I’m six months out from my MSW and it’s making me kind of emotional. This journey has been so personal for me, and also incredibly healing. I feel like I actually get to make a difference and this is something I’m going to genuinely love.

I struggled with my mental health significantly as a young woman, with the worst of it taking place around ages 19-22. It took me out of college for a couple of years, and I even tried to end my life at one point. I bounced around mental healthcare providers because I didn’t feel taken seriously. The woman I saw in the ER the night I tried to end my life shook her head at me and told me there were better ways to deal with whatever I was dealing with. I saw a counselor who responded to everything I told her with, “everyone your age feels that way,” and my favorite, “Are you sure you’re not just doing all of this for attention?” No one looked at the fact that I had been bullied my entire life and it was coming to a boiling point; nor did they acknowledge that maybe my home life growing up hadn’t been so great. I was just an “emotional girl,” and it would pass. Despite the fact that being just “emotional” translated to me withdrawing from college, losing most of the friends I had, and I was beginning to spiral into alcohol and substance abuse because I needed an escape. The entire calendar years of 2012-2013 were fucking dark. I just want to go back in time and give myself a hug.

I wrote in my graduate admissions essay that I want to be a clinical social worker because I want to be the person I desperately needed back then, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. It has been the driving force behind every step I’ve made through this program. I owe it to my clients to be the best I can be at my profession. Because I didn’t get that when I needed it. And I could have bounced back a hell of a lot faster if I had.

It’s been over a decade now since that period of my life. I survived because my parents had the time and the means to continue looking for a therapist I felt comfortable with, and they recognized that mental illness was worthy of going the extra mile to find that care. Not everyone is as lucky as I was. Not everyone has parents who recognize that it’s a serious health concern, or they don’t have the financial freedom to keep paying for therapists that don’t take insurance. Or they can’t take the time out of their day to travel further away. My mom drove me to Columbia once a week for therapy. An hour and a half each way. I wasn’t motivated enough to drive myself, and I wouldn’t go otherwise. She made sure I went. Not everybody has that. I genuinely do not think I would be here if I hadn’t had that. I’m still not quite sure how I got out of those years alive.

It’s just kind of wild to me that it’s actually behind me and now I’m in a place where I’m functioning really well. So well, that I’m about to become a therapist. It feels like a very big full circle moment and it makes me kind of emotional.

I’m really proud of myself.