Hi! My name is Sharr Samuels. I am 25 years old. I am a first-year graduate student at the Illustrious Clark Atlanta University, where I am studying Clinical Mental Health Counseling. Mental health has always resonated with me due to some of my trials and tribulations. I am a proud Black woman from the south side of Chicago. I was raised by a single, strong, independent, and resilient black woman who always told me I could be whoever I wanted to be in life. I grew up without a present father in my life, but I didn't let that stop me from becoming the strong, independent, beautiful black woman my mother raised me to be. I won't say that not having a father in my life didn't affect me because it did. I started to struggle with self-esteem issues, trust issues, and difficulty forming relationships as I got older.

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Back in 2014, I lost the only father figure I had in my life, my Uncle, to cancer. In 2017, I went away to college, still needing to figure out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be in life. Felt as if I was slowly dragging through life, and everyone was passing right on by me. In 2019, I transferred schools to major in nursing. I was living all alone in Atlanta without family or friends.I started to question my decision to switch schools and my choice to pursue nursing. Did I do it just because my mom and sister are nurses or because everyone around me kept pushing me to go that route? I began to lose myself and my sense of confidence through this phase. In 2022, I lost my grandmother to a lung disease. So now, the only family I have remaining is my mom and sister. During this time, I failed hard. I tried to put on a happy face and act like I was okay, but I wasn't. I kept questioning who I was going to lose next. In those years, friends started to become enemies, on top of me dealing with my grief. For a long time, I didn't know who I was. I always felt as if I didn’t belong or have a purpose in this world. I had some dark times where I just didn't know if I was going to make it out. I felt so lost and didn’t recognize myself anymore.

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But at the end of 2022, I found a flyer advertising a workshop with the goal of assisting adolescents and teenagers who are going through a mental health crisis. That workshop taught me the importance of mental health. I learned that it's okay to get help when one needs it and that you can turn your trauma into a beautiful story that can help others. Through that experience, it enlightened me to what I really wanted to do and what my passion was. At that moment, I knew I had found my purpose and calling, psycholog,y and counseling. All of the turmoil that I had experienced throughout my life, I didn’t give up, and with that, I realized my story wasn’t over yet it had just begun.