because she has experienced it before, I think, so she, and she feels, see the comfort in us.

Who do you see comfort to when dealing with anxiety like this?

I kinda say just my girlfriend, to be honest.

Yeah.

My parents don't really believe in it too much, so I don't really talk to them. Like, I talk to my friends, like, maybe once in a while, like, I'm like, damn, like, I'm like anxious right now. Like, nothing like that.

If I ever, like, mentally, like, struggle, then I'd probably reach out to her. Or if it's, like, not too bad, I just, like, kinda let it pass.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Well, thank you so much for talking.

And now moving into law school, did you notice any changes in how anxiety has impacted you compared to, you know, undergrad school, I mean, undergrad classes of where you might have not had felt that big of pressure just because I know you're a really smart person and, you know, law school is a completely different level.

So did you notice any kind of changes in how it has impacted you during this time?

Yeah, I think it's definitely multiplied, but I just think that that comes with the kind of bigger workload and the more stress that kind of under law school, especially when I was at DePaul, I was trying to transfer out to a better school. So I really had to do really well. Or else I was kind of going to have to stay in DePaul, which I wanted to go to a better school like Notre Dame. So I think it was just heightened pressure that I put on myself and just more stress of grades and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, it's so tough. And when my dad went through it, he was, he went through like the worst years of his life in law school and he just got to stick along with it and believe in the process.

And so how's your perspective on anxiety and its role in your life have evolved from the past to the present? So like, I know that you said that you haven't really dealt

with it in high school, but how is your perspective on it, especially seeing it in others like Emma, how has it kind of evolved from the past and the present? Have you gained kind of an understanding of what people go through? Y

eah, I think definitely when I was in high school, even a little bit of college, when she had it, I was like kind of dismissive, even though I was kind of rude, but like, I was like, that's not a way of things, like figure it out. And that was kind of my mindset. And then, you know, like I just, I just, you know, like accumulating my brain, kind of like multiplying, but I think my mindset is that it is real thing. It is a real problem. I think I'm definitely lucky that I can find ways just to cope with it, whether it's, you know, breathing, taking a swim or water, you know, step out of a room for a second and just kind of doing it myself. But I think definitely it is something big in today's world, especially with, you know, the pressures of, you know, the pressure you put on yourself as an individual and, you know, like pressure from, you know, work, family situations and things like that. I think people need to, you know, figure out what's worse for them, whether it be, you know, medication, counseling, your own kind

of mechanisms in order to, you know, get back into that normal frame of mind. So I think it's definitely super prevalent. I think it's definitely gotten, you know, it's more, it's got, it's a lot more talk about that it wasn't the past. I think that's really good for, you know, mental health going forward that people are realizing that it's such a big issue and that's not so many people.

the first question, could you describe a time when anxiety really affected your life significantly, especially during your earlier years or even before entering law school?

Yeah, I never really experienced anxiety really until I think my sophomore year of college at University of Iowa. I never dealt with it at high school with football or school

or anything like that. But I remember I was taking a Spanish class and I had to give this long presentation in Spanish and it was right when I was about to go. I felt like this very light-headed feeling and my throat closed up and I walked out of the room for a second before my presentation, had to grab a swig of water and pull myself down. Yeah, that's super scary, especially in a class that you may feel familiar with, but it's different heights of the material where you just have no idea. It's so uncertain and I've dealt with that so many times and even my classes in high school and I've just like worried about what people would think of me during presenting. I had no really good experience with presenting stuff and so that is very scary and especially when you have all that academic pressure lay down on you.

And how did you kind of cope with that? Were there any strategies that were helpful for you before you entered back into the room or before you presented?

Yeah, I think it was all just for me, just like just get this water and kind of getting in a frame of mind to reset and especially just breathing. It was definitely for me and just kind of realizing that I prepared as much as I could for this and I did my best and so I was going to unfold and there's nothing I can do about it now so just to carry on kind of. Exactly and now moving into law school.

Alright, so we will be diving into the third part of our study, comparing my sister to her boyfriend CJ.

You can introduce yourself.

Hi, my name is CJ. I've been Sarah's sister's boyfriend for like seven years at Mount Sarah for a long, long time. Since she's been a little kid.

I'm from Lake Zurich, Illinois, just through a typical suburban town in Northwest Suburban Chicago. went to Lake Zurich High School, where I played football went to University of Iowa, studied finance, then went to law school for the first semester, or for now semester a year. At the fall, and now I transferred to University of Notre Dame Law School.

Awesome. Yeah, he's been a pretty big part of my life. Especially for in my developmental years, of course and I just wanted to compare the similarities and differences between him and my sister.

and I know that they both experienced anxiety on certain levels throughout their lives in these transitional periods.

So I'm just going to be asking you for the first...