About Me

My entire life I have been proving people wrong. I grew up with a checklist-worth of mental illnesses such as ADD, anxiety and OCD to name a few. I did not find out any of this until I was 12 so for the longest time I suffered in silence without having even a single clue to any of the reasons for it. I genuinely thought something was wrong about me and I was destined for failure. There were countless days of self-loathing. I would frequently feel isolated, confused, upset and disgusted with myself.

Once I began to find out certain things, I felt a sense of relief. But I was also angry. “Why me,” I asked. Of course there is no answer for that, but as a kid curiosity drives your world. It felt like I was left to fend myself from a young age due to a lack of proper support, especially from my immediate family. I had few friends growing up, too. Information was not as widespread in the early 2010s as it is now, so the outlook for how someone like me can navigate the world felt less encouraging.

I got the last laugh. I graduated high school with a higher GPA than my brothers and had a higher SAT score. I decided to immediately go to college to a place nobody else from my graduating class went in order to get a clean slate. What a decision that was. My sophomore year I was stuck inside for the pandemic but it was not completely awful because I realized I wanted to pursue journalism. The same kid that was told not even a decade ago that they had awful reading comprehension was now going out, interviewing people and writing about the world. I would end up graduating in the “normal” time of four years with a GPA above three. I also made some great friends and my partner in that time.

My Purpose

I enjoy having the privilege to inform people about information that could affect their lives. This is because if people do not know about something, they may not have the right tools to make the right decisions. I have wrote stories about climate change, education, laws, budgets, local community endeavors, etc.. However, I know about what I want to cover if I HAD to choose one thing.

When thinking about what to do with my life before my sophomore year, I realized something. There are probably thousands upon thousands of stories like mine that have not been given proper public attention yet, and my calling was to be the person to provide these opportunities. However, I believe a lot of issues facing us today, mental health-related or not, carry important weight to them. I feel like it is my calling to uncover them to the world.