I am Tatum McGuffey.

I am a humanitarian, artist, scholar, and a spiritual vision-

ary. I use my skills of connecting and helping others to make the world a better place. I

am a young woman who wants to make a future that I am proud of. What I want in this

life is inner peace, finding a community of people that I love and fully support and cher-

ish me; a home where I can live freely to do as I wish and make it all my own; a family

that is full of joy and feels free from

emotional turmoil; and a career where

I love my job and I am making the im-

pact in the world that I am destined to.

Where I am headed in life is towards

my Master’s Degree in Psychology

and working towards being a therapist

to either help children or work in a

psychedelic medicinal treatment facil-

ity. My strengths are that I am highly

empathetic and I am able to sense and

feel the energy of those around me.

This used to be something I was

ashamed of, but has become my own personal super power as I am able to better help and

interact with the people around me based on my observations of what they seem to be

emitting emotionally and energetically. I am also very hard-working and when I am moti-

vated by a goal, I put my all into it, including my heart. Attributes which I bring with my-
 self include joy, acceptance, peace, kindness, soulfulness and creativity. My primary

traits, in order to most affluent to least, on the VIA Character Strengths Survey are:

1) Transcendence, finding connection through joy and laughte

2) Love and humanity, reciprocation of value and closeness

3) Appreciation of beauty and excellence

4) Social and emotional intelligence

The experiences which have impacted my life most significantly would be having

to recreate my life from nothing after losing my identity, my support systems, my plans

for the future, and much more. However, through picking up the pieces of myself and

creating myself into everything I needed to be for myself, I was able to find a greater pur-

pose and a deeper self-love than what I had ever experienced before. I have transformed

through life in so many ways. As a child, I was a visionary who had big expectations of

myself and big dreams to meet according to the standards of my parents. As a pre-teen, I

felt like I had no self worth and that I wasn’t going to ever find happiness outside of my

depression and anxiety. As a teenager, I felt as though my self-worth was dependent on

the approval of those around me- my peers, my teachers, my parents- nothing else mat-

tered other than becoming exactly what others wanted from me. When I began adulthood,

I realized that all of the pieces that ‘made me who I was’ had nothing to do with me and

truly none of it was serving me. This caused me to spiral as I thought- how did I waste

away my days being a puppet for other people to play with? Who am I without my noto-

riety and social standing? How am I going to go forward when for as long as I can re-

member, I have anticipated that my mental illness would have won by now? When my

plans for my future came crumbling down my senior year, my obsessive, perfection-
based self couldn’t handle the rejection. I spiraled, and I ended up in bad relationships

where I was used, bullied, sexually harassed, sexually exploited, and emotionally manip-

ulated. The shame which I faced not only from myself, but from the people that I loved

and cared for the most, was detrimental to my spirit and self-worth. I spent many years

fighting myself, trying to numb my pain with substances, just spending each day barely

surviving, dissociated, in pain for years. During these years, I was sexually assaulted by a

close friend, my aunt was killed, I lost two friends to a lethal drunk driving accident, and

just a month later I was in a nearly fatal car accident; all of these were major setbacks for

my mental health and I spent a lot of this time resting and facing my depression.

Until the last year, I haven’t really been able to open up and reflect on the pain

that had been eating away at me

since I was a child, or the more

recent traumas which had im-

pacted me. The work that I have

had to put in to overcome what I

went through and with lots of in-

ner work, creating a healthy life-

style for myself, working with

many wonderful mental health

professionals, and learning how to manage my CPTSD and mental illness, I am finally

finding my way through and making a beautiful life for myself that I deserve. I have been

able to recognize my accomplishments such as my awesome qualifications as a high

schooler and the many titles I have held in my career and through volunteering, the perse-
verance I have shown in completing school while working full-time and working through

mental illness, and so much more. As I reflect on my successes and personal growth, I am

so proud of all that I have overcome, because truly when I look at it all it’s amazing that I

got through it all. I kept pushing through despite the depression, the traumatic flashbacks

from previous abuse, the people I love the most that put me down and doubted me, and

the hardships and losses that I have had to endure. All of my experiences thus far have al-

lowed me to gain a deeper understanding of myself as through the solitude and my per-

sonal reflection following my struggles, I have been able to get to know myself better and

become my own best friend. Since I was a child, I cannot remember a time where I was

ever able to say that I truly knew what I wanted from my life and who I was as an indi-

vidual. Through my personal growth I have learned about my inner passions, I have con-

nected to my spiritual self on a much deeper level, and I can effectively use my struggle

and my feelings to understand and love myself more. The knowledge I have gained is the

value of understanding human psychology not only for yourself, but for those all around

you. I have learned a lot about the power that the mind has over your reality and how new

habits and focuses can change your life completely. I have many strengths as a woman

who has held herself up through so much while maintaining my curiosity through knowl-

edge of the world around me. Resources I have developed along the way are mind and

body regulation remedies to help me to overcome moments when I struggle with my

mind. I have gained so much knowledge of emotional intelligence through my own per-

sonal journey and my journey as a scholar in Psychology. I feel as though this knowledge

I have gained helps me to have better interpersonal connections, to understand the factors
which influence one’s behavior, and to help me to be effective in my many professional

and educational endeavors.

My experiences at San Juan college which have really impacted or shaped me are

specifically the moments where I overcame struggling in my classes and finished strong

despite doubts or previous failure. The classes which have been most impactful for me

are Psychology as a Profession and Statistical Principles of Psychology as these courses

have helped me to solidify my understanding of my goals as a Psychology major and

given me a passion for computing psychological data to help to gain knowledge about

specific variables. I feel much more psychologically literate and I feel very confident in

my understanding of the basics of psychological principles and real-world application. I

have attained the APA Goals for the Undergraduate Psychology Major. My understand-

ing of psychology has changed as I feel as though I have a much more thorough under-

standing of the human condition and the influences which impact our brain and behav-

iors. I feel prepared to use psychology to promote positive change in my personal life and

community as I am already using these skills in so many ways- as a Court Appointed

Special Advocate for Childhaven, as an Educational and Speech Language Assistant who

works with Deaf children coming from many different circumstances, as an Entertain-

ment Entrepreneur and DJ who relies on interpersonal connections with clientele, and as

an individual navigating my own healing journey and gaining self-awareness. I feel that I

have the skills to be successful in diverse professional settings as I have worked as an ex-

ceptional Certified Nursing Assistant, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Educational Assistant,

Front Desk Associate for a Pediatric Office, Barista/Store Assistant Manager, Entertain-

ment DJ, and more. My diverse experience has helped me to be prepared for all sorts of
career opportunities in the future as I am highly adaptable and teachable. My experience

prepares me for my educational advancement and careers in the helping professions be-

cause I have been motivated by human connection my entire life. In high school, I was

extremely involved in student council, I was the speaker at our pep rallies and I led our

riot squad at team games. I have always looked for ways to volunteer to improve my ex-

perience and to help my community, through volunteering at Best Friends Animal Sanc-

tuary since I was a child to volunteering at local elderly homes as a teenager.

My view or understanding of myself has changed drastically as my entire sense of

being is more alive than it has been for my entire life. I have felt so lost and unsure of my

worth or who I am after being lost in my pain for so many years. I am so proud of how

far the girl I once was has come, and now I have the hope and trust in myself that I am al-

ways going to find a way through whatever comes my way, just as I have done before. I

do feel like I have gained more insight into yourself and what I have to offer personally

and professionally because after my first real educational failure not getting into my

dream program, I truly doubted my abilities

to succeed in either of these areas again.

However, I have discovered that the pas-

sion I had to learn and my skillset to suc-

ceed in an educational/professional setting

was always going to be a part of me. I can

still be just as successful on a different path

to my goals as I would be on the path that I

dreamed of, the route just looks a little dif-

ferent. My advice to other students just starting the program is that if you feel that pas-

sion in your heart to follow this career path, please don’t let anyone else or their opinions

get in the way of that- you are going to do amazing things! As for what is next in my

journey, I begin working on my Bachelor’s in the Fall and continuing my journey of self-

growth. This course has given me so much insight regarding the bigger picture of my fu-

ture career and I am very thankful for all of the support and confidence this experience

has given me.