Personal Statement- Discusses Disability
Posted: Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:58 pm
Hey Everyone! So this is the first draft of my personal statement, and while I am incredibly nervous for anyone to read it, I wanted to start somewhere before I begin sending it to my friends to read...
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
I watched my mother drown. Her decent wasn’t obvious in my twelve year old understanding, so I waited for her to quit pretending, until it was too late. Her first year as a practicing attorney and the lead counsel was going senile during a critical case; the pressure was making her sink. A nauseating whirl of police, ambulances, and doctors pumped the pills out of her stomach, but my original mother never resurfaced. Since being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type I, she has gone from being an attorney, to needing one. Even with doctors, medication and her disability leaving her out of the workforce, her manic episodes rush back destroying everything in their wake. Each occurrence leads to a chaotic mix of drugs, rape, violence, and suicide attempts, often resulting in my mother’s reappearance – behind bars. My mother would go missing for days, so I walked with my sister for miles in the snow to recycle cans into grocery money, I promised myself that drowning is something I would never do.
Water, however, never scared me. My freshman year at [X university] went as the rest of my life: getting straight A’s while indulging in campus activities and community service; compartmentalizing the struggles of my mother was second nature. When she was arrested for breaking and entering, I coped by managing a massive campus-wide Presidential campaign. When she was living under a bridge, I endured by helping black youth in X with their college applications.While I could not help my mother, I felt redemption through helping others. I fought to be the only person in my family, outside of my mother, to go to college and get an advanced degree. My older sister had dropped out of high school to become an exotic dancer, while my younger brother quit school after not being recruited for sports. Somehow I escaped the odds, leaving the expectations of my entire family upon my shoulders. Funneling my financial aid and scholarships between family members, left me taking out loans to support all of us, and then suddenly, silently, I started to feel the water rise.
A wave of restlessness slipped over my head gradually my second year of college, replacing sleep with anxiety and never-ending thoughts. My scribbled to-do lists felt long enough to rival Santa's, but without any helpers, my lists went unchecked for the very first time. I believed I was submerged beneath an ocean of expectation. There my family needed more money than I could provide, my mother was solely the responsibility of me and my siblings, my job and leadership positions demanded my attendance, and my classes continued without me. The combination of unpredictable sleep and spurts of uncontrollable energy, ushered in my next waves of loneliness and irritation. As a result I became immobile, struggling to move any limb, going days without contact from anyone, absorbed in my spinning thoughts and pounding failure. My transcript was unfamiliar, with poor grades and incompletes, and my only memories of courses were half completed work and large puddles of drool on my desk. I felt inadequate around my large group of friends I saw swimming, splashing, succeeding above me, I became enraged when they would question me or hint at a mocking splash of buoyancy. I spent the summer after my second year in Brazil, determined to reclaim my since of self with good grades. I obsessed over my coursework frantically trying to breathe underwater, while everyone else frolicked around the country. The water continued to rise even more rapidly into my 3rd year of school, when a hurricane of anger and depression pulled me down to the ocean floor like anchors. Anger became my most intimate friend, it was only when I was with anger that I could receive oxygen underneath. Anger would fill my lungs giving me clarity, a brilliance of articulation, power, and I used it on anyone who attempted to swim too close to where I was sinking. My boyfriend ended up having more in common with my father than their birthday, he also developed the tendency to silence my angry mouth with his fists. So after my roommate decided not to renew the lease under her name, due to my new friend, I was homeless wandering between my abusive boyfriend's and the friends I alienated. Depression flooded all of my senses. Finally after almost two years I tired of waiting for my former self to resurface. After a trip to the campus health center, I learned that my ocean was not my family, money, friends, commitments or school, I too was bipolar.
Watching someone drown does not mean you will never go under, but in my case it means you know the importance of learning how to swim. Pushing past the crippling fear of becoming my mother, I began my journey to the surface. After seeking help, I withdrew from school the semester of my diagnosis and began making my health my top priority. Being diagnosed with type II bipolar disorder was the perfect storm that motivated me to become an empowered person, and now be healthier than I ever was. I had a choice to delve into myself, or to drown in denial and rebellion as my mother has often done with the more severe type of bipolar. Participating in counseling allowed me to be vulnerable in a way my life had never allowed. I found strength in confronting the abuse of my childhood, my resentment towards my mother and her illness, and blaming her for my own. Returning to school I began to learn and engage out of excitement, and my grades consequently reflect the change in my healthy lifestyle. However, my greatest achievements are in the relationships I nurture, and the balance I have maintained under greater adversity that life has since tested me. My disability served to enable me to relate to another community outside of the black female perspective which I identify. While I maintain my desire towards pursuing public interest, my disability has ignited my passion to also explore disability law. My focus has grown from not only wanting to engage with fellow minorities and those who struggle economically, but also to empower other members of the disabled community to vehemently pursue their rights and goals. I have learned that everyone has their own ocean to swim, and the more of us that are cognizant of the warning signs of drowning, the more able we are to save each other. I’m learning what strokes keep me above the water, and moving irrespective of the undertow. Now every time the water rises I am empowered, because I know how to rise with it.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated!
I watched my mother drown. Her decent wasn’t obvious in my twelve year old understanding, so I waited for her to quit pretending, until it was too late. Her first year as a practicing attorney and the lead counsel was going senile during a critical case; the pressure was making her sink. A nauseating whirl of police, ambulances, and doctors pumped the pills out of her stomach, but my original mother never resurfaced. Since being diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder type I, she has gone from being an attorney, to needing one. Even with doctors, medication and her disability leaving her out of the workforce, her manic episodes rush back destroying everything in their wake. Each occurrence leads to a chaotic mix of drugs, rape, violence, and suicide attempts, often resulting in my mother’s reappearance – behind bars. My mother would go missing for days, so I walked with my sister for miles in the snow to recycle cans into grocery money, I promised myself that drowning is something I would never do.
Water, however, never scared me. My freshman year at [X university] went as the rest of my life: getting straight A’s while indulging in campus activities and community service; compartmentalizing the struggles of my mother was second nature. When she was arrested for breaking and entering, I coped by managing a massive campus-wide Presidential campaign. When she was living under a bridge, I endured by helping black youth in X with their college applications.While I could not help my mother, I felt redemption through helping others. I fought to be the only person in my family, outside of my mother, to go to college and get an advanced degree. My older sister had dropped out of high school to become an exotic dancer, while my younger brother quit school after not being recruited for sports. Somehow I escaped the odds, leaving the expectations of my entire family upon my shoulders. Funneling my financial aid and scholarships between family members, left me taking out loans to support all of us, and then suddenly, silently, I started to feel the water rise.
A wave of restlessness slipped over my head gradually my second year of college, replacing sleep with anxiety and never-ending thoughts. My scribbled to-do lists felt long enough to rival Santa's, but without any helpers, my lists went unchecked for the very first time. I believed I was submerged beneath an ocean of expectation. There my family needed more money than I could provide, my mother was solely the responsibility of me and my siblings, my job and leadership positions demanded my attendance, and my classes continued without me. The combination of unpredictable sleep and spurts of uncontrollable energy, ushered in my next waves of loneliness and irritation. As a result I became immobile, struggling to move any limb, going days without contact from anyone, absorbed in my spinning thoughts and pounding failure. My transcript was unfamiliar, with poor grades and incompletes, and my only memories of courses were half completed work and large puddles of drool on my desk. I felt inadequate around my large group of friends I saw swimming, splashing, succeeding above me, I became enraged when they would question me or hint at a mocking splash of buoyancy. I spent the summer after my second year in Brazil, determined to reclaim my since of self with good grades. I obsessed over my coursework frantically trying to breathe underwater, while everyone else frolicked around the country. The water continued to rise even more rapidly into my 3rd year of school, when a hurricane of anger and depression pulled me down to the ocean floor like anchors. Anger became my most intimate friend, it was only when I was with anger that I could receive oxygen underneath. Anger would fill my lungs giving me clarity, a brilliance of articulation, power, and I used it on anyone who attempted to swim too close to where I was sinking. My boyfriend ended up having more in common with my father than their birthday, he also developed the tendency to silence my angry mouth with his fists. So after my roommate decided not to renew the lease under her name, due to my new friend, I was homeless wandering between my abusive boyfriend's and the friends I alienated. Depression flooded all of my senses. Finally after almost two years I tired of waiting for my former self to resurface. After a trip to the campus health center, I learned that my ocean was not my family, money, friends, commitments or school, I too was bipolar.
Watching someone drown does not mean you will never go under, but in my case it means you know the importance of learning how to swim. Pushing past the crippling fear of becoming my mother, I began my journey to the surface. After seeking help, I withdrew from school the semester of my diagnosis and began making my health my top priority. Being diagnosed with type II bipolar disorder was the perfect storm that motivated me to become an empowered person, and now be healthier than I ever was. I had a choice to delve into myself, or to drown in denial and rebellion as my mother has often done with the more severe type of bipolar. Participating in counseling allowed me to be vulnerable in a way my life had never allowed. I found strength in confronting the abuse of my childhood, my resentment towards my mother and her illness, and blaming her for my own. Returning to school I began to learn and engage out of excitement, and my grades consequently reflect the change in my healthy lifestyle. However, my greatest achievements are in the relationships I nurture, and the balance I have maintained under greater adversity that life has since tested me. My disability served to enable me to relate to another community outside of the black female perspective which I identify. While I maintain my desire towards pursuing public interest, my disability has ignited my passion to also explore disability law. My focus has grown from not only wanting to engage with fellow minorities and those who struggle economically, but also to empower other members of the disabled community to vehemently pursue their rights and goals. I have learned that everyone has their own ocean to swim, and the more of us that are cognizant of the warning signs of drowning, the more able we are to save each other. I’m learning what strokes keep me above the water, and moving irrespective of the undertow. Now every time the water rises I am empowered, because I know how to rise with it.