My "best" friend - panic disorder. UC Personal Statement

Hi!! any editions or comments are welcomed! especially word choice in third paragraph

Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

For the past five years, I have spent my "best" friend for the most of my daily life. Spending too much time with him frequently disrupted my studies, relationships, and goals. However, I do not blame him for the troubles he gave it to me. I am actually proud how he shaped my entire life and brought me to where I am today. His name is panic disorder.

At the age of fourteen, a sudden fear attacked me first at the school hall. Since then I went through many constant fears that seemed to strike out of blue. I have also forced myself to hide my anxieties which my friends usually marked one of my personalities as a 'quiet girl'. But to tell the truth, I wasn't being quiet. I struggled to push away him in order to stop my pounding heart, hoping it will soon end.

At beginning, I headed for counseling and medication for about three years. Then to overcome my fears of my own and distract myself away from him, I... took yoga and swimming classes, used 'EFT', Emotional Freedom Technique, finding acupuncture point and pressing the point, tried the positive thinking through a book called 'The Secret', went to library often to concentrate school studies, went for shopping or movies with my friends, volunteered Hansang Welfare Center for a period of time, listened to favorite tracks in my mp3, played violin in orchestra, had a boyfriend, had cleaned the entire house, went for bicycle at midnight, sold popcorns in amusement park for part time job, and went through many worships and praying for God. But while passionately fighting against him, I kept felt a hole in my heart that won't fill in.

Then I truly realized how I saw the fear as "Abhorrent" (hatred), and fluttered my feet for a perfection of calmness. 100% surely all people can have some amount of fear which that percentage included me. So for the first time, I did not try to win or lose. Reversely, I allowed him with love to conquer over me. No resistance or avoidance but being an observer of the emotion. In order to accomplish this, I used the determinacy and sincerity I have gained from the past progresses I have done to overcome my fear. With multiple tries, things slowly started to change and I began to notice the pressure was decreasing.

Sometimes, he still visits me, the familiar tingle of nerves. However, it is no longer the feelings of deep hatred or despair. I believe this is the face of my victory and endeavor. With this I have made up my mind to study psychology based on the experiences and lessons I ever had. My history could be a kind of material for some psychology theory in the future. As I mentioned, from him, I learned how to maintain a level head and stay calm and confidant. Now I know how I can carry my friend away, and that just grows me to be freer.

let me help you especially in third paragraph, as it constains many mistakes

in the paragraph,


word "him" is unclear, since it does not reverse to something nothing.

An admissions officer wouldn't like to read through your essay just to get a better picture of what it is you are trying to say. Try to make him read your essay again to imbibe the beauty of it. Also try to cut up that list of things u tried into bits and pieces. It would also help to try and form separate ideas about each aspect of your "fear". Try to draw up a solid outline of your essay to consolidate your ideas. It helps a lot.(personal experience) It should be easy now that you've wrote up the main part of the essay.

Rachel, the essay that you wrote is more suited towards the "Obstacle that you had to overcome" prompt rather than "Describe the world you come from". Panic Anxiety Disorder is actually an illness that prevents you from performing your tasks and is a state of mind that needs help in order to overcome. Therefore, this is not part of the world that the essay wishes you to describe to the reviewer.

This kind of prompt expects you to discuss some character building or influential people in your life. These are the people of situations that have helped you develop your character and allowed you to get to know yourself better as you developed your world using its influence. Think of how you chose your college major when you write your revised essay.

Your college major is something that you came to choose based upon your experiences in life, the influence of your family members (teachers, pastor, friend, teammates, etc), and the way that these community members have pushed you to evolve as a person. I don't get a sense of that in this essay because this illness does not have the ability to shape your dreams and aspirations. In fact, you never provided an answer, no matter how remotely to that part of the prompt.

That said, it is pretty obvious that this essay will not work for the prompt even if you try to revise the content. Like it or not, you have to develop a totally new essay with new content that is more in line with the expected prompt response and other requirements.

@ vangiespen Thanks for your advice! I realized I posted the wrong question... It was actually "Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?" Can you re edit my essay please?

Rachel, I believe there is no way of rectifying your existing essay to make it more of what the prompt is asking you to write.

As the prompt is "Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?"

You have to write a totally different essay for this, something that will answer the prompt properly.
Your original prompt posted here is absolutely far from what the essay is asking you to write, therefore, changing it in order to answer the above prompt

will not make any difference.

The prompt on "telling about your personality.." is a good prompt and I can assure you that you will not have a hard time writing it.

You already wrote an essay before so this one should not be hard at all, it's not going to be easy but at least you have some idea already.

Now, when you start writing, don't forget to review what the prompt is asking you to write and make sure that you write accordingly, when you have a draft,

post it here on EF so we can help you further.

Hi Rachel, sorry about the delay in getting back to you. I wanted to make sure that the revision I did of your essay really hit the mark in terms of the prompt that you provided. This is what I came up with:

I have spent the past five years of my life learning to deal with the effects of my "frenemy". This best friend would be considered an enemy by most people since he tends to disrupt my life, studies, goals, and relationships. Yet, I do not blame him for my problems. The truth is that without my best friend, I would not have become the person I am today. So I always say thank you to my friend, a condition better known as "Panic Disorder".

I have also forced myself to hide my anxieties. Which is one of the reasons that my friends thought of me as a "quiet girl". The truth is, I wasn't being quiet. I was trying not to be overcome by panic in these public settings, but I could not tell them that.

After 3 years of trying to deal with my panic disorder on my own, I felt the time had come to try some medical treatments to make my symptoms go away. I tried everything from holistic / yoga therapy to acupuncture and acupressure sessions, .reading sle-help books, and most of the other relaxation activities that I came across in the hopes of quieting my panic attacks. Somehow, nothing seemed to work.

It took some time for me to realize that the solution to my disorder lay within myself. Rather than trying to beat the fear, I embraced it. I allowed it to consume me totally so that I could better understand what I then considered my enemy. After facing up to the fear, I began to find my own original ways of dealing with the panic attacks. Things slowly started to change and I began to notice the pressure was decreasing.

My "panic disorder" is under control now. Sometimes, he still visits me, However, I no longer feel deep hatred or despair during those unexpected visits. I believe thisis how I was able to conquer my disorder. Thanks to this "frenemy" of mine, I was able to find my career path. He was the one that led me to study psychology , so that I could help heal myself and others who suffer from disorders similar to mine.

My history could be material for some psychology theory in the future. As I mentioned, panic disorder helped me to become the person I am today. I learned how to maintain a level head and stay calm and confidant. Now I know I know how to treat my enemy as a friend. Learning how to do that has freed me to face the world of uncertainty and doubt in a much stronger manner and advanced social and psychological abilities.

As you can see, I revised the content in such a manner that it told the reviewer about an experience that is important to you. I also made sure to highlight that you are proud of your accomplishment in terms of dealing with your anxiety and that it helped you to get to know yourself better and allowed you to become a better person in the process. I hope you won't mind that I edited your essay so much :-)

By the way, "frenemy" is a term that was coined, I think by Ms. Paris Hilton to describe her friends who turned out to actually be her enemies. I thought it sounded better to use that term than to have to constantly describe why your disorder was both a best friend and enemy to you. I hope you liked the term.