. I am dedicated to helping others through art in my pursuit to become both a fine artist and licensed art therapist. If I had not faced the mental health challenges I did, I would not have the compassion nor the self-made fortitude that push me forward today. My mental illness broke me times before, but like a broken bone, I have healed multitudes stronger and more resilient. I will keep going.

Art has always been the guide in my life that has pushed me forward when my path ahead was unpaved and uncertain. From the dark moments of living under the whims and wrath of my abusive parents to the rock-bottom I hit as my declining mental health caused hospitalizations and lasting upheaval on the trajectory of my life, art consistently is the safe space I can retreat back to — a language I understood and loved since childhood. During the darkest times of my life, the mental healthcare system failed me repeatedly as I was over-medicated and under-informed by the numerous practitioners I met. The rare solace I found was in continuing to hone my techniques in drawing between part time jobs, so when I enrolled in my local community college in Maryland, Montgomery College after years of battling my invisible adversary almost solely through art creation, I knew I wanted to ensure that art would always be part of my life, so I pursued it academically. As an art student, the classes were invigorating and inspiring. With each new skill and perspective learned — from figure painting to sewing to the philosophies of the Modernist Movement — I found new joy in getting out of bed each morning, a subtle but vital change as a chronically ill person. After two years of building a robust portfolio, funding my own education and mental healthcare, and graduating with an Associate's Degree with honors and accolades, I transferred to one of the best art universities in the world, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). There, I was offered the prestigious Presidential Merit Scholarship and began to pursue my dream: to become both a renowned exhibiting artist and an art therapist so that I can heal others through art, the way it has healed me. Now, at 26 years old, I am a senior at SAIC who will be graduating this Spring. During my time at SAIC, I have seen dozens of inspirational exhibitions, taken undergraduate art therapy courses, became mental health first aid certified, began a club for other nontraditional students such as myself who may be older or also working to fund their own education, worked as a special collections assistant at the Joan Flasch Artists Book Collection, and found my chosen family within a community of creatives as passionate and ambitious as I am. Not only has art allowed me to find the strength within myself to continue beyond each challenge, but it is what continues to lead me to the heights of joy and goodness in my life. I could not be who or where I am now without the first inklings of joy and comfort I felt when putting my pencil to a page. Though the path ahead is uncertain as ever as a nontraditional first generation student, I know wherever I can find art, the journey will be worthwhile.