Integration Integrative Assignment Finding My Passions and Vocation The Hard Way I believe that I am meant to help those with mental illnesses. Up until last year, my life was perfect. I have always suffered with severe OCD, but school had made me distracted enough that it did not have an impact on my life. However, once the pandemic occurred, my life, for lack of a better term, went to shit. My brother developed severe OCD, and my best friend’s mother went manic and had to be forcefully hospitalized when she was violent towards my best friend and her father. Only a week after she got out of the hospital, my best friend’s father committed suicide. Less than a month later than that, one of my best teammates died in a tragic car accident. Throughout this extremely traumatic time period, I changed as a person - not in my personality, but what I see as my passions or my vocation. A lot of the traumatic events, while occurring to me, more affected those I was close to. This gave me a sense of purpose; I learned how best to be there with my grieving best friend, and learned the symptoms of mania to be able to predict when her mom would become manic again. While this may seem overwhelming, I knew this is what I had to do to be there for my friend. Currently, her mom is back in the hospital and refusing treatment, so I am heading down to see my best friend over fall break. We speak every day for hours and I do everything I can to help her - including reaching out for help where I see necessary. Because of these recent experiences, I’ve discovered that I want to be a psychiatrist that works specifically on mental disorders such as bipolar depression, suicidal patients, and others. I think that mental illnesses have not been fully destigmatized - specifically those that are not just general anxiety, and I want to work to help normalize these. If my best friend’s dad would have become more aware of his own OCD through acceptance and therapy, then maybe there could have been a way for him to get help. I think that one of the first activities we completed in the module - the test about our core strengths - helped me feel more confident about psychiatry being a suitable and fulfilling career because my primary strength is social intelligence. I believe that I form the best relationships by a mutual respect that comes with just listening. Especially in a new environment without knowing anyone, I have found the best way to get to know someone is to just listen. I think that the text “Healthy vs. Unhealthy relationships,” really cemented this belief; as it reiterated how important listening is as it demonstrates a mutual respect towards each person in a relationship. I believe that is vital to understand all perspectives and opinions. This has been a highly influential value of mine because I am from a politically divided family. Specifically, my grandmother, who I have a very close relationship with, and the rest of my family, differ in almost every political value. However, rather than distancing myself from my grandmother, I instead have developed an extremely close relationship with her. Despite our differences, we have a mutual respect for each other that isn’t shared between her and every other family member. Because I respect her views and she is then able to respect mine, I am able to get through to her when other family members aren't. However, I think I am blessed in a lot of ways because I resonate with both political spectrums due to my family. As David Brooks says, “The real problem is in our system of producing shared stories.” I think that I am blessed to “share stories” with a plethora of views because I have been exposed to them and learned how to appreciate each one throughout my childhood. I believe that the best version of myself is my authentic self. For the majority of middle and high school, I was unhappy because I could not be the person I so desperately wanted to become. That is - an outgoing, popular, party girl. I would go to every party with a group of girls I could not relate to and were entirely surface level, and I could not understand why I was so miserable. Around sophomore year, my life took a turn for the better. I started doing really well on track, and I made a group of friends that enjoyed school and thrift shopping as much as I did. Having those new aspects to my life really boosted my self confidence and I have never felt the same insecurities since. As Brown says, the people that are the most wholehearted are the people who “believe they’re worthy.” I feel like it's taken a long time for me to realize I am worthy, but since then, I have developed the most meaningful and deepest connections in my entire life. Now, I feel confident expressing my OCD, my interests, and my passions. In terms of faith, personally, I believe in spirituality and personal devotion to God rather than organized religion. I fully believe in God, but I believe I have been negatively turned away by attending a catholic elementary school and from my church in my hometown. For some reason, the views expressed by the priests and the parishioners were not what I believe epitomized a “loving Catholic”, and for this reason my family and I became alienated from the church in my hometown. I believe that being Christian means that you hold no judgment towards others, but in some apsetcs, such as gay marriage and abortion, the church does just that. I think that this is best demonstrated by the Father Groves quote, “We cannot love the God who we do not see, if we can’t love the brother we do see.” There is a lot of hate in this current world, and sadly, a lot of the hate is perpetrated by some (and for clarification definitely not all!) Catholics - including members of my family. I hope one day to return to a church, or maybe find a sect of Christianity more accepting of my views, but for now, I am maintaining a personal relationship with God through prayer. As Father Pete says, I need to “resist the temptation to compare against what others profess to know and believe” because my faith journey should be unique to my experiences. Having a relationship with God has kept me grounded the past year through all the trauma I’ve endured. Rather than question his existence because of the sadness I’ve seen, I have found myself leaning more and more on his support and unconditional love. Finally, I believe that I have been blessed with a beautiful life full of strong connections and wonderful support systems. When I was writing my “Where I’m From” poem, I talked a bit about the happy memories my family and I have formed, but in this reflection I want to end by reiterating them. My parents and siblings were a formative part of my life because their humor and interests have given me happy memories. I truly feel as though I am the luckiest person to have an amazing extended family and an accepting and supportive group of friends and I am eternally grateful for all they have given me.