One of the biggest struggles for this new generation is the prevalence of heavily photoshopped images, diet culture, and body shaming. These harmful trends have caused detrimental effects on today's youth, today in America close to 8 million people suffer from eating disorders with the most afflicted group being 15-24 females. I, unfortunately, am 1 person out of those 8 million people. Having an eating disorder is one of the biggest internal struggles that I have ever experienced, it takes up every second of my day. My day starts as a normal person would, I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth, however, this basic task becomes something convoluted as I begin to think about how many calories are in toothpaste. 1, there is 1 calorie in a bit of toothpaste, that's 1 more calorie that I will have to burn later. Then I go to make my morning cup of coffee, my brain switches from panicking over brushing my teeth to, mentally calculating​ the calories in my coffee, 5 in the coffee, 20 in the oat milk​, 45 in sugar. Scrambling to add the calories to my mental struggle has taken up 12 of my 15 minutes awake. The rest of my day follows suit with​​t most of my thoughts stressing​ over food or how my body looks, this is what my day has looked like for upwards of 5 years. I still haven't overcome this struggle, of course,​​s​ ,​there have been periods of what I​ thought was 'recovery' but it always became convoluted​, with the thoughts returning, the restriction​, the overexercise. I hope that one day​ when I can​ finally overcome this disorder, I never go back. I hope that I can one day have a good relationship​ with food, and love my body regardless if I​ gain a few pounds. Although I still haven't recovered from this all-encompassing​g​ struggle I have definitely​ learned ​some lessons along the way. The most important thing I've​ realized is to watch others and be kind, I now look for disorderly behaviors among my friend and gently confront them if I see any. I am always kind to others​ because I never know what triggers and mental illnesses that they possibly have. Awareness and empathy are​ now one of my main focuses and I don't​ know if I​ would act the same now if I hadn't developed this disorder.

In 350 BCE Aristotle popularized the theory that Earth was the center of the universe, this idea was widely accepted throughout the Greek and Roman empire, people attacked any others who said differently, they wanted to believe everything was about them. Now, with our advanced knowledge of the universe, that theory seems primitive, we know that Earth is a minuscule planet revolving around the sun. However,​ the narcissism that the Greeks had hasn’t vanished at all, I along with many other teenagers can relate to wanting to be the center of the world, narcissism is this generation's Achilles Heel. Until one day I could no longer relate, slowly I stopped living for myself, this was when I began working at my job. At first,​ the stress was overwhelming, I was a child somehow trusted to take care of 4 infants by myself. Remembering all of the individual needs of my babies, the bottles, diapers, nap times, what each cry meant, the allergies they all had, just how to care for each child as if it were my own seemed like a Herculean task​. However, I formed an inseparable bond with each baby, I remembered every detail about them and more, what seemed like a Herculean task is now just second nature, I truly love those kids. As our bond formed I started caring for them more than myself, instead of ​the world revolving around me, I revolved around my kids. I finally shifted away from that Aristotle way of life.

In the first month of my junior year, I began a new job, I became an assistant preschool teacher after school at a facility called O2B Kids. I worked Monday through Friday, 4 hours a day immediately after school, then post COVID, when school was online I worked up to 6.5 hours per day. This position could be extremely stressful at times, as I was the teacher in the one year old classroom, where the children could not talk or follow directions well, but could still run around and climb, they also often bit each other because they were teething. While this is normal child behavior, as one can imagine a 16 year old caring for 6 one year olds by herself was overwhelming, to say the least. Meanwhile, school by itself was stressful, as balancing 6 AP classes with my job was difficult. Some may say “This girl is crazy!” and ask “Why do all this? Why take on so much?” and my answer is that I do it for my mom, every responsibility, every task I’ve taken on has been to make my mom’s life easier. See my mom has had a rough life, she had to come out as a lesbian in the 80’s in a homophobic town in Puerto Rico. Later in moving to New York, where she had to learn a whole new language in an unforgiving public school system, which she later dropped out of. In her early thirties she decided to have a baby through a sperm donor, after three tries, she succeeded! Moving to Florida, when I was one, she hoped to give me a better quality life than I would’ve received in New York. She knew it was a risk, as it’s the south and her being different could make our lives harder, as she was obviously a woman yet she wore male clothes and had short hair. From a very young age I realized that because she was different, life would never be easy for us, even as young as three years old, I noticed the many stares, the dirty looks, the comments. However this realization fully unveiled itself when I was five years old, we were in a restaurant and I had to use the bathroom. While we were on our way to the bathroom a lady began to loudly call the cops on my mother because the woman believed that my mother was following me to the bathroom to “sexually abuse” me. That was the moment I fully realized the discrimination my mom faced, this was later reinforced with the childhood bullying that ensued because my mom was different. She took in all the hate and discrimination​ yet she stayed strong and provided a loving home for me to thrive in, she is my biggest role model. This experience led me to want to make every aspect of her life that I could easier, I never got in trouble as a child, and was always studying to get better grades even in elementary school when grades didn’t matter. As I grew I kept this same sentiment in middle I quit volleyball, the sport I loved to focus on school so my mom wouldn’t worry about my grades, or me getting hurt. When I entered high school I took on harsh volunteering hours, in an attempt to get a scholarship so my mom wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of college. I took every AP class that I could handle to hopefully get academic scholarships for that same reason and why I eventually got my all-encompassing job, to help pay bills, help cover any extra costs I may cause her, and hopefully save enough for college. Almost everything I’ve accomplished, every hardship I’ve faced, has been to help make her life just a bit easier. I believe it is why I will be so successful in college as I am studying to eventually have a degree and get a job that I love so I can take care of my mom and she can retire early and hopefully live a life that will make up for the hardships and discrimination she faced and unfortunately still faces to this day. My application would be incomplete without her, as she motivates me in everything I do, my mom has made me successful in everything I've achieved and will hopefully achieve in the future. My mother's experience and story and motivated me to achieve​ everything I can, I hope that one day I can be a strong of a women as she is.

In the first month of my junior year, I began a new job, I became an assistant preschool teacher after school at a facility called O2B Kids. I worked Monday through Friday, 4 hours a day immediately after school, then post COVID, when school was online I worked up to 6.5 hours per day. This position could be extremely stressful at times, as I was the teacher in the one year old classroom, where the children could not talk or follow directions well, but could still run around and climb, they also often bit each other because they were teething. While this is normal child behavior, as one can imagine a 16 year old caring for 6 one year olds by herself was overwhelming, to say the least. Meanwhile, school by itself was stressful, as balancing 6 AP classes with my job was difficult. Some may say “This girl is crazy!” and ask “Why do all this? Why take on so much?” and my answer is that I do it for my mom, every responsibility, every task I’ve taken on has been to make my mom’s life easier. See my mom has had a rough life, she had to come out as a lesbian in the 80’s in a homophobic town in Puerto Rico. Later in moving to New York, where she had to learn a whole new language in an unforgiving public school system, which she later dropped out of. In her early thirties she decided to have a baby through a sperm donor, after three tries, she succeeded! Moving to Florida, when I was one, she hoped to give me a better quality life than I would’ve received in New York. She knew it was a risk, as it’s the south and her being different could make our lives harder, as she was obviously a woman yet she wore male clothes and had short hair. From a very young age I realized that because she was different, life would never be easy for us, even as young as three years old, I noticed the many stares, the dirty looks, the comments. However this realization fully unveiled itself when I was five years old, we were in a restaurant and I had to use the bathroom. While we were on our way to the bathroom a lady began to loudly call the cops on my mother because the woman believed that my mother was following me to the bathroom to “sexually abuse” me. That was the moment I fully realized the discrimination my mom faced, this was later reinforced with the childhood bullying that ensued because my mom was different. These stressful situations worsened as we lived in poverty, my mom would sacrifice her dinner so that I could eat, she would work 60 hour weeks in order to provide for me, and she did so with a smile on her face. She had to struggle so that I could thrive. This experience led me to want to make every aspect of her life that I could easier, I never got in trouble as a child, and was always studying to get better grades even in elementary school when grades didn’t matter. As I grew I kept this same sentiment in middle I quit volleyball, the sport I loved to focus on school so my mom wouldn’t worry about my grades, or me getting hurt. When I entered high school I took on harsh volunteering hours, in an attempt to get a scholarship so my mom wouldn’t have to worry about the cost of college. I took every AP class that I could handle to hopefully get academic scholarships for that same reason and why I eventually got my all-encompassing job, to help pay bills, help cover any extra costs I may cause her, and hopefully save enough for college. Almost everything I’ve accomplished, every hardship I’ve faced, has been to help make her life just a bit easier. I believe it is why I will be so successful in college as I am studying to eventually have a degree and get a job that I love so I can take care of my mom and she can retire early and hopefully live a life that will make up for the hardships and discrimination she faced and unfortunately still faces to this day. My application would be incomplete without her, as she motivates me in everything I do, my mom has made me successful in everything I've achieved and will hopefully achieve in the future. Me and my mother have only ever had each other, through tough times my mom made sure I had everything needed to be successful, and I cannot begin to thank her. Winning this scholarship would greatly help me in paying for college and staying out of debt, as well as lessening the stress on my mom. I am so grateful to even be applying for this scholarship and I thank you for considering my application.