Mental health has impacted both me and my family in more ways than one. When my older brother and I were teenage age he developed a drug addiction. First, it was prescription pills but then when he couldn't get access to that anymore it because heroin or whatever else he could find on the streets. His life quickly spiralled out of control taking me and my family down with him. My brother's life became completely consumed by his need to get high and find his next fix. He neglected himself and his health needs because he became a shell of a person. My parents fell into his addiction too and were obsessing over his every move and decision, constantly wondering where he was or if he was alive. They were trying to help but continued to enable his addiction by giving him money and bailing him out anytime he got into trouble. All of this in turn left me feeling like I didn't matter and the only thing my parents cared about was him and his well-being. Over the years, my brother was stuck in his addiction and I felt like I was being swallowed by a deep wallow of depression and suicidal thoughts. There was a long period of my life where I felt that being here and alive did not matter to me or anyone else either. I was numb and trying to find some form of feeling. During my high school years, I did things to purposely harm myself to allow myself to feel the pain or anything other than the numbness that consumed my soul. I would have particularly bad days where I would do anything to end my life. After two failed suicide attempts I decided that enough was enough. At the age of 17, when my brother would be 20, I walked down the stairs crying to my mom and said to choose. I explained that I couldn't live my life like this anymore and she needed to choose between keeping me here or him because I could not allow one more day of my life to feel that my life didn't matter or to revolve all of our lives around him. That was the day when things finally changed. My mom decided that I was right and while she didn't want to abandon my brother, she also didn't want to make me suffer for his choices. My parents kicked my brother out of the house, which in turn forced him to go through the whole program of rehab, sober living and then eventually back to normal life. We started going to family counseling and I did independent counseling to aid in my depression. It took 6 years of him getting treatment and us getting counseling to finally go back to what normal life should look like. My brother Justin is now 4 years sober and I am now more consistent in focusing on my life and my well-being and prioritizing my own needs. All of my life experience with this is exactly what led me to my career in nursing. The stigma around drug addiction breaks my heart and I wanted to open people’s eyes to drug addiction, and the way it can affect a family unit. Throughout my journey in nursing school and on both cardiac units where I've worked as an RN I found how much drugs affect the body physically, mentally and emotionally. Now my goal is to advance my career by attending the University of Pittsburgh to obtain my DNP Nurse Anesthesia degree.