Undergraduate / 'serious familial event that occurred in my life' - I am writing a "what I overcame" essay. [5]

Here is my rough draft of the essay.

I came to the United States from a country called Bangladesh when I was 8 years old. My family was not well off in the beginning financially and didn't get any better throughout the years. This put a severe strain between my mother and father. Eventually my mother decided she had enough and decided to move with her brother on the opposite side of the country taking me and my sister with her. She was studying hard to try to be a dentist but she failed at that too. Eventually she had realized that she didn't want to fail anymore and decided to move me and my sister with her back to Bangladesh when I was 13. And that's when my world fell apart.

In the summer between 8th and 9th grade, specifically July 18, was the date in which when we were supposed to leave for Bangladesh. As the date approached I started to get extremely tense and scared. I DID NOT want to leave the US. The US had become my home. This was the place I was familiar with and Bangladesh seemed like a foreign place to me. I did not want things to change and I was desperate for help, but no one was there to receive my cry. I could feel the spirit in me getting out of line, telling me to do this and that. Finally the night before the flight came. My mind was volatile and I kept telling myself that I had to do something. So I panicked and decided I was going to call the police. I called the police told them that "this woman I didn't know was trying to kidnap me and my sister out of the country". The police showed up and dragged me and my sister away from my mom. I remember that I was the only one not crying and when I was sitting in that police car, I remember for the first time in months feeling serene.

After that happened my world broke apart. The police let my mother go after a couple of days She had missed the flight. That night would define me for my mom for the next several years. She would always tell me that I was the one who had ruined her life. And it just wasn't her, her family had turned on me. Every argument I got in with them would end with "you called the police on your own mom". This abuse heavily affected me. It heavily affected my social life and my grades. I went from being a gregarious person to being reclusive. I had no motivation. I look at my life then and say thats not who I was! I used to go to an elite private school called the Aga Khan School in Bangladesh where I was a perfect student and always at the top of my class. I went from that to being callous and indifferent. I had given up on myself and my identity.

After the summer of 10th grade, to make myself feel useful again, I had applied for an internship at the Yunus Centre. This was an organization started by Dr. Muhammad Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize winner so you could imagine my excitement when I was told I was accepted. I was excited to travel back to Bangladesh for the summer where I was involved in working with social business leaders to improve life for those who were in abject poverty. I actually got to do field work and go out to the communities and help these people. These people were the reason for my resurgence of my old self. Despite it seeming like the world had given up on them, they were happy. I met this one old man named Tushar who, despite literally having nothing besides a tent for a home, was the happiest person in the world. And there were many more just like him. I was struck by how these people living in the worst conditions could be so optimistic. I asked Tushar why this was and he said "jhe hoyse, hoyse, bhabisyat tumi paltaitapabra" meaning "the past is the past, the future, however, you can change". This sounds cliché, but to me to see it in such a concrete environment inspired me to change my outlook. The future is what I can change and I will change. But I don't want to forget the past. I look at the past as compensation (bad or good), for who I am today. I come out with a new outlook but with my old self and am excited to see my full potential.