I was once a school president and a runaway teenager. This project is a story of me, the director of this film. Through archival footage from my time living in a youth shelter and present-day interviews with my former roommate and the social worker who supported us, I reflect on my adolescence. I studied relentlessly to prove I was a survivor of domestic violence, not a “criminal youth.” After entering my dream art school, I began to look back reexamining my past and what self-reliance truly means.