The Light at the End of the Tunnel by Alaina

The Light at the End of the Tunnel by Alaina - June 2020 Scholarship Essay

Every year, as students embark on their journey of a new school year, they are met with the one assembly that they all dread upon. No matter how hard the teachers and guidance counselors try to grab students’ attention on mental health, they show no interest and their minds divert to their daily distractions or whispered conversations. Even I am, or perhaps was, until senior year of high school, guilty of these actions. You may think: “Why a sudden change of heart? How is one student able to set their mind and listen, but the other simply cannot?” It may sound cliché, but the answer to that is your own eye-opening experience and mine awaited me as I stepped foot into Beacon Christian Community Health Center.
In the summer of junior year, I had the opportunity to shadow a doctor at this hospital for just one day. As I followed her every stride into her office, I could see the amount of patients already packing themselves inside the waiting room. Even though I could see the different levels of restlessness in the patients, they all had one thing in common. They were all members of the racially minoritized and underserved neighborhood.
Moving from one patient room to the next was hectic, but as I followed her, I realized that there was something different about her regular checkups with the patients. It was something that I hadn’t even seen my personal doctor do with young children and teenagers. After the physical examinations, the doctor asked the parents to patiently wait outside, while she would ask the child about his or her mental health, whether it be how they were doing at home or school. The first time I witnessed her conduct this procedure, I thought to myself, “It’s not likely that a ten or eleven years old child has problematic situations that can lead them into a deteriorating mental health situation, so why even ask? How can such adorable faces hide so much pain?”. As I stood there wondering, I heard an eleven years old boy silently, with his eyes cast down, mutter the word “yes” to a question about contemplation of suicide. When asked the cause, he spoke of his daily bullying occurrences at his school because of his weight. My heart broke as I saw the little boy wipe the tears off his face and I hoped to not see such sadness in the upcoming checkups. As we moved from room to room, I heard stories of suicidal thoughts, slipping into depression, sexual assault, bullying, and much more than what we may not normally imagine about a child’s life. Before the day was over, one more patient walked in and without her story, I don’t think this experience would ever have been complete.
Trailing behind her mother at a rather slow pace, was a young girl about sixteen years of age. She reported having a painful stomach ache for the past couple of days, but it seemed that she had something more to tell. When the mother was escorted outside and the door closed behind her, I heard the same answer once again: depression and suicidal thoughts. The story that followed took me by surprise. Since her preteen years, she was being inappropriately touched by a man, who was her family’s friends. At first, she didn’t understand because she was very young and naïve, but as she grew, she mustered up the courage to tell the man to stop by threatening him that she would tell her parents. And so, she did. However, what I heard next shook my moral grounds. Her parents, instead of calming and comforting their daughter, told her that they would not file a case against the man because if the news got out into their society, their reputation would be ruined. I could do nothing but sit in silence and think about how her parents thought their reputation was far more important than their daughter’s mental health. This young girl could have been given help a long time ago were it for her parents, but she finally let out what was bottled up inside her for so many years to a caring doctor and got the reassurance she needed.
Because of my unforgettable experience at the hospital, I am inspired to pursue psychology as a major in the BA-MD program at Brooklyn College, not only because I find the subject interesting, but it will allow me to understand human emotions in times of need. As I reminisce on that one day, I realize we need more doctors like the one that I shadowed, who not only takes care of your physical pains, but also takes the time to heal your mental pains. Even when people feel uncomfortable talking to their family about their mental issues, like those whose stories I shared today, they should be able to find comfort in discussing it with their personal doctors so that they get the attention they need. I want to be that doctor for the generations to come.
Maybe listening to that hour long presentation on mental health doesn’t faze you, but somewhere along the road, it will come in handy when you are able to guide, a child or even an adult, away from the darker path and into the light at the end of the tunnel.