Some things in life I find valuable and relevant to my career would be family, friendship, and happiness. I want to be a therapist when I graduate from college. To aid me in my career it will be important for me to understand the values of family and friendships. My clients will come to me with trauma, fear, family problems, broken hearts, and more. I have to be unbiased and understand life from their point of view. I have to understand how their family works to help build them a support system. I also have to promote social behaviors so that they may build healthy friendships with people their own age. Happiness will also be an important factor when becoming a therapist. I will have to leave all of my own problems at home so I can focus on the child in front of me. I want to be able to help every child recover from their trauma so that they can live a healthy and happy life.
One of the main things that has made me want to become a therapist was having my own therapist. Growing up I never knew what I wanted to be because it seemed like every job had a downside. Then I realized that being a therapist doesn’t have any downsides that will create a guilty conscience. Having the childhood that I did, I never had anyone that I could depend on. I came from a very broken home and my mom was terrible to me. Any decision she made was selfish and immature and it always hurt me in the end. I never had friends growing up because we always moved around so much. School was my only escape but even the schools I went to were awful. I was bullied by everybody, I had failing grades even in elementary school, and the teachers bullied me as well. It seemed like everywhere I went, I was never good enough. The best thing to happen to me was getting put in foster care. I finally got the help and support I needed. I was able to recover from my own trauma. I chose to continue onto higher education because I don’t want to be like my parents, or anyone in my family. I want to break so many cycles and build a future that my kids someday can be proud of. I want to be a therapist because I want to change lives. I want to be that person that I never had. Children who come from similar childhoods as I did need someone to provide them guidance. It took a lot of work to make myself happy, and now I want to share my happiness with anyone I can.
This is a picture of the Lion fountain on ODU campus. I chose this picture because I feel it best symbolizes my journey to get where I am.