My Career Aspiration by Carissa

My Career Aspiration by Carissa - February 2024 Scholarship Essay

Many pick careers based on what their parents did, such as doctor, lawyer, or insurance agent, or if they have had a lifelong interest in something like pilots, car mechanics, or train conductors. My career aspirations came from my life experience and the difference I want to make.

On October 25th, 2010, my world completely flipped over when my father passed away. My dad, throughout his life, went in and out of addiction from alcohol to more severe, such as pain pills. My dad, during the last couple of years, struggled with his mental health from being in constant pain from his hips and facing his depression, anxiety, and childhood trauma. At the time, he was taking antidepressants, ADHD, and anti-anxiety medications. These were prescribed, but the stigma around mental health, especially in men, was still at an all-time high, and he was still self-medicating a majority of the time. While the link between his battle with addiction and his passing was medically not related deep down, my mom and I believe the mix of mental health medications, high-dose prescription pain pills, and poor physical health all led to the death of my father. These events and beliefs have led me to want to pursue a career in Psychiatry and be the person of change for so many people.

Having a mental health care professional my father could have talked to and started to fix some of the mental health issues could have saved his life and given him the ability to watch his kid grow up. Learning the truth about my father recently solidified my goals and desires for my life and confirmed what I was supposed to do on this earth. Psychiatry. A mental health provider who wasn’t just a general practitioner could have saved my dad and kept him around for my childhood and see all of the big things a dad should see, such as weddings, graduations, and meeting his grandkids.

My first introduction to psychology was with my dad, who was minoring in it while getting his degree at the time of his passing. We would sit together while he studied and described what he read to me each night. Knowing a psychologist or psychiatrist could have saved his life as he was learning all of this information while in school is truly a weird feeling. Now, knowing he knew about what was happening in his body and what was happening throughout the addiction, he did not ask for help still due to the heavy stigma in the mental health field and mental illness. Learning all of this information over the past couple of years confirmed repeatedly that psychology was my career pathway for what felt like the 1000th time.

Within psychiatry, I want to specialize in people who have childhood trauma, who struggle with grief, and especially those who have a substance use disorder, active or sober, and helping them get the proper mental health care, whether that be medication at adequate and effective dosing or sending them to a psychiatric hospital or a rehab program to find what works best for them at the end of the day.

Although I can not change the past and get my dad back, I can make an effort to prevent others from falling down the path of addiction. I can continue to strive forward to raise awareness of the risks of addiction and not letting go of your physical and mental health from drugs. Addiction is not the overall issue; there is always something underneath the addiction, and for many, it’s mental illness like it was in my dad’s case. Mental illness was still so stigmatized back then, and not having anyone to talk to, both just within his friend group and with professionals when they were all available for me, really showed how much guilt and shame he had with his struggle. Over time, it has shown me how much you are not alone in anything you go through. I wish someone could have been the person to make my dad talk, but that is truly my goal within my career.

Making a change in the world for the betterment of people has always been an aspiration of mine, and it is slowly becoming more and more of a reality each day. Mental health care and the stigma around it still have a long way to go, but it is gradually on the way to being normalized.