How to decide what to be is the most stressful thing in the world.  There are so many things to choose from.  From a young age, I knew what I wanted to be, a psychologist.  There are many events in my life that showed me that I wanted to be a psychologist.  My years in junior high, when I was 14 years old, the psychology class I took in high school, and my junior year in high school. 

Junior high can be stressful and fun all at the same time.  In seventh grade you are almost at the top of the school and in eighth you are at the top of the school.  The younger students look up to you, and you are finding out whom you are.  For me, junior high was rough in school and in my personal life.  My dad had just divorced his second wife, there was pressure to be in the “popular” crowd, and I had to be the “it” girl.  Depression and an eating disorder took over my life.  I was drowning in mental illness with no way to get out.  My teachers and my guidance counselor started to notice.  I was constantly having meetings and being asked, “How are you?”  It took roughly a year for me to realize that something was wrong and I needed to try and make a change.  I started attending therapy to help with what I was feeling, and to learn how to cope with what was going on in my life.  Constantly being reminded that I wasn’t different, and that it was a mental illness that could be changed with therapy made me interested in the functions of the mind, and how mental illnesses began. 

The summer of my freshman year, after I had finished eighth grade, my life changed drastically.  My dad had been divorced for one year, and his personality changed.  He was no longer the happy loving father I knew.  He started to become controlling, and hurtful.  He was constantly expecting high demands to be met by the little fourteen year old me.  Visitations were mandatory and there was no way around them, for whatever reason.  I was rarely allowed to leave the house, because it was “his time”, even if he was at work, or doing something else.  The biggest life-changing incident of my life happened on a Saturday in July.  There is nothing in the world that can make up for weeks of anxiety attacks and constant crying.  I remember I was babysitting for a family when I had asked my dad to go to a friend’s house when I was done.  He had started yelling and saying really rude things.  I had called my therapist and she suggested staying at my mothers until he could calm down.  The week was followed with thousands of phone calls and visits from police because he had said there were violations of the divorce decree. 

Flash-forward to the psychology class I took in high school.  Sitting in a class where I was forced to learn about why I felt all that I was feeling sparked something in me.  I knew the pain I was feeling was so terrifying that I didn’t want anyone else to feel it.  That was one of the moments I knew I wanted to help people going through the same thing.  Nobody knew what I was going through, but at that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  This is the exact moment I remember knowing psychology is what I wanted to do.  I knew I needed to help others know the pain they were feeling what allowed but there are ways to cope with it.

Junior year is supposed to be an exciting time.  You are preparing for life outside of the high school, and you start planning the rest of your life.  This wasn’t the case for my junior year.  Some people in my class decided bullying would be fun.  They would mock the group of friends I hung out with, post about us online, and ultimately makes us hate ourselves.  Thanks to them, three of us had to start attending therapy.  Really, I was already in therapy due to the past, but this only made things worse.  I was seeing a new therapist, in Hastings, her name was Karrah.  She helped me learn to accept that past and cope with emotions I was feeling.  She helped me discover new things about myself that I never knew.  She sent me on a journey of self-discovery which lead to new things.  I learned that not everyone has feelings, and not everyone knows about themselves.   Most just follow in the crowd of what the majority of the people do.  I’m still on this road to recovery, and I probably will be for a while longer. 

All of these events have changed me differently, however, they all lead me to the realization that psychology is where I need to be.  I have figured out that I want to help people that have gone through the same things as me, so that they can learn to have a happy life.  When I think about the different careers I could have, psychology is the only one that comes to mind.  The events shaped me into who I am today, and for that, I want to help shape people with the same experience learn that things will be okay.