Can I really be the first doctor in my family? Some days, that question feels too loud. Other days, I silence it with grit. I am a first-generation college student, chasing something no one in my family has ever touched, let alone believed was possible. However, I’ve always known I was meant to do more than survive. I want to heal. Not just people, but systems, beliefs, silence. Mental health chose me before I even knew how to name it. I grew up watching people I love carry pain in silence. Generational trauma was not discussed. Therapy was for people with money. Depression was mistaken for laziness, and anxiety was labeled weakness. We didn’t have the language, and when we did, no one listened. I’ve seen firsthand how untreated pain poisons potential. That’s why I am choosing to build a life that interrupts that cycle. I don’t want to just be a doctor. I want to be the kind of Psychologist who walks into rooms and speaks the truth no one ever had the courage to say out loud. I want to be a safe space in a world that too often ignores the emotional wounds we carry. I want to help people find their voice, their balance, their breath again. This is not easy. I still struggle. Not just with the weight of academics, but with the shadow of self-doubt. Can someone like me, raised on survival and silence, really shift the trajectory of how mental wellness is understood and respected? I think about it every time I stare at my laptop late into the night, writing papers after a full day of work. I think about it every time I sit in class feeling out of place. But I don’t stop. I won’t stop. Because every moment of resistance proves that I belong here. I carry more than a dream. I carry the weight of every person who was told they had to pray harder, stay busy, or just be strong. I carry the names of loved ones who never got the help they needed. I carry my younger self, the one who didn’t know why she felt so broken and blamed herself for it. She deserves this future. She deserves to see someone like her walk across the stage, doctorate in hand, healing in motion. This scholarship would not just relieve financial strain. It would remind me that my story matters. That mental health deserves more champions who come from lived experience, not just textbooks. I want to open clinics in underserved areas. I want to speak where silence has lived too long. I want to lead, educate, and advocate until care is no longer a privilege. I am not a finished product. I’m a fighter in process and while doubt still visits, purpose always wins.