“As my family puts it, I’ve lived a long 22 years. During my junior year of high school, I lost my cousin to a drive-by shooting. Not long after that, I lost a close friend that I grew up with. It kinda pushed me to a breaking point. I didn’t really know what to do or how to act. I had been a straight-A student, but then I just stopped doing my school work. I felt terrible. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. And it hurt me the most to know that I was hurting my family by them seeing me that way.

I didn’t know how to fix myself. But what helped me was going to therapy, talking to someone who had no bias and no prior knowledge of my life. I’ve been to two therapists, but one of them could really relate to me on a different level because we had a lot in common. He was a younger man who was also in a fraternity. It really helped to have a therapist who looked like me to talk to me and listen to me. He was able to push me to open up more about things, and he would joke with me to keep the mood light.

So, although I’ve had a lot of hardships, hard times and experiences for the short life that I’ve lived, I overcame them. And I want to be there for people who may be dealing with the same things that I was dealing with: depression, anxiety, and all of that stuff. I want to be somebody who people come to who they know will actually listen. I want to do what somebody else did for me. That’s my motivation. That’s why I’m majoring in psychology.”

– Tyler, senior psychology from St. Louis, Mo.