Tonya Hammonds | After Reaching the Bottom, the On... - Macmillan Teaching Community

Tonya Hammonds shares what drives her to achieve more.

My Journey to #AchieveMore

My name is Tonya Hammonds, I am currently working toward my Social Work A.S. at Northeast Texas Community College. I will be graduating in the spring of 2020 and attending Texas A&M Commerce in the fall of that year. I plan on getting a Master's in Social Work and then getting my CLSW to become a therapist. Where I can specialize in suicide prevention, grief, depression, and PTSD. What drives me in to complete this career path was losing my 17-year-old son and my husband to suicide within 7 months of each other. Then losing myself for multiple years after. I have attempted suicide myself a month before starting college. After taking an overdose of pills that should have ended my life, I woke up to find the paramedics and police there. By some miracle, I had made it through the night, and no long-term effects came from the overdose. I had been playing around with the notion of becoming a therapist, after that night it was set in stone. Every day I get up and thank God I got another chance at life, then I go to college and work as hard as I can to make that dream come true. I hope to use this degree to help others that have gone through what I have in my life. I also hope to be able to make a more positive change in the fight against suicide. I also plan to do free weekly group therapy for the people in need that can not afford the help. I want to be able to teach people coping measures so that medication is not their only choice in life to deal with daily problems they face.