Cate Clay- Assignment 21

I believe the biggest problem facing the youth in my community is mental illness.

Depression and anxiety can often lead to drug and alcohol abuse among youth. They can prevent many otherwise gifted and promising high school students from fulfilling their individual potential and using their talents to better their community. In extreme cases, it can even lead to suicide, the third leading cause of death among Kentuckians age fifteen to twenty-four.

As of now, my post-high school plan is to go to college and study neuroscience, a field that certainly relates to the issue of mental illness, and then possibly attend medical school. Hopefully my studies will allow me to obtain a career in which I can work to reduce the prevalence of mental illness among teens by working with those who are affected by it. Obviously, I won't be able to make depression and anxiety disappear, but I hope to just make a difference in the lives of some of the families in Lexington who have a mentally ill relative.