@ALVSSA_
 
What’s your favourite color?
I honestly love all colours almost equally! But if I had to pick probably pink.  
 
What self-care habits do you intertwine into your daily routine?
I absolutely love investing time into my skincare and I think it’s a self-care habit that is very beneficial for life. I’ve had eczema for as long as I can remember so it’s super important for me to take care of my skin and make sure it stays moisturised, which in turn helps me feel more confident. 

What's your favourite book?
I couldn’t choose just one but the Harry Potter books were my whole childhood and they got me into reading bigger books! 

Who can you go to when you need to get something off your chest?
The people I go to first would be my sister Shannen or my boyfriend Jack. They know me the best and judge me the least for what I have to say hahaha. 

What’s your safe place?
Bed. 

Have you ever dealt with anxiety? If so, how do you calm your mind?
I’ve dealt with social anxiety before and to calm my mind I find it the most helpful to leave the situation and have some time by myself to think. I find it helpful to take a breather and then you can go back to the situation with a clearer mind. 
 
Have you ever gotten yourself out of a dark place? Or have you ever needed to help someone else out? If so, how?
The times I’ve gotten myself out of a dark place, the things I like to do are go for a walk, listen to music or play piano. All these things help to clear my mind of the negative thoughts. It’s also super helpful for me to reach out to someone, whether it be Jack or a family member or a friend, to talk to. Sometimes I find it really hard to get myself out of those states and it helps having someone to comfort me and help me out of it. It normally happens with me contacting the person and just blurting out everything I’m feeling. 

Do you think social media affects your mental health or has any other negative impacts on you? If so, how do you best deal with it?
Yes I do think social media can severely affect your mental health and it has definitely affected mine. I think we all need to realise that social media is not an accurate representation of someone’s life and we all know that people only really post the good in their life and not the bad. To deal with the negative impacts, I try to reduce the amount of time I’m on social media and spend more time perceiving the world offline. 

What’s your biggest fear?
THE OCEAN!! It scares me that only 5% of the ocean on Earth has been discovered, no one knows what creatures and animals are living down there. I’m also not a strong swimmer so, no thank you. 

What’s the biggest change you can identify within yourself in the past year?
The biggest thing is probably my appreciation for the simpler things in life. COVID-19 has had a huge effect on everyone and I think it’s made us realise how lucky we are just to be healthy. My hometown Perth, has been one of the safest cities during this pandemic. It’s made me realise how lucky I am to be living here which is one of the biggest changes because I used to always want to be away and travelling. 

What’s one of the hardest things you’ve had to go through in life? How did you get through it?
I’m not going to say exactly what it was because it’s very personal but it took me a really long time to get through it. I was still in high school when it happened so I visited the school psychologist a lot and that was really helpful to have someone to talk to about it. For the next few years after that I still experienced feelings of depression but what eventually got me out of it was creating better habits and focusing on things that made me happy. I learnt a lot of these things from meeting my boyfriend Jack, who was really patient with me and helped me get into a better mindset. I ticked off things that were on my to-do list for a long time such as going back to uni and getting my license and that sense of accomplishment helped to improve my state of mind. My job on Instagram also helped a lot because it was something I really enjoyed doing and fashion has always been a passion of mine. It opened up some amazing opportunities for me and I couldn’t be more grateful. 

What advice would you give to your 16-year-old self?
Focus on school! High school and having heaps of friends and going to all the parties really doesn’t mean anything once you graduate. Success and education are much more important than popularity. 

If you could change one thing within society, what would that be?
To rid all racism from the world.