Iris Debnam
Why Obtaining my Degree is Important to Me
The reasons why I decided to actively pursue my Master of Science Degree is because I am committed to continuing to helping people change or rebuild their lives after crisis, and play a part in building their futures as well.
Presently, I am attending Walden University where I am enrolled in the Master of Science in Mental Health Counseling program. My passion towards my commitment originates from my personal life and experiences. In order to share my passion, I must be able to share a bit about my self.
I grew up with extreme challenging circumstances, for my home was plagued with abuse such as domestic violence, incest, as well as drug and alcohol abuse. I was the primary target of the family abuse from the age four to twenty and as a result of my abuse I suffered poor social skills and lacked many tools necessary to either make or maintain a successful start in life. Therefore there were many mental, emotional, and physical battles throughout my life. However, through my personal spiritual beliefs, education, and counseling I came to understand myself and the world around me.
My first introduction to the mental health field was in 1983 when I was attending community college. Though I was still living at home with my abuser, I silently and secretly started taking psychology and sociology courses as an attempt to understand my circumstances as well as myself. What I found was astonishing and through my learning I soon found that my family was not the only family experiencing abuse such as ours, but also that families like mine were considered dysfunctional and were in immediate need of crisis intervention.
Through education I was able to acquire the strength to leave my abusive home and later stand up to my abuser in court to protect my younger siblings, and establish a foundation for my own healing through my introduction to my own needed mental health counseling. Throughout the next two decades I would periodically seek out mental health counseling to help me cope with my past abuse as well as to help me to navigate through society successfully. However, it was during this time that I became aware of the stigmas affecting African Americans who reached out for help through mental health counseling.
During the mid-1980s to about the year 2000, I found very little understanding for cultural sensitivity in psychology and mental health counseling, and I found that other black females that I have healed shared the same sentiment. In other words, most of the psychologist or mental health professionals at the time were white, and had very little understanding of the culture differences in terms of abuse and victims of abuse asking for help. As a result counseling became something that many African Americans, including myself were a bit skeptic of.
Through education came the links to receiving counseling as well participating in variety of support groups such as AMAC (Adults Molested as Children) and other survivor and recovery groups. In addition to using education and counseling as tools to grasp my past and heal, I was blessed to have an awesome grandmother who supported me when I left home. Over the years immense and intense healing would take place as she would strengthen me with her stories of overcoming abuse in her past and would educate me on the struggles of women in her era. Through the support of my grandmother and other women who I had the privilege of bonding and healing through awareness and inspiration with, I came to a place where I realized that it was natural and innate for me to notice abuse traits in other victims still in the midst of their abuse, make a connection with them and plant a seed for their own exodus away from abuse.
Thus, I came to realize through continuing my education the epidemic proportions of abuse that plagued and stagnated families and family members, and that I wanted to continue to devote my life in some form or fashion to, and help by counseling at the from awareness, intervention, and rebuilding levels. In addition to expanding my passion of helping rebuild peoples lives through mental health counseling, I also want to serve as a cultural bridge between the skepticism that still exist between African American and the mental health communities.
During my healing process I was able fortunate to obtain my Bachelor of Social Science in 2003, from Portland State University. Life and mental health continue to grow for me as soon I would go through not so uncommon dilemmas in life such as divorce and single parenting which has been my status for nearly the entire duration of raising my children, ages twenty, thirteen, and five. My children are the source of my strength and obtaining my Master's degree is something that I am also doing for them as well and they share in my passion as a single parent they are many recognizable losses such as downward economic mobility as well as less time available to spend with my kids.
Advancing my education to receive my Master's will enable me to continue in my passion of helping people, but also open other doors of employment and economic gain as well. I want to remove my children from poverty by advancing myself educationally and to be able to make more money so that we will be able to live and maintain a life above the line of poverty. I believe that my personal qualities along with advancing my education would contribute to my success as a Walden student as well as my being a successful mental health counselor.
I chose to attend Walden University online because I believe that Walden is a good match for me because I do have serious time restrictions by being a single parent and working. The online system is one that appeals to me in that I can eliminate a commute to and from a campus and there is no pressure involved by my age and demographics of not fitting in with the traditional college student. Thus, it is less intimidating to me and caters to my needs a bit more by being flexible and available to me online. In addition to the flexibility offered through online, Walden is an accredited university and has an excellent support. I really enjoy the online learning system and appreciate the amount of support from faculty and staff. Overall, I am confident that if I will be successful and be working in my professional goal as a Mental Health Counselor within the next five years.
Receiving your scholarship would be a honor as it will allow me to financially afford my educational challenges, and inevitably put less financial burden on my home and family. If chosen to be a honored recipient of this scholarship I promise to pay it forward by helping others achieve their educational goals by possible means such as providing encouragement, tutoring, advising, or perhaps being able to contribute financially in the near future.
Above all I thank you for receiving my essay for consideration of your scholarship as well as allowing me to share my experience, goals and passion with you. I look forward to hearing from you soon.